But I don't like the burning!

That reminds me of an anecdote.

When I lived in Utah many years ago, we regularly had the visit of two colleagues from our London office. They would come and stay for a few days to work with us, and of course we entertained them in the evening.

One evening, we all decided to go for a curry. So we went to some Indian restaurant in Provo, UT if memory serves.

The waiters arrived - real Indians in full fake Raj regalia, as per the restaurant's theme - and took our orders.

Then they asked how spicy. The two Brits looked at each other and said in a low voice "Well, it's Utah, everything is bland here, so we'd better overdo it on the spiciness to get something halfway as spicy as a London curry."

So they announced "Nuclear."
"Are you sure?" the waiters said
"Yeah yeah. Nuclear!"
"Okay...."

15 minutes later, the waiters came back with our orders. Then instead of leaving, they turned and faced the two Brits and simply stood there with a total lack of expression on their faces.

The two went "Uh oh..."

It was the hottest curry they had ever had. They tried to put on a good show for the impassible waiters looking at them, but they quickly turned red and sweaty, and they had trouble not looking like they were panicking when reaching for the water.

We were pissing ourselves laughing 🙂

I have essentially the same story, except it's two Americans visiting Bradford.
- They knew what they signed up for.
- They came there to die then.
Australian chiming in.
My favourite Indian restaurant was this little hole in the wall place (for the first three years of operation, they upgraded when the word got out). The first time I went I ordered a Vindaloo, the lovely waitress/chef that took my order asked how spicy. I was a fool and said, I like spicy food, how about a 6 out of 10. I actually made it 3/4 of the way through but the owner/other chef came out to check on me, I think because he was worried I was about to combust. It was astounding, easily the best Vindaloo I have ever eaten.
The next time I went in I ordered a white guy 4, it honestly was still fantastic, but not as good. The owner came out to say hi, asked what I had ordered this time, and he said "Ah yes we make that without any chilli.", never been sure how I should take that. For a while I was hoping to gradually increase my tolerance but I think I am topping out at white guy 9.
- What is white guy 9?
Well then they were being stupid because obviously it's an actual authentic Indian restaurant they're going to do the spice properly.
- Well, the logic was sound: Utah really is quite bland in every way - or at least it was in the 90's, not sure now - and if I was an Indian opening an Indian restaurant there, I'd tone down the spices to suit the local palates.
- God forbid the waitress sitting there hearing this conversation give them more than a you sure after hearing they thought it would be bland because that's the entire town 🙄.
- “Authentic” Indian restaurants in the West are fuck all like food in India. Indians are not there asking for more and more chilli in their dhal to impress their mates after the pub. It’s an India theme park for lager louts.
Had a friend try that with me in R'dam recently, his favorite Korean fried chicken place. Ordered their nuclear option (among a bunch of others), and was humiliated when he died after one and I ate the rest. TBH they were hot, but kind of hot for being hot's sake, didn't really add to the flavor/experience, which IMO is the whole point of heat.
TBF, I haven't fully appreciated an Indian dish if my scalp isn't sweating.

The normal one isn't even spicy, my 3 year old can eat it, and could when she was 2.

That said, the Sainsbury's own fajita kit is superior.

Better yet, make you own fajita seasoning and use non UPF wraps.

What's upf?
- Nothing f, what's up wit you?
- Ultra Processed Foods. I should have written that in the first place rather than use the acronym, apologies!
  The definition is a bit flakey but they're essentially foods that contain emulsifiers, stabilisers, modified starches and so on. Things that you wouldn't find in a domestic kitchen. But also foods that have undergone so much processing that they're barely food. There's growing evidence that they're driving obesity and driving a wide range of health problems and even mental health. It's eye opening how much of our food is UPF and quite difficult and expensive to get away from.
My mother has complained that saffron is too spicy. Yes we are melanin deprived why do you ask?
- she might have an allergic reaction to it, same as people who describe kiwi fruit as spicy
For anyone wondering, if you can get them, these are your ticket to flavor town, especially the dried🌶️ pods you can grind yourself
https://www.fiestaspices.com/product/fajita-seasoning
- I recognize MSG gets a bad rap, but I still shy away from pouring pure MSG on my food. To get that umami flavor I use some combination of powdered dried mushrooms, miso, soy sauce, fish sauce, or Worcestershire sauce in a marinade. Fiesta seasoning is certainly easy though, it's everywhere here in Texas.

