What is Hot?

In beginning this decidedly non-scientific investigation into the nature of hotness in food, I learned many things. The first thing I learned—and you probably already know this—is that heat is not a taste. Even though we experience the hotness in our mouths, when we ingest something, the sense we are experiencing is not taste. Apparently we have these things called nociceptors--basically sensory receptors that respond to pain—that are located all over our body (like in our skin and our eyes), as well as in our mouths, and these, rather than our taste buds, are the apparati that are telling us that our mouths are on fire. Anyone who’s ever cut up a habenero without gloves on can attest to the similarity between the sensation in the hands and in the mouth. 

            I also found out that this whole concept of taste--which inevitably brings up the concept of smell—is a poetic concept--even when it’s a scientific concept. I think this is worth mentioning, even though it’s a bit outside the main point of this series. Probably this sounds obvious to you: of course taste is a poetic concept, you’re thinking; poets have been using taste in a connotative and evocative way for centuries. True, but what I mean is, the scientific investigation of taste and smell is as much poetry as it is science. How else could a scientific community come to the conclusion that the taste buds in and of themselves are capable of discerning only four flavors: salty, sweet, sour, and bitter, and then, sometime within the last twenty-five years or so, allow the addition of another basic taste called “umami” which is described as “a savory and long lasting and coating sensation” of the tongue. Why can this basic taste only be labeled using a Japanese word? And the words “long-lasting and coating” sound more like “mouth feel” words than like “taste” words. Maybe “ice cream” or “gravy” should also be basic taste sensations, because they also coat the mouth with long lasting flavor.

            Then there is the interaction of taste and smell. Why is chocolate a smell, rather than a flavor?  This certainly begs more research and more thought, but it just seems to me that any area of investigation that is based, at least in part, upon self-reporting, as taste and smell inevitably are, is an art as much as a science.

            I also learned about the difference between analytic and synthetic combos, which was something I had no idea of before. Analytic means a combo like a chord, where you can determine what the simple strains are that create the harmony. Synthetic doesn’t mean what I thought it meant—which is “fake” like something that emulates fur, but is actually polyester--it means combining stuff so that the strains of the original stuff that were combined disappear into the new synthesis of the combination. One can no longer determine what the original ingredients were. It sounds kind of like alchemy, but it also sounds. . . well, subjective. I mean maybe the scents and the flavors all come together, so that, for me, a new flavor delight has been synthesized. But you still taste hint of carrot, bouquet of chocolate, after-shock of mushroom. That doesn’t necessary mean you enjoy your food any the less (think of the wide range of food associations used by expert wine tasters).

            Lastly (but only lastly for the moment), I found out that, although many people think of  capsaicin as the only way that food can be made hot, they are wrong. Capsaicin is found in peppers, I mean, those peppers that are related to the vegetables in the nightshade family, some of which are not hot—like tomatoes and eggplants—and some of which are—like jalapenos, habaneros, chili peppers, etc.. Things like peppercorns, mustard, horseradish, ginger, alcoholic beverages, mouthwashes, etc., derive their heat from other chemical sources.

            More ruminations, investigations, as well as hands-and-mouth-on taste tests commence in the next post.

HEAT: The First Betrayal

The first time I ever tasted anything hot, it was with my body, not with my mouth. I was eating my favorite fruit at the time, or else I might not have made the connection between pain and heat, between pleasure and betrayal.

It was February, and I could not have been more than three. I was wearing my bedraggled snow jacket, surely a hand-me-down, and in colors and patterns--of blue and grey fleur de lis, I seem to remember--designed not to show the dirt. The fake fur that edged the hood was flat, pilled, and clumpy. Although it was February, it was balmy, one of those rare days in winter when Nature teases you with the promise of Spring, only to turn around next day and blast everything with a wind icy as arctic tundra. Of course, at the time I had youth’s inability to visualize the future, so I did not anticipate the inevitable. I was standing outside on the front stoop, sticky and hot in my jacket, and had undone the zipper, to the extent that my three year old hands were able.

