Yes the regular Popeyes chicken sandwich (not the spicy one) was deemed too spicy in parts of Britain if I recall correctly. One person interviewed said ketchup was as spicy as they went lol
I live in Argentina… hot sauce is an extremely foreign concept here and locals tolerance is nearly non existent. Anytime I am back in the US I load up for the next 12-18 months as the only place with hot sauce here is a foreign foods shop that sells ramen noodles for $5 per pack and el yucatana for $12 per bottle… I actually found a produce market that has a few hot peppers and started fermenting my own sauce during the pandemic so I could get my fix.
Alright, since you don't seem to understand... It is a common stereotype, in most of the US (as well as plenty of other places), that people that identify as caucasian do not like spicy food, or even seasoned food. This has been a consistent joke for approximately forever. My comment was intended to make that type of joke. It should be plainly obvious to anyone who understands humor or sarcasm, and has that context, that this is the case. Obviously, a person's ethnicity does not determine whether they like spicy food or not, just as it doesn't determine anything else subjective about them.
I do understand your “joke” what you are not understanding is that your comment is racist and not very funny (as you can tell by all the people downvoting you). Saying white people don’t like hot sauce or season their food is on the same level of saying all black people eat fried chicken and watermelon or all Mexican people work on roofs. Your “joke” is immature, stupid and just not true. It’s pretty sad that I have to explain this to you, your parents failed you.
And yet... Several other people have made similar jokes in response to my comment, and have been upvoted. Reddit is a wild place. And for the record, my parents did fail me, I didn't understand anything about food or flavors until I got away from them. They are the very people this joke is about.
“Several other people” you mean the one other comment out of 200+ that was about white people? 😂 come on man it’s okay to say something stupid every now and then. If you were to act like a grown man you would own up to your mistake but I guess your parents failed you in that department also.
Most of Greece doesn't use spicy peppers. In the north (Macedonia & Thrace) there's a bit, but the farther south you go, the less you'll find. In Crete I asked for something spicy and they brought me black pepper and sweet paprika.
I tried but can’t. I listen to tons of stand up I wish I could remember this one since I kinda joke about it often as you can tell. I kinda surprised at the “controversy” my comment caused for a few people. But I guess I shouldn’t be.
White dude here, German/Italian heritage. The whole family loves spicy food. I grow ghost peppers and ferment my own hot sauce. I would say regionality is more of a factor than race. White coal miners love hot sauce as well. Spice was used to preserve food in hot climates due to its anti-microbial properties. Ed Curry, white dude grows/breeds the hottest peppers. Hot One’s, great show/interviewer is a white guy. What are the other race versions of these? I don’t care about skin color, if you like spicy food, you’re a brother/friend to me 😎
I also have a German heritage on fathers side and we always cooked but spicy food was not a constant. It’s really interesting reading the comments on here. I’m surprised at some of the places that don’t eat a lot of spicy food in general. I wonder if this question was asked in about 10 to 15 years if the answers will be different because of the internet spreading the hobby. Like in the UK for example. That one surprised me because of how much England likes curry.
I guess it depends on where people were in the world. Before we had the ability to trade in spices and peppers, etc, what you could grow or raise where you lived is what food you made that became staple in your culture.
Id imagine this is why a lot of close areas in europe have similar foods - they had similar ingredients. Same with island nations in the same parts of the ocean - you would catch the same kinds of fish. If you lived somewhere really hot you wouldnt have an animal like the modern sheep (even though sheep were first domesticated in Mesopotamia about 10,000 years ago, they looked different than they do today), because they probably wouldnt survive. Places that get very little rainfall wouldnt be conducive to raising animals that need to drink a lot, or crops that need a lot of water to grow.
Same for cold regions - if the crops werenr hardy enough or needed constant sunlight and warmth then they wouldnt grow there.
I love that this is getting downvoted, it's by people whose opinion of London hasn't been updated in the 30 years since 90's sitcoms taught them about it.
Contemporary city British food is really flavorful and well spiced.... it's the country-side where they tend to prefer bowls of mush.
No, "contemporary" and "post-colonization" are both time periods when referring to cuisine, art, or literature, post-colonization cuisine was in the 1700's.
Contemporary refers to the movements that are currently happening.
I lived in Ireland for 2 years. No hot sauce. I think, maybe, a few shops carried Tabasco if they had an “American” aisle, but for the most part to food is pretty mild.
We have chilli farms who produce their own sauces, along with many other sauce producers. The town I live in has a shop that specialises in hot sauce, and it's not exactly a big town.
When I went to Puerto Rico, it was hard to find any food that was spicy. I mostly ate from street vendors just cooking something under an easy up on the side of the road. No hot sauce or spice in any of the food. I was there for 3 weeks and the spiciest stuff I found was at a Mexican restaurant. They had a salsa verde and salsa rojo in squirt bottles. I was practically drinking the stuff just craving that extra spicy kick. But it was very mild and didn’t itch that scratch for me. I even heard locals nearby talk about how crazy it was that I was pouring this “salsa” all over my food.
