"Mike Hough" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> A hispanic friend told me a long time ago that the secret to eating spicy
> food was salt. He was telling me that his family would put salt on a hot
> pepper and just eat it. Don't know for sure but I does seem like eating
> something salty takes the edge off.

It makes some sense: I hear that one of the reasons why you shouldn't try to
counter the burning effect by drinking water is that it actually only sort of
washes the hot stuff out of your meal and spreads it everywhere in your mouth.

So on the other hand, if you eat bread, that will dry up your mouth somewhat, so
the hot stuff can't be "washed out" that easily. So I'd expect that salt helps
in the same way, by binding water.

Post a reply to this message