Long ago my husband and I had a weird experience. We were eating gado-gado, an Indonesian dish with a spicy peanut sauce, at a little vegetarian restaurant. We couldn't finish it. I found it inedibly spicy, and he found it inedibly peanutty. I was fine with the peanut level, and he didn't think it was even remotely hot. But we still couldn't finish it.
At the time, I thought, "Oh, Elwood has a better spice tolerance than I do." This is, however, objectively untrue. I love spicy food; I eat it regularly. When we order Indian food as a family, we all like it hot -- and we all generally agree about mild vs. medium vs. hot vs. no-thank-you-too-much. I would say that in recent years I like my food hotter than Elwood does.
But last night we had another weird spice incident. It was just going to be three of us at home for dinner: Marie was working and Pete was out with friends. We ordered Chinese takeout, including Szechuan beef. I found it surprisingly spicy -- spicy as in I needed a glass of water right at hand, and left some of it on my plate because I wasn't enjoying it. For Elwood it didn't even register as hot, and Pete had the same reaction to it this morning.
This is weird, right? A local Indian restaurant uses a spicy scale that ranges up to 6. For me this dish was a 6; for Pete and Elwood it was a 1. It's the very same thing that happened back in 1993 with the gado-gado, the day after we all ate chana masala together for dinner and agreed that it was medium-hot. I do not understand this. Do you?
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