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While I’m quite blunt about the many negative aspects of Mexican culture I do admit to loving their food. I’ve traveled a great deal and have sampled a lot of national dishes and can honestly say that Mexican food is the absolute best on the planet. If you go to a Mexican restaurant in other countries you just don’t get the authentic taste because all the right ingredients are only available in Mexico; a vast variety of cheeses, tortillas hot and fresh from the neighborhood tortillería, the terrific sauces including the famous pico de gallo and the chilis. In Mexico the important and most tasty ingredients are obtained fresh and have a very distinct taste from what you find in say, Taco Bell or any other so-called Mexican restaurant in other countries.

I now live in the Philippines where the food is pretty bland for my taste. While they do have some chilis here they usually appear in a spicy vinegar, as a condiment rather than in sauces and dishes themselves. In Mexico chili is an integral part of the cuisine while here it’s a mere add-on heavily diluted by vinegar which, to my taste, does nothing for my food. For Filipinos vinegar is the only condiment seen on their tables, while Mexicans never use vinegar. The infamous Tabasco Sauce sold in the US, is nothing more than some hot chilis in vinegar and while many Americans say they love it and assume it’s of Mexican origin, it is not. Well, the chilis may be from Mexico (Tabasco is the name of one of Mexico’s states) but that American hot sauce is purely American. Mexicans wrinkle their noses at any suggestion that it would be similar to anything served in their country.

I’ve been craving Mexican food lately and so got some chili in the local market and allowed them to dry in the sun, in the way Mexicans do sometimes. My plan was to grind up the dried chili and make some Mexican-style tomato sauce to add to my food. When they were dry I opened the pods to access the seeds. Mexican cooks are careful not to allow the chili seeds and pulp to touch any part of their skin, other than the fingers. You don’t want to touch any part of your body while that capsaisin is on your hands. For some reason the hot ingredient does not affect the thicker skin of our fingers, the fingerprint sides, but if it touches any other skin or mucous membrane you’ll be very sorry indeed.

I got careless and was very sorry indeed. I thought I was being careful but must have unconsciously touched my cheek during the process. I’d nearly finished opening all the dried pods and I began to feel a slight tingling on my cheek and gradually it became more intense. I then realized I’d been incautious and ran to the shower to get that stuff off of me. I turned on the shower at full blast and soaped up my face to get the hot stuff off as quickly as possible. I used a scrub pad as well to make sure I was getting it but instead of removing it I was spreading it. In spite of being diluted by soap and continually running water the chili spread to my forehead and even my eyeball and it stung like hell! Jaysus!

That’s pretty scary to have your eyeball stinging from hot chili and there’s nothing you can do about it. I realized the shower was not a good solution and instead dried off my face, this time pat drying and not rubbing, then went to lie down and wait for the pain to diminish. There is no antidote for that, nothing that will relieve the pain, except for time. Cripes! The pain was so bad I thought I was going to be blinded! Finally after about 15 minutes the worst was over and I went back to finishing my hot sauce. This time being much more careful about what I was doing.

It’s amazing that we can’t wash that off of our skin, and any attempt to do so only spreads the magic ingredient. I told this story to an American friend who has a Mexican wife. He said he had a similar experience; when they were first married his wife had been handling chili in the kitchen when he arrived home from work. As a newlywed he’d been expecting to have some fun immediately and began caressing his wife. She got wired up too and after washing her hands they went to the bedroom, where she began caressing his groin area. My friend said as the tingling sensation slowly began he thought to himself, “Hey, this really feels good!” but it didn’t take long before the pleasurable sensation turned to outright pain and he had to run to the bath. But the shower only spread it around, as in my case, and he soon had his entire abdomen and thighs stinging as well.

So, folks, enjoy your hot spicy foods, but be very careful how you handle the ingredients, eh! That chili is some wicked stuff!