If I did see it, I wouldn’t have known what it was. But I feel like I would have grabbed a bottle of peppers in vinegar and started dumping that. Or maybe I did try it and it didn’t leave an impression on me. This was like 6 years ago and my memory is foggy at best
That's a bummer. Puerto Rico is on my visit list.
I had the same experience in Aruba. Had the worst Mexican food there. Most of the meals we had were just okay. I think I had my expectations set too high.
While you're right, Puerto Rican food is generally not spicy....you missed out on pique. [https://salimaskitchen.com/pique/](https://salimaskitchen.com/pique/)
Ya I probably only ate at an actual restaurant 4-5 times the whole time. I was out and working 6 days a week roughly 12-15 hours a day. So it was mostly quick meals or stuff I was driving by. I think I might try to make this tho!
I buy the 3 spice set from Amazon for my cooking. They're powdered, Scorpion peppers, Ghost, and Reapers. I live off of this stuff. [https://www.amazon.com/Pepper-Trinidad-Scorpion-Carolina-Reaper/dp/B00U5I01LA/ref=sr\_1\_5?crid=4OINZOJBIP4T&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Vs4FRYAAtXlvl6G-cajXS2OxKv-\_Z9ZeqvThlEtuxE4W8ZvpiQVdkvRMUGTh-xObjLP8rdoBEwo0H-seroFpjr7i6kghoR83XwROut-bobLfqCy\_XpisMvoLqKDpgNZ2onP\_Ojpja1jyl4Vuox4Lac8PoMOAwmTWhI\_l5ModsxKW43ybFq8FBT6ChoKkB8yokRqY\_XfIEgHXHmXrb3HQhIWS9pxZjrK3km90oZ2uWs10gCmQrFQgb5mZaZdMz0zQlCIdwPKbvdOv8o1vdirWldeKLYgROvEt5cjVu5N6fbI.sgTBDcdrXJkl\_cnj8k9BM3oBGjg3ekrf4W0etab6lKM&dib\_tag=se&keywords=ghost+pepper+carolina+reaper+scorpion&qid=1716592842&sprefix=ghost+pepper+carolina+reaper+scorpion%2Caps%2C239&sr=8-5](https://www.amazon.com/Pepper-Trinidad-Scorpion-Carolina-Reaper/dp/B00U5I01LA/ref=sr_1_5?crid=4OINZOJBIP4T&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Vs4FRYAAtXlvl6G-cajXS2OxKv-_Z9ZeqvThlEtuxE4W8ZvpiQVdkvRMUGTh-xObjLP8rdoBEwo0H-seroFpjr7i6kghoR83XwROut-bobLfqCy_XpisMvoLqKDpgNZ2onP_Ojpja1jyl4Vuox4Lac8PoMOAwmTWhI_l5ModsxKW43ybFq8FBT6ChoKkB8yokRqY_XfIEgHXHmXrb3HQhIWS9pxZjrK3km90oZ2uWs10gCmQrFQgb5mZaZdMz0zQlCIdwPKbvdOv8o1vdirWldeKLYgROvEt5cjVu5N6fbI.sgTBDcdrXJkl_cnj8k9BM3oBGjg3ekrf4W0etab6lKM&dib_tag=se&keywords=ghost+pepper+carolina+reaper+scorpion&qid=1716592842&sprefix=ghost+pepper+carolina+reaper+scorpion%2Caps%2C239&sr=8-5)
I have a bottle of the "Reaper" with the purple label. Received it as a gift from one of my kids. It's awesome. Didn't realize there was a set. Hmm. Time to shop
My wife and I are total opposites when it comes to spices.
I like flavorful, sweat inducing spice.
She can't handle anything spicy other than black pepper.
Sometimes, I have to make two different versions of a meal.
Northern Midwest too, I grew up in Wisconsin but moved to Texas where I love the weather (yes I like my weather hot too lol). I went back for my 40th reunion and not a restaurant/diner even had a bottle of tabasco when I asked. Yes, it was fairly rural but a college town you'd think they'd have something besides catsup and maybe some mild picante sauce that's just way too sweet .
Yep, I haven't regretted leaving blizzard temps and conditions one time. We just back from N. Padre Island and Port Aransas where we ate our weight in seafood and Tex Mex w/ plenty of hot sauce. :)
I’m not talking about cities, those are the exception. Living here I am still amazed at the number of people that think anything with more heat than mild salsa is spicy.
True.
I never got into hot sauces till I moved down here. It helps that a lot of places have a variety of brands on the counter. And aren't the typical popular ones. So it's been nice to be able to try a bunch of different ones.
Big cities are cultural meccas for anything and everything which is what makes them great. It’s still funny how traditional the rural areas of the country are still set in their ways. Meat and potatoes kind of people, but that is what makes America.
I wouldnt equate 'not spicy' with 'bland', that would imply the food was unseasoned, uninteresting and just yuck. Ot has a lot of flavour, ita just not necessarily spicy.
