Here’s an extract from Kumar’s Kitchen-Garden scrapbook… What is he growing and cooking this week from the garden?
My two small chilli plants are thriving and there are many ripening red chillies as well as many dried ones. Today I harvested most of them and decided to freeze some- they freeze well- some were sliced fine and dried out in the oven, to be used as a crumble, and the rest I sliced and put into a jar topped up with oil, and left to infuse for a searingly hot chilli oil that will be used in my cooking (sparingly!).
I have a love/hate relationship with chillies. I love the taste and flavour that chillies impart to food. I love the difference between the searing raw heat of a fresh red chilli, the fresher, slightly milder heat of a green chilli, and the mellow heat of a dried chilli: individually different, but varying in intensities of flavour and pungency. I also love the ways and methods that these varieties of chillies are used in different types of dishes and methods of cooking. I love the difference it makes whether you keep or remove the membrane and seeds. I love the extra zing they bring to a dish.
But on the other side of the coin, I hate how chillies affect me. Chillies cause me great grief and I can only take them in very small doses. Most of my family and friends consider me to be a wimp when it comes to hot food, meaning the degree of spiciness rather than the temperature.
I love a hot, spicy curry of chicken, beef, pork or prawn. I love spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino, or spaghetti a la puttanesca. I love a vindaloo, seeni sambol, or katta sambol. Kim chi & Singapore chilli crab or a Thai jungle curry. I love the sharp freshness of a green chilli in a mallung, salsa or pickle. Unfortunately what I don’t like is what all these delicious dishes do to me. Even as I am writing this, my scalp is breaking out in prickles of sweat. This happens to me when I am reading a menu, writing a recipe, chopping chillies for a dish or just thinking about anything to do with chilli… I break out in a sweat. And no, it is not fear. It is the reaction that my system has to this small fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum.
This reaction is something I have lived with all my life and I originally put it down to a severe stomach disorder I had as a child as result of which I had to go on a completely chilli-free, bland diet for about two years. I was relegated to white or ‘baby curries and kiri hodhis. I thought that this ailment had affected my taste buds because I noticed that if ever I had anything with chilli I would sweat profusely. Not only was this embarrassing but it made me very uncomfortable particularly when dining out. Unsympathetic friends added to my discomfort. They would laugh and poke fun, even going as far as saying that I am an embarrassment and a disgrace to the country of my birth!
It is very unfair as when I eat out I take great care to make sure that I can safely manage the level of chilli. I have over the years managed to keep this under control by careful selection of foods at restaurants or when cooking at home by toning down the chilli levels to my tolerance. Unfortunately this does not please some of my guests and people can be heartless!
I have friends and immediate family who can take it extra, extra hot. I remember years ago seeing my sister-in-law and niece having a chilli eating contest, where they both were crunching on raw chillies along with their meal. We have a non Sri Lankan friend who is addicted to chilli and is known to ask for extra chillies in restaurants. This bravado is worn as a badge of honour to be thrown in the face of we ‘chilli wimps’, a heartless shame I have grown to endure.
I had for a long while put up with the teasing and taunts. Now, I have become more assertive and don’t see why I have to suffer in silence, and keep mopping my sweaty head and face and feel terribly uncomfortable in public. I have been informed that it is a result of a rare medical condition that some people have – a neurological disorder Hyperhidrosis: Frey Syndrome – Gustatory sweating where “stimuli that cause salivation, such as eating, the aroma of food, or even the thought of food, simultaneously cause pathologic sweating” I was told that I had this condition a few years ago when I was entertaining a cousin from the UK who is a doctor, when he was visiting us in Sydney. We were having a hot and spicy prawn dish and for the first time I noticed that someone else was in as much discomfort as I was. He told me that it was a neurological disorder, and that it can in some cases run in some families, I was really happy to know this and although there is no cure it helped me understand what I live with.
Now, I have accepted this condition. It still causes me discomfort, and I put up with the sweats when eating hot food, thinking up recipes or writing recipes [or writing this article]. I now cook within my comfort levels of chilli heat. I know that my English wife would prefer my curries hotter, and I shrug off the taunts of friends – it is living with the devil you know: in this case a fiery red hot one.
I have learned to keep my cool and use chillies in all sizes and forms: red, green, purple, orange and yellow. Big, small, fat and round, thin and long, fresh, dried, powdered, flaked, mild or strong, but I control their use.
Excuse me while I mop up my sweaty scalp!
Do you enjoy eating chilli? Can you handle the hot food? What is your favourite dish with chillies? Tell us what you think in the comments below…
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