I was eating a naval orange. I wish it were still a favorite, but, alas, the panoply of choice has made my taste more sophisticated and now I have to take supplements in order to replicate the benefits of the orange. I was thrilled by the light resistance my teeth encountered, biting into the membrane, so quickly followed by the machine gun bursts of sweet-sweet-sweet-tart, as the sacs of flavor yielded to the pressure of the bite.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp hot pain in my chest. It started out in one, tiny place, and then radiated out. I yelped, and grabbed the troubled spot, but that seemed to instigate a brand new tiny stab wound with the same spreading heat.

My mother came running out of the house, still holding the rag with which she’d been wiping out the fireplace. “Why are you crying?” she asked, more annoyed by the interruption that my self-dramatizing ways inevitably caused, than concerned about my present predicament.

“I hurt! I hurt!” I yelled, pointing to my half undone zipper. My mother dropped the rag, and pulled the zipper all the way to half mast, and a bee straggled out. “You’ve got bees in your jacket,” my mother said. “They’re going to keep on stinging you unless you take it off.”

The bees, like everything else, had been awakened by the false promise of Spring. Apparently, upon arising, they’d sensed the sugary nectar emanating from my snack, and come flying over. How they’d then managed to trap themselves in my snow suit is not entirely clear.

Several dead bees fell out of snow jacket when my Mom removed it. I wasn’t allergic to bees, so the pain didn’t last too long, but the shock of having been assaulted in the midst of such a pleasurable experience stayed with me.

Six months later my Mom and Dad and I sit down at the expandable maple dining table. The menu is one that I’ve happily anticipated. It’s mashed potatoes, and sausages, from the German butchers. I love the German butcher. When I go to his store with my Mom, he always hands me a slice of homemade bologna, or maybe a tiny cocktail frank. It’s all good, soft and salty and sweet in the mouth, pliant yet chewy between the teeth, tasting like a clean pig, so pink. This day my father has gone to the butcher’s on his way home from work, so I’ve missed out on my porky treat, and look forward even more to the dinner.

I look at my plate; the white fluffy potatoes, with just enough lumpeness to assert their freshness, the plump, brown glistening sausages on the side. My mother has cut the sausage for me, just as she’d been responsible for peeling the orange. I pick up one of the coins of sausage with my fingers and pop it into my mouth. Fire stabs the tip of my tongue and quickly spreads to the roof of my mouth. I scream.

My Dad stands up quickly. He is still wearing his suit and tie, and he looks weary, tense, and alarmed. “What’s wrong with her?” he asks my Mom.

My mom, who has just tasted the food on her own plate, also stands. “What did you buy?” she asks my Dad, a look of disgust on her face.

“What?” he is bewildered. And I am still screaming. The after burn gets worse as I breathe in and out, I feel like it will never go away.

My mom walks purposefully into the kitchen. Returning, she says, “Drink this,” handing me a glass of water. I do, and it seems like cool relief for a few seconds, but then the pain comes back. “Keep drinking,” Mom commands. She looks accusingly at my Dad.

“What?” he asks, guilty, and clueless.

“You bought the HOT,” she says. “You bought the hot sausage. I always buy the sweet.”

“I didn’t know,” says my Dad.

“She’s never had the hot,” says my Mom, and my Dad crumples under the burden of parental guilt. “Oh, honey, I am sooo sorry,” he says, hugging me tightly.

And I cry and cry, no longer sure if I am crying because of my burning mouth, or because of the rush of feelings that overwhelm me—that my father could betray me so thoughtlessly, and at the same time, love me so thoroughly.

The Hotness

I mean, as in food. This will be the start of a series that investigates the various types of hotness that we taste and smell. It will be a combination of diary entries about how and where things taste, as well as (to be researched) scientific info as to why the mouth, nose, and the rest of the apparati that deal with things alimentary react the way they do. Readers' queries and knowledgeable contributions are strongly encouraged.

Here are my first two observations:

Spicy V8 Juice, nothing in the front of the mouth or on the tongue, but a lot of heat right where the epiglottis arches into the throat.

Chinese mustard Immediate heat, the hard palate to the mid palate and mostly up the nose. Disapating quickly.

More coming soon.