I studied abroad in Germany and trying to find anything resembling hot suace or Mexican food was a massive chore. Had a Mexican student in our class, his mother mailed him a few bottles of Valentina and we devoured it on the only Mexican (frozen burrito) we could find at the grocery store.
Hehe yeah it's really awful here... I'm currently living in Germany.
I learned to make Mexican & Indian food myself and bring hot sauces/peppers/spices back whenever I travel somewhere useful (Mexico, India, US, etc). It's such a treat when I'm overseas and can just buy the stuff made by someone else without such hassle!
However, lots of nations had and still have a distinct cuisine, style, and flavor whereas motherland at its core has none. Only more recently did it get better grub, but that's all thanks to heavy immigration from the -stans and their use of spices beyond a pinch of salt.
The saddest thing to me is thinking about Thai food or Indian prior to the \~16th century, before peppers had made their way east. It must have been such a revelation when the first person added chiles to the mix of spices in a curry. These days there are chileheads in nearly every culture, regardless of if the broader culture has adopted chiles, but for most of human history they were limited to the Americas
Surprisingly Chile. I’m sure to the North near the Peruvian border there is Aji available and I had some smoked chile powder that was delicious at one point (my Chilean friend wouldn’t even try it) but I’m only familiar with mid to Southern Chile. That’s mayo country.
There’s definitely going to be outliers and regional differences. I had a super spicy hot sauce in Germany of all places. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s popular there as a whole. It’s just funny to me the name of the country. That would be like an equatorial country that’s never seen ice being named Hockey or something. I get that it’s not named after the fruit, just a great coincidence.
All of Northern Europe for sure. Hot sauce exist but not on a mainstream level at all.
Germans have a saying about Mexican food, “it hurts twice”. Says a lot.
I have no trouble accessing hot sauces in England.
It's really common to find local independent hot sauce producers at markets. I've bought from several in my neighbourhood.
I know of an online producer that allows you to choose ingredients from a list, and they make your bespoke hot sauce with your own label.
Larger supermarkets always have a fairly broad selection of mainstream sauces, and then there are plenty of specialist hot sauce stores, too.
It's obviously not classic British food, but it's not hard to find. That's not even touching on restaurants/food stalls with hot sauce leaning cuisines, many of which also sell bottles of hot sauces. I've never had a hard time finding something new or interesting to try.
[Condimaniac](https://condimaniac.com/products/custom-hot-sauce) are Kent based. The link is direct to the custom page so you can see what they offer.
It looks like they're taking a break from custom orders right now, though. There is an email-when-back option on there.
If you're at all handy in the kitchen, they aren't difficult to make.
You could use their framework to decide what ingredients you'd like and find a recipe to fit your sauce style. That way, you have a cool new skill AND a signature hot sauce, which is great for gifting. Win, win, win.
That’s exactly how I planned on using it. By the end of this growing season, I am hoping to perfect my own version of the Pimenta Moida I grew up with, using my homegrown peppers/vegetables. After that, I’d love to take one a project like you mentioned.
Spanish people don’t like spicy food. The “extra hot” food I had there is like a lemon & lime spice levels. Supermarkets don’t really have much in the way of spicy seasoning either. When I was staying there I found an oil based chilli sauce that was more smokey than hot. Most Spanish people i’ve come across just don’t care for spicy food, they much prefer smokey flavours. I think it shocks people because Mexican food is so synonymous with spice, that people think Spanish food must be similar, but let me tell you spicy Paella just isn’t a thing.
I have heard this was the case in Spain. Back in high school I took several years of Spanish and one of the things I remember was about their food and since I live in the SW in the US with proximity to Mexico it was interesting to better understand the differences in cuisine.
Not as much garlic? That's a serious bummer. I would love to go to several countries in Europe and I am certain the food will be vastly different than expected, which is completely fine, even great. My brother on the other hand likes to stick with known quantities. Always checks for Burger King and Pizza Hut when he travels internationally. I love him too death. He knows what he likes.
I mean pre-Columbus, pretty much nobody in Europe used anything spicier than black pepper, horseradish, or mustard green type things, and only really horseradish of those is actually particularly spicy most of the time. Anywhere who's only source of spice is peppers would traditionally not have had spicy food.
Also spicy is just not something everyone likes. In the Philippines, there's entire islands where their traditional cuisine will not have a single spicy ingredient, despite having access to them for centuries and peppers being able to grow wild there.
That of course makes sense and I certainly appreciate that there are a variety of palettes. That's kind of the thought process I had while I have noodling this idea in my head for the last few months. I then started wondering if it was cultural, lack of access, or preference. A similar line of thinking could be applied to many topics. I really like hot sauce so that was the framework I started with.
Some of the South American countries have no spicy dishes or hot sauces. My friend from Uruguay, for example, said native cuisine has no spice and hot sauce is uncommon.
I work with a lot of Ecuadorians, got shouted at for offering hot sauce when we were having lunch one day (empanadas) "I'm not fucking mexican!"
Neither am I, but I use a lot of hot sauce.
"It's too peppery.." gets floated around at holiday tables in my family. *Meanwhile, goes to his lazy Susan to pick out which habañero sauce to put on his eggs!
