When peppers can be your friends (Sept. 23)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
My friends of Hispanic heritage love to load peppers on just about every dish they prepare. And I’m not talking about those wussy peppers like you get in the little green cans, the ones you can stir into scrambled eggs and still eat them without having to undergo a tongue transplant. I’m talking about the peppers that look like they mean business, the ones you can buy from bins at the Bridge Store, that look like they will burn through the bottom of the plastic bag before you get them to the check stand.
Those are the ones I’m talking about. The ones that set your mouth ablaze, the ones that make your lips feel like you took a big drag on the lighted end of a blow torch.
Yes, those peppers. I go out of my way not to eat them, although once in awhile, I’ll accidentally scoop up a chip full of salsa that is so hot it also functions as stove cleaner in the restaurant’s kitchen. When that happens, I immediately signal the server and ask her to bring me a block of ice so I can put my tongue on it.
As you may have guessed by now, I don’t eat a lot of those peppers because I am an old Gringo whose ancestors came from a place where mashed potatoes were considered really, really spicy food, especially with a little brown gravy on them.
But I might change my mind about peppers, especially if I happen to get a pain in my chest when I am sitting at a table watching others eat salsa that would rip my tongue out and stomp on it.
Hot peppers, says The Wall Street Journal, might help you survive a heart attack. Just rub the hot stuff in them — capsaicin — on your chest and abdomen, and if you are having a heart attack, it may help you survive.
Of course, if you have a little rash on your chest, or a little cut, and you get the peppers on it — you may prefer the heart attack.
