I'm in a chili cookoff!

[AccountingDrone]

While I agree with you, it goes beyond even that. There are myriad ways to "zest up" something. While there is nothing inherently wrong with doing so, I take a bit of pride in the fact that I don't use hot sauces or liquid capsacin or liquid smoke in my chili. All of the smoky flavor comes from the way I cook the meat and some of the ingredients I use, such as chipotle peppers, while all of the heat comes from either fresh ingredients, such as onions, garlics, or various chile peppers, or from various dry spices, such as cumin, crushed red pepper, etc. No hot sauces. Ever.

Back to your original example, if you wanted to zest up that dish, you could use Tabasco, or white pepper, or chipotles....and all will bring a different type of heat to the dish. Not all heat tastes the same, after all, something your roommate is clearly not getting.

Understood - though she also smokes and has no tastebuds ... it takes the capsaicin equivalent of a brick to the face for her to think something *has* taste.

And I have determined that other than injira and tej, ethiopian food has pretty much no draw for me. Even the mild is way to burny hot for me =( And I was seriously hoping that it was just the place in Fresno making it mexican-hot for local tstes. I really wanted to like it but even the whitebread place here in Hartford CT was burny hot on the mild setting =(

[Andara Bledin]

I both agree and disagree. I agree that chili should have flavor, but in certain places, heat IS important. Obviously you can't get away with making a wussy chili in a place like Texas, for example. But I have also been in chili cookoffs where they had a specific category for "hot." Which means, of course, you need to bring the heat.

Well, as I mentioned, I'm speaking specifically from an ICS pro show standpoint. There is no "hot" category; you've got chili (red), chili verde, and salsa and often a people's choice (which has to have filler, such as beans, as opposed to competition chili which can't have it, and the best stuff is the previous day's competition entries dumped into a tub and mixed together along with some store-bought stuff with the requisite beans - no joke).

Plus, my home region is southern California, so it's not like I'm talking about delicate northeastern palates.

^-.-^

[Jester]

I dunno about that last part. After all, I've met some pretty wussy SoCalites, and some Northeasterns who could really hang with the heat.

Just saying.