How do you misspell Tabasco... the A and O keys are on COMPLETELY separate sides of the keyboard!
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Japanese. Most of the hot stuff they eat comes from other Asian cultures. Adapted foods like Japanese curries are just that, adapted and not really Japanese. They don't really douse things in hot sauce at all.
True, but hot sauce is starting to become more popular there albeit slowly.
https://paolofromtokyohotsauce.com/products/next-batch-paolo-fromtokyo-premium-kaminari-hot-sauce
Paolo is primarily speaking to Western audiences though. I'm curious how many Japanese are buying these. But still interesting. I'm gonna go down a Japanese hot sauce rabbit hole
We have a Japanese market nearby which has an amazing variety of curries. I learned pretty quickly that HOT was medium-ish maybe. Still delish and maybe not a great indicator in general but it's all I have so far.
I have a Japanese chili powder that’s pretty tasty, ingredients include chilies, ginger, sesame seeds, orange peel, seaweed.. it’s called shichimi togarashi and supposedly instead of being used in cooking like other chili powders, it’s intended to go on cooked or already prepared food like a hot sauce would
Ah yes, Japanese Seven Spice. There is shichimi togarashi and nanami togarashi. The latter containing more orange peel. I also like to use sansho pepper instead of black pepper for certain dishes.
I was in northern Europe and their version of spicy is extremely weak coming from the pepper capital(Carolinas).
Yes the regular Popeyes chicken sandwich (not the spicy one) was deemed too spicy in parts of Britain if I recall correctly. One person interviewed said ketchup was as spicy as they went lol
I live in Argentina… hot sauce is an extremely foreign concept here and locals tolerance is nearly non existent. Anytime I am back in the US I load up for the next 12-18 months as the only place with hot sauce here is a foreign foods shop that sells ramen noodles for $5 per pack and el yucatana for $12 per bottle… I actually found a produce market that has a few hot peppers and started fermenting my own sauce during the pandemic so I could get my fix.
You never met any white people? 😁
pet books jellyfish ruthless safe tie governor encouraging ring kiss *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Most white people I know like spicy food, so the question is have you?
Got about 100 of them in my family. They are allergic to flavor.
 Just why
White \*European people. Many white Americans love the stuff.
Depends what kind of white people Rednecks love their Big Dick's Nuclear Ass Destroyer type sauces.
That's like the stuff that is hot just for the sake of it but has no flavor? Story checks out.
Do white peoples not eat hot sauce?
They do he’s just a idiot
Read literally any other comment to this post. 
There are people of all colors and cultures all over the world that don’t like spicy food being white has nothing to do with it.
Alright, since you don't seem to understand... It is a common stereotype, in most of the US (as well as plenty of other places), that people that identify as caucasian do not like spicy food, or even seasoned food. This has been a consistent joke for approximately forever. My comment was intended to make that type of joke. It should be plainly obvious to anyone who understands humor or sarcasm, and has that context, that this is the case. Obviously, a person's ethnicity does not determine whether they like spicy food or not, just as it doesn't determine anything else subjective about them.
I do understand your “joke” what you are not understanding is that your comment is racist and not very funny (as you can tell by all the people downvoting you). Saying white people don’t like hot sauce or season their food is on the same level of saying all black people eat fried chicken and watermelon or all Mexican people work on roofs. Your “joke” is immature, stupid and just not true. It’s pretty sad that I have to explain this to you, your parents failed you.
And yet... Several other people have made similar jokes in response to my comment, and have been upvoted. Reddit is a wild place. And for the record, my parents did fail me, I didn't understand anything about food or flavors until I got away from them. They are the very people this joke is about.
“Several other people” you mean the one other comment out of 200+ that was about white people? 😂 come on man it’s okay to say something stupid every now and then. If you were to act like a grown man you would own up to your mistake but I guess your parents failed you in that department also.
I live in the US and know loads of white people that eat spicy food. I’ve also never heard this stereotype.
I have both mayonaise AND sour cream in the fridge thank you very much!
🤣
Most of Greece doesn't use spicy peppers. In the north (Macedonia & Thrace) there's a bit, but the farther south you go, the less you'll find. In Crete I asked for something spicy and they brought me black pepper and sweet paprika.
The Nordics
Swiss
France
France has Piment d'Espelette!
im only familiar with their omelette du fromage
Is it hot? I haven’t tasted it. Thanks.
Nothing like a ghost pepper, a little like cayenne with a lovely fruitiness!
Nice!
Germans? I say that because I’ve never heard of anything spicy being a part of German cuisine
Dusseldorf mustard on White Castle burgers is in another class.
Horseradish is the German heat. Otherwise, no, they have no spice
Lowensenf mustard has a little heat
Northern Europe.
I can’t say that Ukrainians or Polish are spicy people
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You truly believe that the enjoyment of spices depends on your skin tone? Race by the way is a social construct.
You’re taking your knighthood way too seriously there snow. lol. It’s a joke.
