Pursuant to multiple helpings of kind advice in my what-do-I-do-about-a-cold thread, I decided to sweat the sucker out with really hot spicy food. (Though I could not face Dijon Warlock’s onion cure.)
I, who am usually able to be embarrassed to the point of clear fluid streaming down my face by regular lunch in a Thai restaurant, am apparently immune to heat. (Of the capsaicin kind.)
I took the medium hot salsa out of the fridge, my usual heat level, and adulterated it with copious shakings of Frank’s Red Hot extra hot cayenne pepper sauce. I tried it on chips. Nothing. No perception of heat at all.
I shook a few drops of Frank’s directly onto a chip. Nothing. No glow at all. My nose didn’t even run.
I coated a chip liberally with Frank’s. Nothing. No burn. A faint unpleasant flavor. On returning to the mixed salsa, it tasted sweet. Sweet. Hunh?
Okay. Let’s get sushi from the nabe grocery store. I usually end up using about a third of the wasabi. Used it all. Got a tube of prepared wasabi out of the cupboard and squeezed in a whole lot more. Mixed it with the soy. The soy was opaque with tiny dots of wasabi floating in it. Dipped in a piece. Nothing. Soaked another piece. Nothing. Poured the damn stuff across the sushi. Nothing. My husband could smell it from across the room and my nose didn’t even begin to try to clear out.
Is anybody else immune to capsaicin during an ordinary run-of-the-mill cold? Or have I caught a mutant virus which will end me up on the opposite side of the fight from Spidey and the X-men? Help! Somebody Mace me. See what happens.
I’ve only heard of this once in herbalist literature, and it’s from an old 1600’s monastery manuscript. Apparently, if one is "Making one’s livelihood “seeing for oneself” into the Worlde of Death without appropriate tithing to the Church, will render the Doctor, under duress of Sickness, unable to discern the hot tastes of the Tongue.[cutting out a lot of gibbledy-gibble old school crap] This type of Sickness is thus healed in two ways:
Let the Tongue rest, and partake only in wholesome foods, and avoid spicy condiments for a fortnight, until the body has built up a bedraggled taste for anything different.
Let the Body rest in one of the warmer climates, where the stimulating foods react as a more normalizing force on the body in their natural elements. "
I dunno what this is all about, but two weeks in Belize might do it.
Umm, perhaps I experience this. When I get a cold, I CRAVE the hot and spicy. Hotter than I could normally stand. I can detect the “heat” but it is less urgent, and there is no associated pain. It just makes my throat feel better
I currently have a cold myself so I’m in a similar position. I’m not completely immunue to the capsaicin variety, my present inability to taste anything makes it a whole lot harder to get that nice glow on when it comes to the spicy stuff. Yesteday I bought a nice Japanese noodle soup from Edo Japan, the stuff with the shanghai noodles and bits of beef and broth. I shoved in several generous dollops of that spicy red pepper condiment that provide. Got it home and scarfed it down. There was some heat there that I could detect, but it was more a vague notion of it rather than the full-on nasal-and-ocular-lacrimation it should have produced. So today I bought a chili for lunch from Tim Horton’s. Their chili isn’t merely mild, it gets beat up at recess by blocks of tofu. So I liberally added some nice chili powder at home, then garnished it with a goodly amount of hot chili pepper seeds. (I prefer them to cayenne pepper)
Nothin’. I couldn’t even taste the chili. The entire meal was pure texture with no fire or flavour.
I suspect it has something to do with smell being a considerable part of being able to taste, and with one interfering with the other, spicy stuff just doesn’t register.
I’m tempted to try scarfing down a wad of wasabi. That stuff will clear your sinuses like a micronuclear explosion.
I love this post. Not only do I get to hear about strange adventures for docs in the world of Death (my life!), and hear old tyme vocabulary, but I get to imagine what a bedraggled taste is!!!
Followed by a recommendation for two weeks in Belize.
I swear, I wish the Dope were a quotable authority at my work…
Ah, I’m not alone. Thanks, Mindfield, I feel reassured.
Also, for taking the bullet for the rest of us: I was tempted to try the direct wasabi route, but chickened out. (brrrawk! braaawk!) If you do decide to go into the volcanic lava crater for Science, you will write and let me know the results, won’t you? Please?
I’ll just say now, since it’d mundane and pointless, that I thought the thread title was about cold as in low temperatures, not cold as in a head cold.
My wife is Thai and cooks some ferociously-hot food. When I start complaining that her cooking lacks any heat, we know I’m getting a cold. I always assumed it was just because my nose was getting blocked up.
