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After our end of year party for badminton on Wednesday, I hung around a bit because there were tons of leftovers and I had no lunches prepared at my place. There was not much food I really wanted to take, since I was no fan of fried chicken, nor was I really eager to take the 'jerk chicken'.
That left the 'mutton' rolls and rice that also came with the jerk chicken. I had not had any of the 'Jamaican food', but I asked around and everyone I asked told me that the rice was not spicy at all. I was also told that the chicken was not spicy either, but I had my doubts. In any case, I walked off with enough rice and mutton rolls to last two meals.
Well, I had the first meal on Thursday and things were okay. The rice tasted a little bland, but I sort of expected it. After a couple of spoonfuls, I noticed a slight burning at the back of my throat. Then my tongue started to feel hot as well. The rice was spicy?!? Oh, and it was one of those slow build up spices that you do not notice until you have already consumed a large morsel of food, so by the time I noticed the heat, it was much too late for me to stop, and I had no other food so I pressed on.
I did refill my mug with water and got some serviettes since my nose really started to run. I got halfway through the rice, and most of the way through my water before I tried the mutton roll. The roll was quite tasty, until I felt the heat level spike. The mutton rolls were spicy! Curses! These people have no taste buds! *shakes fist*
It took me a while, a lot of water, and a lot of used serviettes, but I did manage to finish the meal. The worst feeling I guess was realizing that my second meal was going to be worse, since I had two mutton rolls instead of one, and the rolls were much more spicy than the rice! Normally, whenever I eat spicy food, I try to have some (lactose free) milk on hand to soothe the heat. If that was not possible, white rice was a possible buffer for the sting, but in this case, the rice itself was supplying some of the spiciness so I had very little recourse.
I did eat the second meal on Friday after much pain and suffering.
MJNL will be proud. (Of course, I am pretty sure I will have many more spicy meals next year..)
*cue ominous music*
Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 14:09:18 (UTC)
<sigh> Water is useless! To ease the pain of spicy food you have to drink something that will remove the capsaicin from the receptor. Milk is the classic drink. Not sure if soya milk will work but it should in theory (it's the protein in the drink that binds to the capsaicin). --- HKL
Grinning Reaper
Monday, December 17, 2007 at 04:29:59 (UTC)
True, but it does give a temporary respite to the heat. Considering that I had nothing else to ease the pain, it was at least something I could do. (Besides, drinking water is good for you, especially since I was blowing a lot of it out of my nose.)
I did actually have some soya milk, and it did seem to help.
QYV