The UK is actually generally fine with spicy food, but my relatives in Poland could barely handle mildly spicy food, so yeah

I took my Polish sales rep to eat Ethiopian with me about a month ago, dude loved it, even put extra mitmita on his kitfo ^{~which I suddenly realize to anyone who doesn't know about Ethiopian food that's gonna sound pretty weird....~}
- Not weird at all, but of course I just translated this into some weird sexual act you guys were participating in.
- Now I want Doro wat 😭
What not having any5hing spicy grow in a place naturally does to cusine.
- I read once that spicy cuisine doesn't correlate almost at all with where the spices are native, it correlates with where temperatures cause food spoilage. The theory is that, since chilis, garlic, and onions have some antimicrobial and antibiotic effect, the people who cooked with them in warmer climates tended to survive better than people who didn't, and so passed down their tastes for them more. I read that a bunch of years ago, not sure if it's been confirmed or disproved.
- The UK doesn't have much naturally growing spicy things either, and spicy food is still pervasive here.
  It's what having virtually no immigration from the east or the med does to cuisine in a country.

White Americans: mayonnaise is too spicy

Also white Americans: yeah the Carolina Butthole Annihilator goes well with pretty much everything

I'd be quite surprised. The USA and Aus have quite a bit of spicy influence. India for UK, Thai for aus...sure many people don't like spicy food but most do.

I loved in UK for a bit and remember being quite surprised that fàst food, like burger king, had proper spicy food.

I swear there's probably more Indian restaurants in the UK than there is in India. Where I suppose they are just called restaurants.
- the entire spiciness of the world is concentrated along a single road in Balham
  Fun anecdote: I had an indian colleague who could not handle spicy food. He just doesn't come from that one single region that shoves chilli onto everything.
  Opened my eyes to the idea that indian food being spicy might be as misleading as english food adding mint to everything (blame: Asterix comics in europe)
Spicy food has a history, particularly in the US, of being associated with masturbation and hypersexuality. Puritans wants food as bland as possible.
In Europe, after the colonial era started, spices became more widely available and were no longer a status symbol (as they were previously only available to the wealthy). This led to the elites turning their noses up to spices and a belief system that the base ingredient should not be defiled in flavor by spice which eventually bled over into the rest of European culture.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/26/394339284/how-snobbery-helped-take-the-spice-out-of-european-cooking
Serving richly spiced stews was no longer a status symbol for Europe's wealthiest families — even the middle classes could afford to spice up their grub. "So the elite recoiled from the increasing popularity of spices," Ray says. "They moved on to an aesthetic theory of taste. Rather than infusing food with spice, they said things should taste like themselves. Meat should taste like meat, and anything you add only serves to intensify the existing flavors."
"In Europe, meat was considered the manliest, strongest component of a meal," Laudan notes, and chefs wanted it to shine. So they began cooking meat in meat-based gravies, to intensify its flavor.
Cooking with spices is different from spiciness specifically but I think the same principles apply (with regard to perceptions at the time).
- Spicy food has a history, particularly in the US, of being associated with masturbation and hypersexuality. Puritans wants food as bland as possible.
  Huh. So that's why.
  Also, this sounds like some old school Kelloggs shit. That guy was an absolute freak.
- ~~Puritans~~ Protestants wants food as bland as possible.
  The same also applied to no-dancing, no fancy churches or too ornate clothes, being stoic, too tasty food. You werent supposed to find joy in excess and be a wastrel.
I loved in UK
Me too, me too...
Aussie here. I was in Bangkok this week and currently on a TGV hurtling across EU towards London.
The Thai food in Australia is not as spicy as the stuff in Thailand. It's otherwise authentic.
The hottest Vindaloo I ever had was in a London pub. I haven't been in the last 12 years, so I'll measure this again. I also haven't seen Foster's beer on tap since my last London visit. Go figure.
- Yes, but it's spicier than a mild salsa from old El Paso.
I'm unsurprised about Australia. The food culture there is pretty great but somehow good Mexican cuisine is almost entirely absent.
- Yes, it’s getting better, but it’s pretty poor. It’s not due to an aversion to spicy food though. It’s due to a lack of knowledge of how to make good Mexican food. There are not a lot of Mexican immigrants, especially compared to China, Thailand, Vietnam etc. Indian food is also surprisingly poor here, given the large Indian population, but many are recent migrants, so it is improving.