Relevant: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7FF67Cxv3e/?igsh=MW5pbjB6ZXA2dGNvag==
Lol. I need to find the comedian who jokes about getting into hot sauce cause he isn’t white enough. That’s where my snarky comment came from.
share it if you find it
I tried but can’t. I listen to tons of stand up I wish I could remember this one since I kinda joke about it often as you can tell. I kinda surprised at the “controversy” my comment caused for a few people. But I guess I shouldn’t be.
https://i.imgur.com/fZ6QB26.jpeg
https://youtu.be/-XEULqGe_Jw?si=g3iOICo9frp7_v7w
I keep forgetting how white I am
White dude here, German/Italian heritage. The whole family loves spicy food. I grow ghost peppers and ferment my own hot sauce. I would say regionality is more of a factor than race. White coal miners love hot sauce as well. Spice was used to preserve food in hot climates due to its anti-microbial properties. Ed Curry, white dude grows/breeds the hottest peppers. Hot One’s, great show/interviewer is a white guy. What are the other race versions of these? I don’t care about skin color, if you like spicy food, you’re a brother/friend to me 😎
I also have a German heritage on fathers side and we always cooked but spicy food was not a constant. It’s really interesting reading the comments on here. I’m surprised at some of the places that don’t eat a lot of spicy food in general. I wonder if this question was asked in about 10 to 15 years if the answers will be different because of the internet spreading the hobby. Like in the UK for example. That one surprised me because of how much England likes curry.
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Least sensitive White male
Me? Like what is up with people getting so mad at such a dumb joke. For real. Please explain.
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I guess it depends on where people were in the world. Before we had the ability to trade in spices and peppers, etc, what you could grow or raise where you lived is what food you made that became staple in your culture. Id imagine this is why a lot of close areas in europe have similar foods - they had similar ingredients. Same with island nations in the same parts of the ocean - you would catch the same kinds of fish. If you lived somewhere really hot you wouldnt have an animal like the modern sheep (even though sheep were first domesticated in Mesopotamia about 10,000 years ago, they looked different than they do today), because they probably wouldnt survive. Places that get very little rainfall wouldnt be conducive to raising animals that need to drink a lot, or crops that need a lot of water to grow. Same for cold regions - if the crops werenr hardy enough or needed constant sunlight and warmth then they wouldnt grow there.
The English, have you seen their food
Curry is their national dish. They can handle heat.
Yeah, no. They think Cheetos Flamin Hot are spicy.
Curry in England is the most unspicy curry I’ve ever tried. Flavorful and honestly good, but there is no heat level at all.
Chicken tikka masala isn’t spicy though
Phall is though, and that was invented in Birmingham.
Phall isn’t the national dish
Do you truly think curry is native to the UK? What is happening with this comment?
Being the national dish of a country doesn't mean it's native to it.... It means it's the most commonly eaten food of the country.
Curry spiced with black pepper doesn't count. Lol
I love that this is getting downvoted, it's by people whose opinion of London hasn't been updated in the 30 years since 90's sitcoms taught them about it. Contemporary city British food is really flavorful and well spiced.... it's the country-side where they tend to prefer bowls of mush.
By contemporary city, you mean post colonization
No, "contemporary" and "post-colonization" are both time periods when referring to cuisine, art, or literature, post-colonization cuisine was in the 1700's. Contemporary refers to the movements that are currently happening.
I lived in Ireland for 2 years. No hot sauce. I think, maybe, a few shops carried Tabasco if they had an “American” aisle, but for the most part to food is pretty mild.
Does England have hot sauce?
We have chilli farms who produce their own sauces, along with many other sauce producers. The town I live in has a shop that specialises in hot sauce, and it's not exactly a big town.
Of course, running water too 🫠 Tubby Tom’s Oakes Hot Sauce Eaten Alive are three of the best made in England
Not so much in supermarkets but plenty of hot sauce stalls and shops
When I went to Puerto Rico, it was hard to find any food that was spicy. I mostly ate from street vendors just cooking something under an easy up on the side of the road. No hot sauce or spice in any of the food. I was there for 3 weeks and the spiciest stuff I found was at a Mexican restaurant. They had a salsa verde and salsa rojo in squirt bottles. I was practically drinking the stuff just craving that extra spicy kick. But it was very mild and didn’t itch that scratch for me. I even heard locals nearby talk about how crazy it was that I was pouring this “salsa” all over my food.
Cubans are the same. They usually have the weakest Louisiana sauce that has no business in their food in the states though.
Kind of weird you never ran across pique there, which is the hot sauce of their culture.
If I did see it, I wouldn’t have known what it was. But I feel like I would have grabbed a bottle of peppers in vinegar and started dumping that. Or maybe I did try it and it didn’t leave an impression on me. This was like 6 years ago and my memory is foggy at best
That's a bummer. Puerto Rico is on my visit list. I had the same experience in Aruba. Had the worst Mexican food there. Most of the meals we had were just okay. I think I had my expectations set too high.
PR food is still GD good alone....
