Subject: Re: "Cooling" peppers with vinegar (was: Re: Antacid herbs)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 02:48:05 EST

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Neal Reid)
writes:
>In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Jonathan E.
Quist) writes:
>|> So, if I found that I'd added too much hot peppers,
>|> I'd add a bit of vinegar.  The pepper flavor is still there, but the
>|> physical effects are reduced.  The vinegar also adds a pleasant tang to
>|> the chilli, but that's just a bonus.
>|> 
>|> Anyone know the physical basis for this?
>
>My understanding is that the 'heat' in the peppers comes from an alkali.
>Adding vinegar (an acid) neutralizes it somewhat.  Hence the use of
>yogurt (lactic acid) so common with east Indian cooking or sour cream
>with Mexican etc

    Vinegar breaks down capsaicin, the active "hot" ingredient in hot 
peppers. I'm not sure, but I don't believe it's as simple as an acid
neutralizing an alkali. 
    Capsaicin is oil-soluble, not water-soluble, so oil-based liquids and
foods (like dairy products) are good at cooling the hot. If you have just
eaten something that's too hot for you, drinking water doesn't help much,
because the oil-soluble capsaicin isn't washed away by the water very much.
Drinking milk, OTOH, helps cleanse your mouth of the "hot" much better.

James henley adds:

My wife, who is Chinese, says that they always use hot tea to soothe a
burning mouth.  As you said, they say that cold water doesn't help.
I have always relied on milk to put out the flames, but in most provinces
of China, dairy products are not part of their diet.  (there are some
exceptions though)

She worked at an orphanage that had a Szechuan chef.  I ate there one
time, and they used cayenne peppers as _vegetables_ instead of as 
seasoning.

They also drink hot tea to offset the effects of eating too much fat.
I'm not sure if they mean that it help avoid indigestion, or if it actually
prevents other ill effects of eating too much fat.  They way they put it
is that the tea "eats" the fat.  There is a _myth_ that the Chinese don't
eat much fat.  Not true.

--- a few comments based on experience.

Hot water (or tea) does stop the pain from a chili overdose. A Sri Lankan
taught me this during one memorable meal. The water ("heat as if for tea," he
told the waiter) lifts the chili oils off the tongue and washes them away.

I have also been told by Chinese friends that certain kinds of teas such as
Pu-Er (I'm sure I've got the spelling wrong) are better for refreshing the
system after too much fat or greasy dim sum. I have ordered Pu-Er tea - there
is a nominally higher charge for it - but can't say that I've noticed any
difference. Of course, simply drinking a lot of tea, fills the belly, reduces
the appetite and consequently the amount of fatty food. 
- BJL

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Fisher)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 06:43:52 GMT

One important point to bear in mind about hot peppers: the duration
of the burn is fairly constant, *even after the capsaicin is no
longer in contact with your skin.*  It's a fairly consistent six
minutes from initial contact to cessation of burning, at least
assuming that you wash off the pepper juice.

This is in fact why none of these remedies really does anything --
once you bite into the habanero, it's *there* in your nerves till
360 seconds go by.  If you do nothing at all, most of the capsaicin
in that first bite will get washed off the surface of your mouth
by salivation -- which, along with sweating, is something that the
presence of capsaicin increases.  Eating peppers really does make your
mouth water more, along with your forehead; it also increases the
rate of peristalsis.  The problem is when you get capsaicin somewhere
other than your mouth.  If you've been peeling raw or roasted chiles,
be careful not to touch your face -- my forehead was a little warm
tonight after brushing my hair back out of my eyes while peeling
some very hot Fresnos from my garden.

You can take some solace in all this agony from the knowledge that
capsaicin, for all its pangs, is really a big fake -- it's not doing
you any harm.  Capsaicin stimulates the nerve endings, making them
send a false message indicating that you're on fire, but there is
no damage being done.  Pure capsaicin doesn't even redden the skin.

The best thing to do for a pepper burn, paradoxically, is eat more
peppers.  On being told (even if incorrectly) that your body is on
fire, your brain will produce endorphins, natural pain-killers, which
turn off the fire to some extent.  This, some people suspect, is the
key to why certain individuals (who, me?) enjoy very hot peppers,
because they have become conditioned to the endorphin release shortly
after eating them.

Peppers, by the way, are roughly twice as high in vitamin C as citrus
fruit, and Albert Szent-Gyorgi, the discoverer of vitamin C, did much
of his research with his wife's dish of paprika chicken.

--Scott "The garden count is now 27 cultivars, 4 species and 81 plants" Fisher

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