My Chinese American husband has all kinds of hot sauce. There’s Cholula (his go-to for all things Mexican), siracha, Chinese chili oil (4 jars), Frank’s red hot sauce (for buffalo wings), gochuchang (Korean hot paste), sambal oelek (Indonesian chili paste?), and even jalapeno olive oil. He grows his own serrano peppers, which I once made the mistake of chopping and seeding without latex gloves. The skin under my fingernails burned for an entire day—despite soaking them in milk.
If it’s white people food with the inevitable weak sauce, Andy adds hot sauce.
Sometimes he overdoes the heat. Back when we were just dance partners, he made spicy Thai tofu curry. The man told me not to eat it, because “it’s too spicy, even for me.” I was appalled that Andy would let home-cooked food go to waste. I gobbled it up and declared it the greatest meal ever, with tears and snot running down my bright red face.
I was not raised on spicy food—not unless you think Hormel chili spicy. I didn’t do spicy until I moved to California. (Back then, “spicy” meant Del Taco’s spicy jack quesadilla.)
I learned more about heat when Andy watched the “Chili Eating” episode of We Are the Champions. It’s a half-fascinating, half-horrifying story about competitive eating involving the Carolina Reaper chili and its Scoville heat scale of 2 million plus (a jalapeño pepper is about 2,500).
Andy wondered what that tasted like. But not quite enough to actually order a pepper that has to be handled like a toxin.
My friend JM also loves spicy food. Whenever we go out for Indian food, she orders the highest spice level. The staff then side-eyes the shit out of her because JM is even whiter than me. I tell them, “I’ll give you ten dollars if you can make her cry.”
Nobody has made her cry yet.
JM was thrilled when a Dave’s Hot Chicken opened up nearby. They specialize in spicy. In fact, they even make you sign a waiver if you order their “Reaper chicken,” which is coated with a rub made from the Carolina Reaper pepper.
JM brought the Reaper chicken home and convinced her super white husband to try it. He took one bite, drank all the milk in the house, and has yet to forgive her for “the unpleasantness.” And JM? She turned on the kitchen faucet and let the water run over her tongue for a very long time.
Dave’s Hot Chicken has a menu option called “Chicken Roulette.” They give you 4 mildly spicy chicken tenders, 5 medium spicy chicken tenders, and 1 Carolina Reaper tender. They don’t tell you which one is which.
I got Chicken Roulette take out for Andy’s birthday meal. (Dinner AND a potential show!) Andy was game. He dumped three tenders on his plate. I carefully sniffed and examined all the tenders. They all smelled the same. I cut a piece off of three different tenders. Our son Dalton did the same, then poured himself 2 glasses of water and a giant mug of milk. He shrugged off our laughter and lectured us: “It’s better to prepare for the worst.”
Andy reported that his tenders were spicy, but not too spicy.
Dalton chowed down. His milk remained untouched. He returned for seconds before I had eaten two bites.
My first two tenders were medium spicy. The third tender? A definite burning sensation. I offered the rest of that piece to Andy. “Tell me what you think of this.”
Andy eyed me warily. But since I wasn’t sweating or teary-eyed, he stuffed the entire piece in his mouth. He chewed, and then said, “OH MY GOD.”
Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he gulped water. Andy then hurried to the refrigerator…only to discover that Dalton had poured the last of the milk. Dalton laughed evilly as Andy ran to the garage fridge for a new carton.
Sweat was pouring down Andy’s face when he returned. He tried in vain to mop it up with his hoodie. Dalton laughed harder and then asked me, “Hey, which tender was that?”
“I have no idea,” I responded. And then laughed at Dalton’s horrified face. My mouth still burned. I ate dill pickle slices as Dalton sniffed at the tenders. He insisted that he could tell which one was the Reaper and cut off bits of other tenders to try.
I scoffed at him. “If I can’t tell by smell, there’s no way you can.”
“MY olfactory cells are young and strong, mother,” Dalton replied. He took a bite, chewed for two seconds, coughed, and then downed his entire mug of milk.
I laughed until Andy dumped two more pieces of chicken on my plate. “Try these, honey.”
The first one was a little spicy. The second one… “It’s BITTER,” I declared. “It’s not just hot, it’s BITTER. Ick. So that’s got to be the Reaper, then. Which one was it?” I ate a French fry.
Andy looked at the pile of nearly identical tenders. “Uh…I don’t remember?”
Readers, if you decide to play chicken roulette, plan ahead. Use paper plates or toothpicks and number each tender, then keep track of which one you ate.
Unless, like us, you want to play multiple games of chicken roulette. Andy and Dalton were so traumatized that they were ready to toss out perfectly good food rather than risk the Reaper a second time.
Just like with Andy’s overly spicy Thai tofu, there was NO WAY I was letting good food go to waste. I cut off and tested a small bite of each remaining chicken tender. Those tenders were consigned to either a “mild” Tupperware container or a “medium” Tupperware.