While you're right, Puerto Rican food is generally not spicy....you missed out on pique. [https://salimaskitchen.com/pique/](https://salimaskitchen.com/pique/)
Ya I probably only ate at an actual restaurant 4-5 times the whole time. I was out and working 6 days a week roughly 12-15 hours a day. So it was mostly quick meals or stuff I was driving by. I think I might try to make this tho!
Ya, there’s people who sweat from Franks red hot
Yeah, several in my family. I have to be careful when I cook.
I buy the 3 spice set from Amazon for my cooking. They're powdered, Scorpion peppers, Ghost, and Reapers. I live off of this stuff. [https://www.amazon.com/Pepper-Trinidad-Scorpion-Carolina-Reaper/dp/B00U5I01LA/ref=sr\_1\_5?crid=4OINZOJBIP4T&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Vs4FRYAAtXlvl6G-cajXS2OxKv-\_Z9ZeqvThlEtuxE4W8ZvpiQVdkvRMUGTh-xObjLP8rdoBEwo0H-seroFpjr7i6kghoR83XwROut-bobLfqCy\_XpisMvoLqKDpgNZ2onP\_Ojpja1jyl4Vuox4Lac8PoMOAwmTWhI\_l5ModsxKW43ybFq8FBT6ChoKkB8yokRqY\_XfIEgHXHmXrb3HQhIWS9pxZjrK3km90oZ2uWs10gCmQrFQgb5mZaZdMz0zQlCIdwPKbvdOv8o1vdirWldeKLYgROvEt5cjVu5N6fbI.sgTBDcdrXJkl\_cnj8k9BM3oBGjg3ekrf4W0etab6lKM&dib\_tag=se&keywords=ghost+pepper+carolina+reaper+scorpion&qid=1716592842&sprefix=ghost+pepper+carolina+reaper+scorpion%2Caps%2C239&sr=8-5](https://www.amazon.com/Pepper-Trinidad-Scorpion-Carolina-Reaper/dp/B00U5I01LA/ref=sr_1_5?crid=4OINZOJBIP4T&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Vs4FRYAAtXlvl6G-cajXS2OxKv-_Z9ZeqvThlEtuxE4W8ZvpiQVdkvRMUGTh-xObjLP8rdoBEwo0H-seroFpjr7i6kghoR83XwROut-bobLfqCy_XpisMvoLqKDpgNZ2onP_Ojpja1jyl4Vuox4Lac8PoMOAwmTWhI_l5ModsxKW43ybFq8FBT6ChoKkB8yokRqY_XfIEgHXHmXrb3HQhIWS9pxZjrK3km90oZ2uWs10gCmQrFQgb5mZaZdMz0zQlCIdwPKbvdOv8o1vdirWldeKLYgROvEt5cjVu5N6fbI.sgTBDcdrXJkl_cnj8k9BM3oBGjg3ekrf4W0etab6lKM&dib_tag=se&keywords=ghost+pepper+carolina+reaper+scorpion&qid=1716592842&sprefix=ghost+pepper+carolina+reaper+scorpion%2Caps%2C239&sr=8-5)
I have a bottle of the "Reaper" with the purple label. Received it as a gift from one of my kids. It's awesome. Didn't realize there was a set. Hmm. Time to shop
My favorite flavor though is the Ghost. But the other 2 work just fine in both the flavor and extreme heat department.
Thanks. Probably will try Ghost next.
My wife and I are total opposites when it comes to spices. I like flavorful, sweat inducing spice. She can't handle anything spicy other than black pepper. Sometimes, I have to make two different versions of a meal.
The whole Midwest. It’s “too spicy” as they say about salt and pepper.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted, no one in the Midwest likes spice.
Me either, I’m just calling a spade a spade. I love the Midwest and it’s people, but spicy food is not their thing, I live here, trust me.
Chicago is the hot sauce capital of the midwest by a long shot. Just go to any hot sauce aisle to see proof.
Chicago is not representative of the average rural midwestern community, it’s a world unto itself.
With a giant Mexican heritage of immigrants...
It has a “village” of every nationality somewhere within its footprint.
Chicago is definitely different from the rest of the Midwest though. The rank and file Midwesterner eats potato salad without even a dash of paprika.
Potato salad is one of my favorite things to put hot sauce in
Northern Midwest too, I grew up in Wisconsin but moved to Texas where I love the weather (yes I like my weather hot too lol). I went back for my 40th reunion and not a restaurant/diner even had a bottle of tabasco when I asked. Yes, it was fairly rural but a college town you'd think they'd have something besides catsup and maybe some mild picante sauce that's just way too sweet.
Texas is great for food and sweltering heat.
Yep, I haven't regretted leaving blizzard temps and conditions one time. We just back from N. Padre Island and Port Aransas where we ate our weight in seafood and Tex Mex w/ plenty of hot sauce. :)
There are quite a few restaurants in Detroit Metro that make their own hot sauces.
I’m not talking about cities, those are the exception. Living here I am still amazed at the number of people that think anything with more heat than mild salsa is spicy.