I legitimately can't tell the difference between their mildest and hottest. It's like 0.3% vs. 0.4% hot.

I find this to be the case for most "spicy" things targeting a western market. Firehouse Subs has a hot sauce bar where they rate the spiciness from 1 to 10. Normally I don't bother with it because the ones at the higher end tend to either be some spicy vinegar variation (ugh no thx), or pineapple based, which I'm usually not in the mood for.
Last time they had an 8 that wasn't either of those so I asked them to add a line to my sub as they made it.
It's like their 10 was targeted at jalapeno spiciness, maybe cayenne. The 8 did add some heat, but it was where I'd call it a medium, and a mild one at that.
Should use a logarithmic scale I guess. Just frustrating that spicy stuff always seems to be marketed for people who don't really like spice. The less generous side of me thinks it has to do with people wanting to act tough but are actually whiny losers who thinks it's the seller's fault they can't handle the heat they wanted to show off handling.
- True, I suspect that the lack of properly spicy options from major/national food establishments has to do with fear of litigation, or risk management for customers who want to be macho but can't eat the food and ultimately request refunds. Taco Bell had previously come out with a ghost pepper sauce that, while not "hot" compared to the actual pepper, it did have a noticeable heat profile compared to, say, "fire" which IMHO has good flavor but has only a slightly noticeable heat profile at best.
- I really wish that "10" would be equivalent to the hottest thing you could eat (and "0" being tap water).
  For me, that was a hot sauce that caused my fingertips to go numb for several hours because I wasn't wearing gloves. He chef told me that a few had been hospitalized from it.
  Hence, old El Paso being 0.04 on a linear scale to 10.
I know someone who can't stand spicy food at all. The other day a bunch of us ordered some Thai food and I thought the Penang curry I got was mild enough for her because I literally couldn't tell if there was any spice in it. There were definitely some nice flavours, but no bite that I could detect at all. It was still too spicy for her.

A. Yes, there are definitely people here in the UK who can't handle anything spicier than gravy.

B. They're in the minority.

C. I refuse to believe you don't know someone like that, no matter where you're from.

I refuse to believe you don't know someone like that, no matter where you're from.
And quite right. I had a friend who'd get the sweats eating sour candies and couldn't do anything even remotely chili.
I do know someone like that. Their mother was born in the UK and they grew up eating very English. They had zero tolerance for spice and I frequently had them whine that something I made was inedible because it was too spicy.
My dad: Tumeric on potatoes is as "hot" as he can stand. Me, it's 5 Thai chillies ground up in the curry sauce, and since the coconut milk smooths out the heat I really could add a few more

That is so funny. I do have an ex mother out-law who cannot eat onion because she says it's too spicy. She is somehow still a good cook.

I really like spicy food. Don't need everything to be spicy but I like the spicy stuff to be very spicy.

My mum won’t eat onion, but since we moved out she stopped eating vegetables in general - or at the least the ones that have any flavour.

You can tell an American made this meme.

Is extra mild just tomato?

Add a bit of water to mild it out a bit more.
- I'm awaiting "Old El Paso: just water" to hit the market
yes.

Isn't the human palette interesting. People enjoy the strangest flavors sometimes while others don't.

Kids love the sourest of candies, but won't eat cooked onions or red things. Adults by in large, don't like the same level of sour that children enjoy. But adults enjoy onions raw and often hot chili peppers. I'm fine with strong levels of heat in foods. But I see no reason to use insane levels of heat to try and prove how manly someone might be. I want to taste all the ingredients in the dish, not just one thing. Like Thanos and Buddhist monks, I strive for balance in all things flavor.

I enjoy flavors that most here would run screaming from. I love strong vinegary flavors. I enjoy oaky, tannic bourbons and teas. The iron and mineral flavors of organ meats. And I have noticed lately that I very much enjoy that taste of black pepper, like stupid amounts of it. I even found a small enjoyment of cranberries as I get older. But it's still all about the balance.

