Is Your Food Spicy Enough?

by Ulisses Sanchez, Our Tiempo

If you can go to a restaurant and park your car in the valet area while playing Josh Groban and greet the Latino valet guy in broken Spanish, you might feel like your Latin cred is still solid. But have you ever felt you’re “not Latino enough” when you order your food that comes with some form chile and you say something like “but no jalapeño please” or “but instead of salsa roja, can I get it with salsa verde?” Are Flamin’ Hot Cheetos too flamin’ for you? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

I remember a few years ago, I went to Los Tres Cochinitos, a local Mexican food hot spot in Lincoln Heights, to order lunch. A stocky, older man stood behind the counter with a serious demeanor, almost resembling the Mexican version of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. I ordered their carne asada burrito (which is still one of my favorite dishes there!) just the way I like it – with rice, beans, no onions and salsa verde. When I mentioned to the cook that I wanted it with salsa verde, he gave me an evil look of disappointment and replied “Pero que no eres Latino?!” I was just waiting for him to yell at me saying “No burrito for you!”

I’ve heard many different stories as to why people don’t like anything spicy on their food. From delicate taste buds, saying that it drowns out the flavor of the food or even having some dramatic story about a bad experience with chile (cough, cough… that’s me…), we all have different reasons why we prefer not to eat spicy food or to opt for the mild chile and you shouldn’t feel bad for it.

When I was four years old, I accidentally ate one of my mom’s chile de arbol chiles by accident. Needless to say, I was a little chillón for hours until my mom was able to calm me down. Fast forward a few years and I really didn’t start eating any chile until my senior year of high school. I started with salsa verde, knowing that it wasn’t too spicy and it would be a good starting point. These days I’m not much of a fan of spicy food; but I try to give it a little kick, from time to time. For the record, I do eat Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and if you haven’t already, you need to try out the Tapatio Doritos!

Growing up in a house where chile was served with almost every meal, you could’ve expected my taste buds to adapt to it, regardless of my childhood incident with chile. So I guess one can assume that if you grow up in a household where chile isn’t a key ingredient in many of your meals, you’re likely not to going to be a huge fan of chile as an adult.

Reflecting back on why I didn’t eat chile when I was growing up, I have to admit that I would probably be a huge fan of spicy food had I took my parents’ offer for chile. It’s something that I hugely regret now, because everybody would tell me that my mom would make the best chile from her homegrown chiles and now that I do enjoy some spice in my meals, she’s no longer with us. Talk about a major regret.

So now when I go out to eat, while I’m still a bit cautious in adding chile to my meals, I make sure to give it a fighting chance because I know that I’m missing out on something that I could actually enjoy but don’t out of fear. Regardless of your reasons for not eating chile or anything spicy, you shouldn’t feel any less Latino because of it. Not all of our kitchens looked the same growing up and probably still don’t as adults, so therefore our taste buds shouldn’t be the same either.

If something is going down in Los Angeles, chances are that Ulisses is knows about it. His extensive network of friends in the politics and entertainment can have him in any part of LA on any given night. From happy hours to political mixers, from concerts to taquerias, he’ll always point you in the right direction. You can follow him on Twitter @the_uliverse