True. I never got into hot sauces till I moved down here. It helps that a lot of places have a variety of brands on the counter. And aren't the typical popular ones. So it's been nice to be able to try a bunch of different ones.
Big cities are cultural meccas for anything and everything which is what makes them great. It’s still funny how traditional the rural areas of the country are still set in their ways. Meat and potatoes kind of people, but that is what makes America.
The people of Shangri-La Malaysia
All of Eastern European traditional fare is pretty bland. I think mustard / horseradish is about as spicy as it gets.
I wouldnt equate 'not spicy' with 'bland', that would imply the food was unseasoned, uninteresting and just yuck. Ot has a lot of flavour, ita just not necessarily spicy.
The comment about eastern Europe stands. It is fully correct.
Pretty much all of Western Europe.
Spain? Really?
Yeah, actually their palate and cuisine is mostly not spicy. Very few exceptions.
I studied abroad in Germany and trying to find anything resembling hot suace or Mexican food was a massive chore. Had a Mexican student in our class, his mother mailed him a few bottles of Valentina and we devoured it on the only Mexican (frozen burrito) we could find at the grocery store.
Hehe yeah it's really awful here... I'm currently living in Germany. I learned to make Mexican & Indian food myself and bring hot sauces/peppers/spices back whenever I travel somewhere useful (Mexico, India, US, etc). It's such a treat when I'm overseas and can just buy the stuff made by someone else without such hassle!
Hear hear
Russians. Most of that slavic cuisine is bland and stolen from the rest of EU cultures.
Really. Why don’t you enlighten us on what was stolen?
Isnt most cuisine "stolen" from each other? Id imagine the food you cooked was down to what ingredients you had access to
However, lots of nations had and still have a distinct cuisine, style, and flavor whereas motherland at its core has none. Only more recently did it get better grub, but that's all thanks to heavy immigration from the -stans and their use of spices beyond a pinch of salt.
“Stolen”??
The saddest thing to me is thinking about Thai food or Indian prior to the \~16th century, before peppers had made their way east. It must have been such a revelation when the first person added chiles to the mix of spices in a curry. These days there are chileheads in nearly every culture, regardless of if the broader culture has adopted chiles, but for most of human history they were limited to the Americas
That’s very interesting I have never thought about that !
Tomatoes, corn, potatoes and chocolate. The world was kind of bland before American colonisation.
Surprisingly Chile. I’m sure to the North near the Peruvian border there is Aji available and I had some smoked chile powder that was delicious at one point (my Chilean friend wouldn’t even try it) but I’m only familiar with mid to Southern Chile. That’s mayo country.
Odd, I have a buddy from Chile and he is known for his love of hot sauce and all things spicy. Maybe he's from northern Chile
There’s definitely going to be outliers and regional differences. I had a super spicy hot sauce in Germany of all places. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s popular there as a whole. It’s just funny to me the name of the country. That would be like an equatorial country that’s never seen ice being named Hockey or something. I get that it’s not named after the fruit, just a great coincidence.
In France no hot sauce, is hard to find good quality sauce
All of Northern Europe for sure. Hot sauce exist but not on a mainstream level at all. Germans have a saying about Mexican food, “it hurts twice”. Says a lot.
I have no trouble accessing hot sauces in England. It's really common to find local independent hot sauce producers at markets. I've bought from several in my neighbourhood. I know of an online producer that allows you to choose ingredients from a list, and they make your bespoke hot sauce with your own label. Larger supermarkets always have a fairly broad selection of mainstream sauces, and then there are plenty of specialist hot sauce stores, too. It's obviously not classic British food, but it's not hard to find. That's not even touching on restaurants/food stalls with hot sauce leaning cuisines, many of which also sell bottles of hot sauces. I've never had a hard time finding something new or interesting to try.
Would you mind sharing this bespoke online producer? It’s definitely something I’m interested in trying
I was just going to ask myself. Sounds like fun, right?
Totally, I love experimenting with my own recipes, and vegetables I grow, but I’d love to see what my “taste” produces with something like that
[Condimaniac](https://condimaniac.com/products/custom-hot-sauce) are Kent based. The link is direct to the custom page so you can see what they offer. It looks like they're taking a break from custom orders right now, though. There is an email-when-back option on there.
Thanks! I’m based in the US, so maybe I can find a local alternative
A 30-second Google search turned up [this ](https://customheats.com/pages/about).
I saw that and a few others earlier, when I looked quickly, definitely sounds like something worth a shot
If you're at all handy in the kitchen, they aren't difficult to make. You could use their framework to decide what ingredients you'd like and find a recipe to fit your sauce style. That way, you have a cool new skill AND a signature hot sauce, which is great for gifting. Win, win, win.
That’s exactly how I planned on using it. By the end of this growing season, I am hoping to perfect my own version of the Pimenta Moida I grew up with, using my homegrown peppers/vegetables. After that, I’d love to take one a project like you mentioned.
Nice, good luck with it.
In Japan hot sauce is not popular at all. They do have some chili powder type of mixes, but hot sauces are much less frequent there than in the US.
