People go for the heat because it's fun.

In my refrigerator right now I have a variety of hot sauces ranging from ~100,000SHU (Scoville Heat Units[1]) to 1,500,000SHU.

The 1.5M sauce is way, way, WAY too hot to eat regularly, but it is kindof fun to put it on something and then see if you can get through it or not.

I would put it in the same vein as playing two podcasts at the same time and seeing if you can comprehend them both. It's stupid, but it's just silly to see if you can do it.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

Yeah, I use everything from jalapeno pepper to Carolina Reapers and everything in between at various times. I never make anything that's just plain loaded down with nothing but reapers, but I use a mix of peppers to make things that are really hot but also have a nice flavor. The heat just makes things interesting, but heat for its own sake isn't very interesting to me. You could buy pure, refined Capsaicin, but what's the point. It would taste disgusting, like "Dave's Insanity" which is hot but nasty.

Here's a neat trick I like... combine Scotch Bonnet peppers (or pepper sauce) with the hotter stuff like Ghost Pepper, Trinidad Scorpion or Carolina Reaper. The Scotch Bonnets aren't terribly hot (a little less than Habanero) but taste really good... and then just a little bit of the other stuff to jack the heat up leaves the nice flavor while still making you sweat.

Absolutely this.

This year I have been growing Bhut Jolokia (ghost peppers), Habanero, Scotch Bonnet and Jalapeños both in a small greenhouse and outdoors. I afterwards dehydrate the fruits to prevent mold and so I can store them over the winter.

My favourite blend for DIY chili powder is Scotch Bonnet mixed with Bhut Jolokia for both taste and heat.

> like "Dave's Insanity" which is hot but nasty

I haven't tried it in a decade, but I remember liking the flavor... although maybe that was their salsa?

To be fair, they do have different products in their lineup and I don't remember exactly which one I tried before. It was a long time ago, but I definitely remembering thinking that the flavor was horrible. But it was definitely hot. :-)

Because sometimes you're eating some boring-ass flavorless overcooked chicken breast with no skin and you need something to make it palatable distract you from what appears indistinguishable from tough, stringy cardboard. :)

But really, it's just fun. Enjoying extreme spiciness has nothing to do with enjoying food. Think of it as just a totally separate activity.

And I get that plenty of people don't find tongue-numbing to be fun at all. For all I know, there's a gene for it. But for those of us who do find it fun... it's fun!

> Enjoying extreme spiciness has nothing to do with enjoying food.

I'm convinced there's a significant element of machismo: "Are you tough enough to eat this?"

> Enjoying extreme spiciness has nothing to do with enjoying food.

Thanks, finally an honest answer to this question. This I can get on board with.

Dunno about people in general but I build up a tolerance to chilli surprisingly quickly. It's not about eating super hot things, but about eating things with a nice warmth on a regular basis. Over the course of a month I can go from "jalapenos are hot" to "a forkful of habanero is nice" with little increase in subjective heat, and then if I stop eating spicy food for a couple of weeks it'll reset back to the start.

The general saying is that the extreme heat provoke an adrenaline response and increase endorphins and to some degree dopamine blood levels. I know I like the heat.

I used to call it a 'pepper high'.

some people go for the heat because of the endorphin rush associated with spicy peppers, see Capsaicin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin - which also has analgesic properties.

I've read somewhere that the body releases endorphins because you trick it into thinking its in pain (and for some it is painful) but if you enjoy eating spicy foods this might explain why you'd want to push the envelope.

No pain no gain :)

Physically, the sensation from peppers is pain; it's only not paying if you've lost the ability to sense the heat of chilis entirely.

> I'm not sure why people go for the heat.

> I wish the flavor component had some kind of a quantifiable unit instead of the scoville units that has fueled this craze of feeling the burn.

> Don't fall for this tongue numbing "hottest wings/sauce in the world". Enjoy the flavor :)

I agree, but you need a certain tolerance to heat before you can stomach enough chili to notice the flavour.

To westerners with low heat tolerance, "hot" is literally the only taste they detect.

I've always had high heat tolerance, so I'm able to debate with my wife whether green or red or dry chilies would be better for a particular dish - because to us (and to you) it really makes a difference in flavour.

To them, more or less heat is the flavour, so that is what they tweak.

Apart from the machismo factor of proving your superiority by eating a vegetable without crying ;-)

> I agree, but you need a certain tolerance to heat before you can stomach enough chili to notice the flavour.

Not really, because the flavor (other than heat, which is itself considered one of the basic flavors) comes almost entirely from the body of the pepper, the heat mostly from the seeds and ribs; preparation choices can very much control the relative presence of each in a dish.

> varying the levels of heat/spiciness by adding more of less of it

Not just by adding more or less, the heat is tempered by pairing with ghee or yogurt in the dish, as Capsaicin is fat-soluble. Also of course by pickling peppers in e.g. mustard oil.

Why not both? I thoroughly enjoy the flavor of many of the capsicum chinense variety — Bhut Orange Copenhagen and different kinds of habanero in particular — the burn kicks in after a few seconds, which is fun too, and then the taste returns once the burn wears off. The aftertaste can linger for hours and it's amazing.

Just think of it as sort of a culinary sky dive.

That's not to say that I don't enjoy other tasty, less hot, peppers. E.g. Bishop's Crown aren't particularly hot, but their taste is great and very fresh.

Thank you.

I know Sriracha became meme-levels of popular but I remember the first time I tasted it, thinking: "Oh shit, a hot sauce that actually adds a great taste". Being from a country where the only hot sauce for 20 years was tabasco, and eating vindaloo in a non-authentic Indian restaurant tasted nothing but mouth death. I still never buy "Ass reaper" sauces or anything with similarily ridiculous names, but I love getting as much of different chilis into dishes as I can for taste without ruining it with pain.

In my experience it's the provincials, the types who like to think they're cultural and worldly but aren't, that typically go bananas for the hottest peppers.

When I was in university I noticed it tended to be the guys with inferiority complexes that were the ones to bring up how hot they like their food, and would try to work it into conversation.

Spice/heat is a meme.

I can assure you I eat spicy food when no one is around.

And then post about it on the internet

How convenient that your position entails silence from your opponent.

What is he going to answer? Any reply at all from him/her would immediately be taken as an admission that posting about it online is the reason for doing it in the first place.

When reading stupid comments online, it usually better just to walk away. I try to do it most of the time, but even I get lured into it at times.

This assumes the parent comment is silly. But it brings an interesting point -- besides "I really like it" (which of course happens) there is also a whole "macho"/outdo-the-other culture behind eating spicy foods. People regularly brag about it -- in no ascertain terms, heck, there are even sports-like competitions and shows.

I have no position here; there is no vast anti-pepper conspiracy that is trying to silence you.