I'm much the same on most of this, but I very much still have a sweet tooth. The things I crave, my SO says are "too sweet".
And it's not that nothing is "too sweet" for me, or too sour, in that special way that candies can be sour... There's definitely stuff I've eaten that is too sweet (for me).... I just seem to have a much higher tolerance for it.
Though, I'm not a fan of organ meats. To be fair, I haven't had any recently enough to check if that's still the case.
But pepper is a bit of an addiction for me. I put that shit on just about everything... In quantities that make my SO get visibly uncomfortable.
Oh man, I agree on the black pepper. I got a pepper mill and ordered a pepper mix medlee maybe a year or so ago and its so much better.
On the other hand, just to your point, I can't stand vinegar at all.
- Fresh ground spices are a revelation in flavor. I've had a pepper and salt mill set for years that I use. The pepper mill has been getting a real workout lately. I just crave the taste of pepper more than ever it seems and I don't know why. So enjoy your pepper journey!
I like the taste of blood
- Do you ever bite your tongue for extra flavour?
- A connoisseur of blood sausage! We used to make a large batch of that at home every fall. Along with oatmeal sausage, and various smoked sausages.
  While I don't make sausages anymore, I will be making some bacon this week.
Isn’t the human palette interesting.
Yes, it's mostly shades of brown and some pinks.
Here's a palette.

There are people who can’t handle spice - in Oz every curry house and pub serves Butter Chicken, which is somehow even milder than Tikka Massala, and even Madras often has cream in it. On the other hand curry houses in Bradford do tinderloo for when vindaloo just isn’t hot enough, which is just daft as a rogan josh is already decently spicy there.

I love spicy food, but my mum can't even handle black pepper. Lol. Lmao even

British people happily eat hot curries so maybe extra mild is for grans or something. Even the mild salsa has almost zero heat on it.

I'm British and consider myself something of a little bitch when it comes to curries. Madras is as far as I can go, vindaloo is over the line. I enjoy eating it but the older I'm getting, the worse the consequences in my guts.
- That's the real problem. I love hot spicy food, but I can't deal with the consequences.
  Sometimes if I can stay home alone the day after, I'll eat something extra hot and nurse the wounds in private.
- I love the phaal curries I can get in the UK! Set your soul (and innards) on fire!
Would probably be pretty useful as a way for getting my son to eat it. He's a right chilliphobe.
I cook all sorts of spice-free spicy food for him; the grown-ups can always add chilli at the table to liven it up a bit.
I had to make my own salsa when I lived in the UK. I couldn't find a single one with any flavour. Granted, I lived in a city without a car so my reach was only a mile or so for groceries/eating out, but still.

- Why wouldn't it be? Darker skinned people have a hard time with northern winters due to the lack of sunlight. Read an article when I lived in Chicago about how many black women were diagnosed and lacking vitamin D.

I've lived in Britain and Australia and I've never seen this, and both places have good spicy food so I assume they didn't sell well.

It's for kids and old people mostly. We have the standard el Paso once a month or so and it's fine.
El Paso is salty processed crap that makes for an easy tea when you can't be arsed. If you want real spice, there will be 5 curry houses within a mile of you selling Vindaloo and Ceylon.

Please don't post ads.

Meanwhile white people in my area: Ooh this sauce is made with Trinidad Brown Scorpion peppers and brown sugar? Well it won't be as hot as that sauce made from the Reapers but I bet it'll be a nice sweet-heat!
OMG is that a real child? I was laughing because I thought it was a doll before realizing that it might not be.
Smoking ed Currie is also a white guy. So I think it's an either or situation.
It's singular 😭

My scotch-bonnet-munching brother took one look at this and nearly laughed his ring of fire clear off his seat.

I like spicy food but even mild spice plays up with my stomach and a while after eating some I could shit through the eye of a donut at thirty yards. So I really appreciate things that are meant to be spicy but have an option where they’re not so that I can experience a bit of what I can no longer have.

I'm not British or Australian, but this is what I'd want.

I fear my mum would find mild too spicy lol

That seems weird. All the people I know from the UK are into flaming hot Indian food so I can't imagine they would have a problem with mild salsa. And I have yet to see an Aussie fridge that doesn't have multiple bottles of extra hot sauces. I consider myself to be a wimp with hot spice - my stomach and I disagree on the matter and it wins - but even I can handle "mild". Not that I believe people don't exist (I know one or two), but that there would be enough population to make it a worthwhile sales change surprises me.