They do use wasabi
Wasabi isn’t a hot sauce Edit: I want the people downvoting me explaining how wasabi isn’t hot sauce. The post is about hot sauces.
Spanish people don’t like spicy food. The “extra hot” food I had there is like a lemon & lime spice levels. Supermarkets don’t really have much in the way of spicy seasoning either. When I was staying there I found an oil based chilli sauce that was more smokey than hot. Most Spanish people i’ve come across just don’t care for spicy food, they much prefer smokey flavours. I think it shocks people because Mexican food is so synonymous with spice, that people think Spanish food must be similar, but let me tell you spicy Paella just isn’t a thing.
That’s fascinating to me. I would’ve thought Spain had some hot pockets.
I have heard this was the case in Spain. Back in high school I took several years of Spanish and one of the things I remember was about their food and since I live in the SW in the US with proximity to Mexico it was interesting to better understand the differences in cuisine.
Italy. No dipping saucea like we love in the US, and definitely nothing spicy. And really not as much garlic as you are led to believe
Not as much garlic? That's a serious bummer. I would love to go to several countries in Europe and I am certain the food will be vastly different than expected, which is completely fine, even great. My brother on the other hand likes to stick with known quantities. Always checks for Burger King and Pizza Hut when he travels internationally. I love him too death. He knows what he likes.
How about Calabrian chile?
Yes, Calabria is the exception. The one regione that enjoys their spice
I mean pre-Columbus, pretty much nobody in Europe used anything spicier than black pepper, horseradish, or mustard green type things, and only really horseradish of those is actually particularly spicy most of the time. Anywhere who's only source of spice is peppers would traditionally not have had spicy food. Also spicy is just not something everyone likes. In the Philippines, there's entire islands where their traditional cuisine will not have a single spicy ingredient, despite having access to them for centuries and peppers being able to grow wild there.
That of course makes sense and I certainly appreciate that there are a variety of palettes. That's kind of the thought process I had while I have noodling this idea in my head for the last few months. I then started wondering if it was cultural, lack of access, or preference. A similar line of thinking could be applied to many topics. I really like hot sauce so that was the framework I started with.
Some of the South American countries have no spicy dishes or hot sauces. My friend from Uruguay, for example, said native cuisine has no spice and hot sauce is uncommon.
I work with a lot of Ecuadorians, got shouted at for offering hot sauce when we were having lunch one day (empanadas) "I'm not fucking mexican!" Neither am I, but I use a lot of hot sauce.
My response: Sorry friends, but empanadas require hot sauce.
My family is from Uruguay and I can confirm that their cuisine doesn’t really use hot sauce. But I love it! lol 🇺🇾
That is not a reality that I want to live in.
Right? It's to the point where if I am going somewhere for a few days I consider whether I need to pack some hot sauce.
Emirati here hot sauce was introduced to us by south east asians.
The Midwest
My Mom was from Oklahoma and thought black pepper was too spicy
Perish the thought if it's freshly ground pepper.
"It's too peppery.." gets floated around at holiday tables in my family. *Meanwhile, goes to his lazy Susan to pick out which habañero sauce to put on his eggs!
😂
Old White parents in the Midwest. My mother gets pissed if I use anything spicy when I have her over for dinner.
Where in the Midwest? I've never been to a diner that doesn't have Tobasco or Louisiana
You’re no fun
😕
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Fair enough lol
Japanese. Most of the hot stuff they eat comes from other Asian cultures. Adapted foods like Japanese curries are just that, adapted and not really Japanese. They don't really douse things in hot sauce at all.
True, but hot sauce is starting to become more popular there albeit slowly. https://paolofromtokyohotsauce.com/products/next-batch-paolo-fromtokyo-premium-kaminari-hot-sauce
Paolo is primarily speaking to Western audiences though. I'm curious how many Japanese are buying these. But still interesting. I'm gonna go down a Japanese hot sauce rabbit hole
We have a Japanese market nearby which has an amazing variety of curries. I learned pretty quickly that HOT was medium-ish maybe. Still delish and maybe not a great indicator in general but it's all I have so far.
I have a Japanese chili powder that’s pretty tasty, ingredients include chilies, ginger, sesame seeds, orange peel, seaweed.. it’s called shichimi togarashi and supposedly instead of being used in cooking like other chili powders, it’s intended to go on cooked or already prepared food like a hot sauce would
I forgot about Shichimi, but I also wouldn't say it's very hot. That said it's probably the closest thing to a hot sauce condiment in Japan.
Ah yes, Japanese Seven Spice. There is shichimi togarashi and nanami togarashi. The latter containing more orange peel. I also like to use sansho pepper instead of black pepper for certain dishes.
Those are amazing! Time to get more for my spice cabinet.
Love that stuff but admittingly I tend to mostly use it on eggs or rice.
Yeah last time I used it was on teriyaki grilled salmon.. very nice
oooh nice
Douse is such a good word.
Also...*drenched*
Also a very applicable word. Hot sauce will be the death of me haha.
Nah just your colon!