Discussion
For a while, I was under the impression that all spiciness, or burning sensation in food flavoring, would come from capsaicin, the compound that causes it in chili peppers. Then I realized that Sichuan peppers are a quite different kind of heat. Wasabi (horseradish) is different yet again.
How many hot-flavored compounds are there? At least five!
Kalsec: "The Elements of Heat"
@clacke That's why my tongue, brutalized from a lifetime of eating hot chili peppers, still got taken down by a relatively mild amount of fresh horseradish, yes.
It's great fun watching people find out the hard way there's more than one way to traumatize a tongue!
@clacke Adding: and none of these are supposed to (significantly) burn in your stomach and intestines. This may be a medical thing if they do, though mostly avoid them, the medical system is also bad at dealing with vague symptoms like that.
— Violet (please take your anti-histamines and other meds)
@clacke Its easy to tell be the location and duration where and how long it burns.
Chilli spyciness stays in the mouth and stays and stays and stays. And its enhanced by heat.
Wasabi spyciness moves to the nose quickly and vanishes.
@clacke
I get
capsicum - capsaicin
pepper - piperine
ginger - gingerol
szechuan - sanshool
...but... who let mustard be allyl isothiocynanate?
What's their address? I need to write to express my disappointment at their doofiness.
@clacke wait there are people who think sanshool is spicy?
@clacke yes! I knew that horseradish had to be different to peppers somehow! Thanks for sharing this.
@clacke Real wasabi and horseradish are different plants. Sadly, most people in the west are only ever served horseradish with green food coloring, even at expensive, trendy sushi chains. If you didn't see the chef grate the root against a sharkskin pad or microplane, in front of you, it's fairly safe to assume you're getting Amoracia rusticana with green dye, and not Eutrema japonicum. Easily confirmed by exhaling deeply through your nose: if you really wish you hadn't, it's horseradish.
@clacke Sichuan peppers taste like you dumped the whole spice rack in your mouth. You get waves of flavors and the flavor lingers for about 30 minutes. You think it's gone and then you take a drink of something and it reactivates. It's such a bizarre spice.
@clacke I'd also be curious about... cold spiciness? IDK what to call things like peppermint.
@clacke and my beloved garlic has…? And onions have…?
@clacke FYI: The formula for Capsaicin is missing 2 Hydrogen.
i like green chili spicy but i prefer horseradish
I think they supply the starting materials as well as the enzymatic machinery.
I knew the allium stuff was sulfur-based si was surprised to see sulfur in only one of the five things in your lead toot.
@idlestate Oh, you actually looked at the molecules. 😅
Now that you mentioned it, I looked at them too, and that is indeed surprising. These are all so very different in both composition and structure, and yet we perceive the end result as simillar.
Yeah, I am trying to get over a sort of overwhelm at the riotous variety of biologically relevant molecules.
Interesting to see the molecules, but I always separated them by physiological reactions.
Piperine makes me sneeze, but it takes a lot to burn.
Capsaicin burns my mouth and lips.
Ginger helps clear my pharynx and throat.
Mustard goes straight up my nose and clears out my nasal hairs.
Sanshool bites the tip of my tongue.
And whatever is in haberneros can burn on the way out.
@Rozzychan @idlestate @clacke If you have Capsaicin on your fingers, it burns wherever or whatever you touch.
@Dero_10 @Rozzychan @idlestate @clacke A young guy at a BBQ we held came to me in quite significant distress and asked me what to do, because he had urinated after eating a slice of grilled habañero with his fingers. I offered suggestions, and a minute late saw him ask my wife for a glass of milk.
I still think about that poor kid.
@clacke Do they all stimulate endorphins? Which are most effective? (Asking for a friend.)
My theory is that upon ingesting a suitably spicy chile pepper (for me, any over 50,000 SHU) your brain decides you are about to die. The endorphins are a way of easing you into it (like a battlefield medic might).
Same thing happens with extreme sports and anything else with deadly close calls. When you don’t die, your brain releases lots more happy chems. Same part of the brain (if I’m not wrong). In this manner, induced endorphin addiction is born. It’s the rush.