My mother-in-law often would send restaurant meals back because they weren’t hot enough. The waiter would come back wearing an asbestos glove, and she’d say, “I guess it’s OK.” People to whom I serve coffee sometimes lament that it’s not hot enough. I taste it, and my lips blister. I see people put coffee cups straight from the brewer into the microwave for 45 seconds sometimes.
I just don’t get it. Anyone who likes super-hot food, what is the draw? My two problems are that I can’t taste food if it’s too hot - it just doesn’t have the same flavor as food at, say, 140 degrees, and that I can’t even put the utensil in my mouth for ten minutes sometimes, the way restaurants make the food so very hot.
I think you are confusing spicy with temperature.
Hot (temp) I once worked with a guy that would go to the lunch truck and pour a cup of boiling coffee (you could hear it boiling) down it, then pour another and pay for it. I can’t do that.
Your story about your mother-in-law can read as if it is about spicy, not temperature - but you clearly mean it about temp. I didn’t quite get that at first…
As for the ability to tolerate hot temps - yeah, I don’t get it either. It seems like it would be a matter of science, i.e., the mouth can only tolerate temperatures up to X degrees, then damage occurs. But clearly, some like it hot…
You know, I’ve never actually seen that behavior, though. I do get mightily annoyed by fast food coffee for that reason. Great, I have 15 minutes to scarf down breakfast, but the coffee’s at the temperature of molten lava…so I don’t get caffeine, unless I can hose it down with this fire extinguisher first…
My dad always drank black coffee as soon as he poured it; I never saw him actually drink directly from the percolator, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
At the time of the McDonalds old lady burned-crotch lawsuit, that restaurant was serving their coffee amazingly hot, because a lot of people liked it that way. I like to have the coffee be good and hot when I pour it, so I can enjoy the aroma for a while as it cools to drinking temperature.
My Grandmother is like this with coffee as well. She still uses a stove top percolater because the automatic drip pots don’t make it hot enough for her. She pours it literally boiling into the cup and drinks it on the spot. I wince just watching her.
I can’t really offer any insight into why but I have a theory…
My husband will sometimes microwave his dinner plate to get the food hotter. There are two ladies I’ve had occasion to eat lunch with who’ve sent food back, particularly soup to be heated more. The one thing all three of them have in common is that all three of them drink coffee, and drink it black. I wonder if there’s a “temperature tolerance” that builds up.
I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum. A little hotter than room temperature is hot enough for me where most foods are concerned. My uncle and I both stir ice cubes into our tea, and let food cool off quite a bit before digging in. Neither of us drinks coffee.
While I cannot eat spicy food, I like my hot food to be hot. I drink coffee by nuking it, taking a couple of sips, working some, nukine it, taking a couple of sips, etc. etc. I can make 12 oz of coffee last all morning.
I like my food hot, but not painfully hot. I don’t even eat cold sandwiches if there’s another alternative availble. My husband’s family has big family get togethers with a dinner quite often. His mother can’t get a dinner on the table all at the same time and compound that with trying to get everyone together at the same time to start the meal and nothing is ever hot. I’m lucky if my food is still warm. It used to drive me crazy. I’ve learned to deal with it over the years, but it doesn’t make the room temperature mashed potatoes any less nasty.
Maybe they do build up some sort of tough skin to combat the heat. I’d imagine training with hot coffee and pot pies would yield great results for an ambitious fire eater.
My daughter is the extreme opposite. If I make her hot chocolate, she waits a loong time, then tries a sip. At this point it is barely warm, but she will still add an ice cube.
I’m actually the opposite too. People always ask why I don’t drink coffee or tea, or why I am never jonesin’ for soup.
I tell them because I don’t like hot food (nor do I like the taste of coffee, but that’s besides the point). I really do not enjoy eating food that is too hot. Not spicy, in this case - tempature-wise. When I make soup from a can, I just put in some hot tap water and it’s done.
I only need my food to be temperature hot, sometimes. If I’m being served Asian dishes that are in fact, supposed to be served hot (you know, not cold soba or something), then I want them steaming hot. Same with Mexican, and also mashed potatos. But almost anything else I’ll eat at pretty much any temperature.
Pizza needs to either be just on the safe side of tongue-scalding, or cold, though.
