better take whiskey off the shelves… Said nobody.
What the fuck even is a history book?
White people fundamentally do not understand how spice works, like I have eaten hot wings where the only flavor is spicy, a chemical spicy flavor completely disconnected from nature whose sole purpose is to cause pain.
Like in cuisines that have used spices for thousands of years, it’s understood that spiciness is meant to complement the other flavors used in the dish. Like there are hot-as-fuck Sichuan dishes that are nevertheless easy to eat becuase making it really hot isn’t the only consideration in the recipe.
Like for the sake of white people we can’t let them have anymore exotic flavors. Think of what they will do to themselves if Sichuan peppercorns ever get really popular. They will create a tasteless chip with so much numbing power it will cause permenent jaw paralysis.
I’ve eaten bits of straight-up reaper that taste good because they’re so strongly aromatic, and sauces that people ostensibly intended to taste good, but which taste like pool chemicals because it’s full of capsaicin extract.
Anyway, just chop/mash/powderize actual peppers instead of doing dumb chemist shit with them.
Gnawed on a fresh Bird’s Eye chili once, it was crisp with a satisfying snap to it. Also the roof of my mouth went numb for a while.
Think of what they will do to themselves if Sichuan peppercorns ever get really popular. They will create a tasteless chip with so much numbing power it will cause permenent jaw paralysis.
Ok real talk if one could concentrate and preserve the active chemical in sichuan peppercorns in a sauce that would actually be amazing. It’s so hard getting the right amount cooked just enough, not to mention how they lose their potency pretty rapidly. Just being able to splash some sauce into a bowl of soup or drizzle it over a dish with whatever other seasoning sauces one wants would be so nice.
Unfortunately AFAIK it’s too volatile and delicate for that.
My sibling in spice, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to chili crisp. Lao Gan Ma, Momofuku, Blank Slate Kitchen, Fly By Jing…
Fuck those are all expensive as hell. Guess I’m stuck grinding the peppercorns in a mortar and pestle whenever I can get them at a discount.
Interesting, do you know their climate tolerance or where one could get seeds?
Yeah it is really hard to sort through hot sauces to find good ones that are really spicy.
I’ve actually switched to extremely spicy ground pepper flakes, like dangerous to leave open. They don’t change the flavor at all, I put a nearly invisible amount onto my food, and rely on the rest of the recipe to provide good flavor
Reminds me of a guy I know who said that lead paint and lead pipes in housing are fine as long as the occupants sign a waiver because “people should get to decide for themselves whether they want to accept the risk” and that “it’d be an expensive waste of government money to remove”
my favorite thing about heavy metals is their tendency to stay where you put them
I pointed out that his stance was anti-poor. His defense was “No it isn’t, I’m poor myself.” He owns 30 acres of land that his parents helped him pay for.
Never criticizing the expensive waste of government money it was to use lead products in the first place. They just don’t want to acknowledge that undoing harm is part of fixing a problem.
The fact that these things were allowed at all is the problem, not that it’ll cost money to fix it.
I don’t think the health effects of lead were well understood until after most of the plumbing was already in place
“Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome.” - Vitruvius, over 2000 years ago
They’ve always known.
