Hi, everyone and welcome back. It is getting hotter and hotter every day. I don't know about you, but usually during the height of summer, I don't seem to have much of an appetite. The only thing that really gets my appetite going, and you can guess is spicy food.

Truth be told, I am such a fanatic of everything spicy. If I have to stay in another country for a longer period of time, the first thing I will need to do is go to a supermarket and find their best hot sauce.

I'm sure many of you like me also find that spicy sensation just irresistible. And lately our number one chili sauce has made the headlines. So I thought in today's episode it would be interesting for us to explore that spicy sensation we are so addicted to.

To start this topic, let us look at the word "hot". Now I'm sure a lot of you would say that's very easy in English. You just say spicy. But if you look at the word spice, it actually doesn't necessarily mean things that are spicy.

This is the type of thing that helps add flavor to food. For example, cumin is a very popular spice, but it's not spicy.

In English, it's the same and you use the word spice. For example, variety is the spice of life. You may also use spice as a verb, you can spice things up. This means to make things more exciting, more stimulating and more interesting.

But be careful when you try to use spice things up because in some contexts, it does have a sexual undertone. For example, to spice things up in the bedroom. Now just before your mind starts to get into another territory, let's get back to food.

So what kind of words and expressions would you use to describe spicy food？Actually to be more precise, you can describe that feeling as a burning sensation. It's almost like your tongue is burning or a biting sensation, or even fiery taste, tastes like fire.

And when we are getting into the specific food or ingredients that give that fiery taste or biting sensation, the first thing that comes to your mind must be chili. But then there comes to question, is it pepper？Or is it chilli？

There are so many explanations out there and they can get very complex. But to make it very simple, pepper can be a more general term. It can be spicy, it can be not spicy at all. But chilli is usually quite spicy.

So all these chilli that we use in our day to day cooking, we have those which are not spicy at all, like bell pepper, sweet pepper or capsicum. The rest of them pretty much you can use the word chilli to explain.

And in terms of seasoning, in English speaking recipe, you tend to see three different powders. You have paprika, which is usually darker in color, but is not necessarily spicy. Paprika, chili powder and cayenne pepper. Cayenne pepper is usually spicier than normal chili powder.

But you can also use the word hot sauce to talk about any sauce that gives you that burning sensation.

So why did humans start to eat chillies？One important thing to keep in mind is that chilies can repel microbes. And this was very important in the days before medicine and refrigeration, especially in hot areas, in tropical areas, people were vulnerable to bacteria that could harm them, and chillies can kill or inhibit 75% of such pathogens.

If you look at world food culture, this really explains that most of the spicy cuisines tend to be in hotter areas like Indian food, Thai food, Mexican food, Caribbean food, or African food. And this is also true in China.

Another fun fact is that a lot of people think that spicy is a flavor like sweet or sour, but it's actually not. The reason why we get that burning sensation, it's not because of the taste, but it's because the specific element in chillies called capsaicin. This binds to the pain receptors on the tongue.

So you get that pain that biting sensation that we call spicy. And our brain thinks something is actually burning us. So it tries to call the body down by sweating, salivating and producing mucus.

I think one thing that would always puzzle people who don't eat any spicy things is that why do some of us love that burning sensation so much, especially when it is biting, it is fiery, and sometimes it's even painful.

Well, one explanation is a theory called benign masochism. It refers to situation in which humans are able to enjoy experiences that are initially negative, like the burn of a chili pepper or the experience of writing a roller coaster, and by repeatedly eating spicy food and recognizing that it won't actually harm you, even though it hurts, we are able to turn that burning sensation into a positive experience.

This is a process called hedonic reversal. I truly believe that sensation can be addictive.

After explaining all these useful expressions and fun facts about chillies, I think a lot of you would be interested in knowing what are the hottest chilies in the world.

Now I know if you're from the spicy capitals of China like Sichuan or Hunan, you might think your chillies are definitely the hottest in the world. But that is actually not the case.

What makes chillies hot and spicy？It's something called capsaicin. The heat is measured in something called SHU or Scoville Heat Unit, so the higher the SHU reading is, the spicer it it. Let's start with some of the chillies that you find in China.

Things we do use in day to day cooking, especially Sichuan cooking things, that is roughly 40, 000 SHU. Sichuan seven star pepper 60, 000，yellow lantern chili, 170, 000, and according to my research.

I personally have never had it. This has an SHU of one million.

But unfortunately, this particular chilli from Yunnan, it's not even among the Top 10 in the world. Now if you look at the ranking of some of the world's hottest chilies, many of them got scary names.

For instance, the really famous or notorious Indian Ghost Pepper. This has an SHU reading of 1. 58 million.

The Top 10 list keeps changing, partially because over the years people have been actively trying to create or grow even hotter chillies.

For instance, another frequent appearance among the Top 10 list, is a chilli called Naga Viper from England. And this has been created by cross breeding three of the spacious chilies in the world.

And the current champion in the list is called Carolina Reaper from the United States, which has a whopping 2. 2 million SHU reading.

If you are interested, go on any video streaming sites you will find dare devils, Vloggers, trying to document themselves trying out these really really hot really scary chilies.

For me, personally, one of my particularly painful experience eating spicy food was one time I tried some very spicy Indian food, the minute I bit into it, my tongue felt like it had been burnt by fire. And then everything went dark for a second. I'm not even exaggerating, that evening I had to drink so much cold milk. By the way, that is the secret remedy. If you are trying to recover from an extremely spicy food, drink cold milk.

So that wraps up today's episode, if you are also a fellow fanatic of spicy food, if you have anything interesting to share about eating spicy things, don't hesitate to leave us a comment.

I'll see you next time. Bye.

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