Montemayor: Red hot chili peppers

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The first time I thought I might have a problem was in August 2007 when, my body enveloped in sweat and vision clouded by white, I curled up on my best friend’s girlfriend’s bathroom floor, face pressed against the vent in a desperate attempt for air.

I would later learn that the container’s label advises against using more than a drop of the solution, but not before dousing my plate in at least one to two teaspoons of Chili Addict’s Revenge sauce. My chili addiction had soared to such heights that the warning label likely wouldn’t have halted my intentions anyway.

Photo by James Farmer

Actually, addiction is not the proper term for my affliction — a December Economist article said it was at most a craving — but it is hereditary. As far back as my memory can take me, I can recall my dad dropping habanero peppers into pots of chili or dousing burritos and pork rinds with fiery red sauces. Son would mirror father over the years, as I’d dabble in the intoxicating delights. A Blazin’ Buffalo Wild Wing here, some Tabasco there. But I really started using in high school and have no intentions to stop, only to go a little further and faster.

It feels good to type that sentence, great to reread it and even better to say aloud. See, chili peppers make food simply taste better — helpful for students able to afford only less-than-delectable eats — and also provide an adrenaline kick and an authentic natural high. Drugs are bad, m’kay, and alcohol treats you well one minute and hits you in the gut the next, but capsaicin allows you to let go of the steering wheel (figuratively) whether you’re in public or at home. Capsaicin is the substance found in chili peppers as well as in pepper spray — only one of which is advisable to ingest (your call.) It is responsible for the sweat, tears and elevated heart rates one encounters when consuming chilies. And it also gets you high, quite a few steps above runner’s high and minus the jail sentence of LSD High.

It also seems, through the passage of time, that our generation has acquired a higher tolerance of capsaicin. With chilies in chocolates, jellies, soy sauce and just about every aisle of the grocery store, far more products are kicked up a notch than in any point of history. This explains the dually delicious and dangerous cocktail my buddy’s mom deemed “The Devil’s Spit.” It involves silver tequila, ice, half a lime and half a jalapeno. It can also involve either bragging rights and respect from your pals or the worst day of your life afterward.

In a way, our higher tolerance for these delicacies provides hope that this tolerance is spreading to other arenas: race, sex, class and others. As one generation begets another, previous reservations sometimes lose their luster or even dissipate. And although jalapeno toothpaste or habanero contact solution is not yet a reality, I can indeed tell you I have been to the mountaintop and I have seen it.

— Montemayor is a Mission junior in journalism.

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