Tolerating spicy foods (ingredients, restaurant, health, horseradish)

[Stumbler.]

People seem to vary a lot in what they feel is spicy -- some folks react to even a little bit while others just wolf down hot peppers.

Is this mainly due to repeated experience (for instance growing up in an area where hot foods are common/part of the culture, starting off with a little bit when young and "building up").

Is there an innate component (family genetics etc.) or is it likely habit, in which case everyone can be trained to tolerate it?

[B4U]

I like horseradish & wasabi and black pepper (in moderation). I grew up with those flavors.
I don't like hot peppers of any kind. But I didn't grow up with those flavors. I see so many folks here smother their food with hot pepper sauce I don't know how they taste the food they're dowsing. But then I often saw that way up north with ketchup.
Go figure.

[Bulldogdad]

I believe some people are more sensitive than others. That being said, unless you are allergic to a specific food, anyone can learn to eat anything.

[Caligula1]

Most people in my family Can not tolerate hot spicy foods.
Mom and some others say that black pepper is off the heat charts.
I myself never got into spicy foods much untill I started eating mexican food.
Now I love hot foods, but not so much that the heat overpowers the flavors of the foods..

[slackjaw]

I love it man, serve me Thai food so hot I need a colon transplant and I'm happy.

[Jillaceae]

My mom hate spicy food and my dad loves it. I really didn't like it when I was a kid, but now, bring it on! ( . . . in reason.)

[jtur88]

Obviously, everyone can learn to tolerate it, because in countries where it is common, everyone does tolerate it.

Capsicum is considered to be extremely healthful, so everyone should learn to tolerate it.

[jamison1987]

Do not like but do not hate, Is the case. lol

[Capt. Cave Man]

We've slowly gotten more tolerant of heat/spicy foods. What surprises me is I can add just a little cayenne to baked beans and they can really tell and don't care for it much.(tried grnd mustard...only once) But, we have a crawfish boil and they are suck'n heads and eating the corn and broccoli like nobody's business.

[Mooseketeer]

I think people mix up "spicy" with "hot". I love spicy food ( foods cooked with spices) but I loathe hot foods. To me there is absolutely no point from a culinary point of view to cooking if the taste of the ingredients is masked by heat of such fierceness as to anihilate your tastebuds. It seems ridiculous and a complete waste of good ingredients. Of course historically many spices we often used precisely for this purpose , to disguise poor ingredients or even a certain dodginess in freshness of meat for example. A way for your palate to be "fooled" so to speak.

I love to be able to taste each individual ingredients if possible and this is simply not the case when flavours are obliterated by heat. Spicy foods are wonderful. Hot simply does not do anything for me.

A hint of heat is very nice, a little sharpness on your tastebuds. Anything above that for me is wasteful and pointless. Also for most people in the West it seems to be an act of bravadao and machismo to see how hot they can take it . Not impressed.

I have little tolerance for hot foods because I have never wanted to kill my tastebuds to the extent where one such dominant ingredient takes over to such a level that others disappear. I love a little chili or horseradish, it adds a lovely extra layer of flavour to many dishes. Drowning a good piece of beef or chicken with it ( even worse seafood and fish) is to me incomprehensible. And I would say almost a gastronomic blaspheme.

I had fillet steak ( strips of) recently in a Thai restaurant which had been murdered with chillies and cooked almost into oblivion. This beautiful piece of meat had been desecrated and all its flavours and texture pounded into a mass of heat . It could have been almost anything from shoe leather to chicken, rat or rubber quite frankly.

Each to their own I suppose...