the.com/spiciness
a chemical bluff that tricks your tongue into screaming fire when nothing is burning
means the quality of having a hot, pungent flavor that creates a burning or tingling sensation in the mouth.
from From "spice" plus the "-y" and "-ness" suffixes. "Spice" came into English through Old French "espice" from Latin "species," which meant "kind" or "sort" — the same root behind biological "species." In late Latin, "species" drifted toward "goods" and especially the costly aromatic wares of the spice trade, so the word that once meant "a type of thing" narrowed to mean "the expensive flavoring things." The "-ness" ending, an old Germanic state-of-being suffix, then turns the adjective into the abstract quality of being spicy.
- fake heat
- Capsaicin triggers pain receptors, not real temperature change
- birds immune
- Birds feel no burn, so peppers recruit them to spread seeds
- measured in
- Scoville units, scaled by sugar-water dilution tasting
- milk fix
- Casein in dairy washes capsaicin off pain receptors
- natural defense
- Plants evolved heat to deter hungry mammals
carolina reaper — pepper variety at 2.2 million scoville units, world's hottest as of 2013
blair's 16 million reserve — hot sauce made in new jersey at 16 million scoville units
pepper x — experimental pepper created by ed currie in south carolina, over 2.6 million scoville units