Hot Stuff

I love hot, spicy food. I certainly didn't grow up with it, though. I've been wracking my brain trying to think of any highly-spiced dishes from childhood and the best I can come up with is my mother's pizza. Homemade, baked in a cookie sheet. Rectangular. It was only spicy compared to the usual meat and potatoes fare on our kitchen table. American cuisine in the 60's & 70's was pretty bland, at least in our neighborhood. Hot pickled okra did make regular appearances on Mom's nightly relish tray during supper, but that was still mild stuff.


After I moved away from home, I enjoyed dining out with friends, and it was unusual for me to cook at home. I believe the first time a hot pepper got the best of me was at a Chinese restaurant. I was in a training class for a new job where I worked, and the instructor spent 85% of our time in class discussing food, movies, food, books, and food. We learned a little about the upcoming job when there was a lull in the conversation. The instructor, Marci, was from New York City, and there were only two of us under her tutelage. So, there I was with two older black women who loved to eat, and we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant one day for lunch. I ordered Kung Pao Chicken, and decided on "hot" when given a choice. I wasn't a bit worried, because Marci asked for the same heat level plus a side dish of the shriveled, innocuous looking little peppers. After a couple of bites of my dish, I realized that I had stopped experiencing the taste of the food, and it felt like my mouth was full of red hot needles. Marci sat across from me, happily munching her side of peppers, and I gamely carried on.


Similar dining experiences increased my tolerance and enjoyment of red-hot spices, and I was always looking for the next incendiary dish. When a couple of friends warned me not to get the stuffed jalapeno appetizer at a new Mexican restaurant in the late 80's, I took their advice as a challenge. I should have known better, because Carol and Rae were adventerous eaters. I went with four women-friends and ordered the stuffed jalapenos right away. After all, I'd had these at other places, and they were never as hot as people pretended they were. These were whole peppers, stuffed with cheese, battered and deep-fried. Well, they said they were stuffed with cheese. They could have been stuffed with pocket lint or cat box droppings for all I could tell. My mouth had that hot pin-cushion sensation, and my scalp was sweating freely. The women with me wisely only took a bite each, but for some reason I had to prove myself as a man among lesbians, and I forged onward. The peppers were hot going in, but that was nothing compared to 2am when they wanted out. I sat on the toilet, and rocked and wept. Apparently, my digestive processes would have nothing to do with these jalapenos, and they came out very much the same as they went in. I know this isn't a pretty story, but it's a true one.


You'd think I would have learned something, but I can't say I did (although I never ordered those jalapenos at that restaurant again). The owner, Ram, at a favorite Indian restaurant told me that no other customer could tolerate hot spices like I could, and he served many patrons from India. Ram's wife was the cook, and she always made my selections extra-hot when she found out it was my order. The only other Indian restaurant I've found that served such hot food was in Nerja, Spain. Friends took me there, and warned me against ordering anything "phal," the restaurant's hottest spice level. I did, of course, and had to make several trips to the restroom, not to go, but to wipe my face and head with paper towels because of the heavy sweating the food induced.


One last restaurant story before you leave for more palatable fare. My friend Brenda and I were in New Orleans in the mid-90's, and we stopped for lunch at a restaurant near the Garden District. I ordered the Rabbit Etouffee, and our waitress (a willowy, attractive, Nordic-looking woman) warned me with a husky voice that the dish was extremely hot. "Oh, goody!" I thought, as I confirmed my selection. Sure enough, I ran back and forth to the men's room to towel off between bites. Our gracious waitress was right, and, as it turned out, a bit smoldering herself. When Brenda and I got our pictures developed from the trip, there was one we had taken with our waitress. It wasn't until then that we noticed her exceedingly large hands and prominent Adam's apple. I recalled the husky voice, and I added her to the list of reasons I loved my first trip to New Orleans. After all, who says drag queens should only come out at night?