I think the extra mild is targeted at families with young children. But yeah, even as a kid my parents gave me hot curries so who knows.
At the other end of the extreme, I've had multiple Irish and English customers at work say they won't eat our white pudding, as the cinnamon makes it too spicy. There's plenty of old people like that in either country that bring down the average spice tolerance by quite a bit.
- That sounds like they don't like the flavour, rather than the heat? I noticed when I was in the US that so many things were flavoured with cinnamon and it's a very rich and overpowering taste. Like everything is suddenly a biscuit. Even toothpaste.

And I just tested the hot sauce Da bomb beyond insanity. Long story short, it lives up to its name.

It's fun, but it tastes awful. It's certainly not my hottest sauce, but it's the biggest slap in the face because there's not good flavour to enjoy, just nasty flavoured heat.
- Isn't that every hot sauce?
Widely recognized as being horrible in addition to being really hot.

Its weird. Australians are badasses. Why can't they eat like badasses?

Am aussie and will say there are definately the 'pepper is hot' people but thee is also a healthy love of spice, we have a very multicultural food pallette here with a lot of asian influence in particular (thai, chinese, japanese, indian, etc). I like to put chilli sauce on EVERYTHING, i dont think there is a food i havent tried without chilli.
There is only so much excitement one can take

I can only imagine that it's just blander because "mild" here is pretty much spiceless. Hot is baseline mild spice. Extra spicy is what I think of as being spicy, and then everything above that is if you want the burn but none of the flavor.

You'd be surprised. Having cooked for white friends who've never eaten anything vaguely spicy, it turns out the human tongue is capable of being set on fire by a single scoville.
Edit: I see I pissed off somebody with a 1-scoville tolerance.
- "These bell peppers are too spicy! 🥵"
Fwiw when you get used to spicy food you still get good flavors coming through even with really hot peppers. Ther s always this weird double standard in these threads where people want to be dismissive of people who like bland food but also really spicy food.

Spice ratings annoy me so much! I can eat one meal called flaming hot and it's cooler than another that is warm or sometimes even mild.

The burning they experience was nothing to do with the spices.

My mum was cooking, I’m very sorry, she cooks for my dad’s palate.

This is because "Spice" is not a flavour. It's a specific sensation of pain.

I can’t believe old el paso is willing to spend the money it would take to actually make a less spicy variation. This is probably just the same thing called just “mild” in other markets.

I was born in England and now live in Australia and I want one 10x hotter than whatever their current hottest level is thankyouplease.

Totally anecdotal, but I once got an Indian brand ramen cup (marketed for the UK) from a UK emporium that was advertised as hot and spicy. I used LESS water than I was supposed to and added the entire contents, and it was still milder than most medium salsas around here. It was most likely just a crap brand of cheap products but I still remember my reaction being 'really?'

Funny enough, if you go to local Mexican restaurants that make their own salsa daily the person making the salsa also changes near daily. And one person's mild is another person's w e a k so sometimes you dip that first chip and go WOAH, nice

And you know anyone like this isn't pronouncing fajita correctly. I mean anyone buying these any of these "kits" in the first place isn't, let's be real

I can spend an extra hour cooking the good shit for an extra 15% that my family probably won't even notice or I can have this done in 15 minutes.
You're be shocked to find out that plenty Mexicans eat this because, shocking I know, it saves time and not every meal gets the weekend meals treatment.
- Ok fair enough, I take back my comment and I'm sorry for it. I was talking more from a "getting each ingredient individually is cheaper and then you can make more later" perspective, rather than a "you'd get way more for your one meal" perspective. But I understand what you mean and I see I was wrong to tar everyone with the same brush. Which isn't something you should do ever
  As someone who grew up in a family that would just buy something like this because they don't consider they can just get everything cheaper otherwise, and pronounces so many Spanish words cringely wrong and refuses to change when corrected, I guess all I could see was a load of people just like them lol
How do you think people are pronouncing them?
- Closer to "Vegeta", if that makes sense. Just like how so many people say tortilla without proper pronunciation on the l's
I mean, the issue there is more about a collection of languages all using the same alphabet but where letters have language- and dialect-dependent sounds, as well as wildly varying rules for how to pronounce letter combinations (and then English isn't even consistent on that in the same language and dialect).
Appreciation and tolerance of food are different from understanding of languages and pronounciation.

I expect nothing less from a people who eat Vegemite/Marmite.