I got lucky during this process of elimination. The Reaper wound up being the last tender. Dalton suggested I try it, “just to be sure.”
Ha, ha, no. Not after my mouth had finally cooled off (with much less milk or drama than the two males in the house).
Dalton used tongs to put the remaining piece of Reaper chicken in a separate container, adding one piece of mild chicken and one piece of medium chicken.
He plans on offering a “mild, medium, and spicy” chicken sampler to an unsuspecting friend.
God help him.
I like certain types of spice but draw the line at the reaper. Chicken roulette is definitely not for me, but kudos to your brave taste buds…. what’s left of them.
I haven’t asked the guys, but my taste buds were back to normal within the hour. Probably because I ate all the dill pickle slices (I love pickles).
I knew milk calms the heat, but pickles? That’s odd.
I think it’s pretty much eating anything!
Sheer brilliance on the part of the restaurant. I mean, seriously. GREAT marketing. You all are braver than I. I don’t like spicy food because I don’t believe eating should be painful. But I’m glad you were all entertained. I’m with you on hating to waste food, but I think I would have given that stuff to a friend rather than eat it myself.
I don’t believe eating should be painful either, but spicy Thai tofu was so good that it outweighed the pain. The Reaper chicken, though? Too hot and waaaaay too bitter. The best part is really just knowing that Chicken Roulette will pass into funny, familial lore. A take out adventure!
I have a friend that would do well with Andy. They’d die happy! Me, not so much.
My Ex-stepmom was actually visiting during Chicken Roulette and she opted not to partake until after the tenders had been sorted into categories. She did laugh a lot at our antics, though.
I’m like you, I didn’t get introduced to spicy until I got married. Food was pretty bland back then. The spiciest food I’ve tasted was everything cooked by my Sri Lankan friend, Julie. She was an excellent cook who insisted on grinding her spices fresh for each meal.
Grinding her own spices?! That is some serious dedication.
Despite being born & brought up in India, chilli and I don’t get along. I love the flavour of individual spices, but cannot handle chilli heat and totally avoid it, whereas my father loved nothing better than for tears to roll down his cheeks and to get hiccups from it.
A friend of mine ordered one of those roulette things at Nandos, and I was soooo grateful when one of her other friends found the hot one! You are clearly very bad ass indeed Autumn! 🙂
Well, I do not love the tears and now that I know how bitter the Reaper is, no thank you! I generally like just enough heat and salt to compliment my food. I don’t know that I’m bad ass. I think women are just used to and therefore better at tolerating discomfort.
You make a good point about the ability to tolerate discomfort, but I consider you badass for everything that you are and do.
Thank you! *curtsies*
I am not a spicy food fan, but what a great story. Thanks for a good laugh over my morning (not spice) coffee.
You are very welcome. No better compliment than hearing you made people laugh. Deliberately, that is!
I’m kinda like Andy lite; Tara (who is not a fan of spiciness) gives me a hard time over my lazy Susan full of hot sauces, but I contend that each one is different and serves its own purpose. My go-to’s are Cholulu and Valentina, depending on what I’m eating.
I draw the line at ghosts and reapers though!
I am not mentioning the lazy Susan of hot sauces to Andy. And, hey, even if you didn’t already draw the line at Reapers before, you would have had to turn in your Reaper card when you moved to the Midwest.
I like spicy food, but not too spicy. I now wonder if I really do like spicy food, considering what you had. I do think your “mild” Tupperware container and “medium” Tupperware were a stroke of brilliance. Can’t waste food.
Show me a kid who grew up even a little hungry and I’ll show you one willing to cry from spices rather than toss anything!
How old is Dalton now? Pretty tough..well for hot food now.
I think my tolerance for spicy food is a bit higher than my siblings which surprised me. I thought more of them would have high tolerance because after all, they’ve been living in big Toronto and would have tried all sorts of cuisine dishes for the decades as adults.
I can eat South Asian and Thai spicy heat somewhere between medium hot-mild. I do not want mild (which can be subjective as per each restaurant cook) since it tastes far too dumbed down.
Dalton is a teenager! With all the grunting and llama-styled hair that entails. And it’s only recently that he can tolerate any spicy foods. We used to make him his own special, non-spicy versions of everything from Indian to Mexican dishes. How surprising that your siblings in the big city have a low spice tolerance–in the U.S., we joke about black pepper being considered “hot” in the Midwest and other rural areas.
Wow you have a brave household… and I’m impressed you took a bite of the reaper and seemed relatively unfazed (although seems like Andy didn’t get off easy). I used to eat so much hot stuff in China in my younger years, but my aging stomach just can’t take it…! I go straight for the pepcid after spicy meals now.
I think Andy needs to go on Hot Ones? Haha! If you haven’t seen it, Conan O’Brien on Hot Ones is uncomfortable/hilarious. Love it.
Oh, too much hot sauce can also kill my stomach, no question. I’ve had to Costco-sized bottle of antacids since being pregnant. I haven’t seen Hot Ones. We will have to check that out.