Some Like It Hot: Why Chillies Confuse English

While Indian languages & Chinese tend to contain a rich tapestry of words to describe the spectacular range of flavours and textures in food, English is, to put it mildly, lacking. Not surprising given the rather unspectacular nature of, um, English "food".

Nowhere is this lack more evident than the words we use to describe the heat of chillies and the aromatic assault from a Biryani.

[sansiddhjain]

Fantastic, you should make a reel version of this!

[gauthamkulothungan]

I'd be damned if there isn't a vaigai puyal reference for any topic under the sun.

[hegemonys]

Like such short explanations. More content with least amount of time without the unnecessary - intro, outro etc.

[sathi]

So can we then conclude that the Chinese ingeniously have invented a cuisine that was going to be hot spicy but added that weird ash tree berry and toned it down to numbness and continued to mislead us into thinking that the weird ash tree berry was a type of peppercorn by self-styling it as "szechuan pepper" when it is said to be not remotely connected to any peppercorn of any type.

[mihirtrivedi]

I think there is a slight confusion. Triphala in ayurveda means a powder made by grinding three "phals", Amla, Bibhitaki and Haritaki; none of which are actually related to sichuan pepper. I think even the image you have used is of dried Haritaki (Terminalia chebula). Sichuan pepper is called as Teppal or tirphal (might be due to its pod's structure but don't know for sure).

[sanjuktapaul]

Whenever we eat something that is both hot spicy and hot at the same time, the burning sensation gets hugely enhanced. So is this because the same receptor gets triggered multiple times within a short period of time? Fabulous video!

[Dravos]

Great video! Quick factual error: I don't think triphala is sichuan pepper? As far as I can tell, triphala means three fruits and it's an ayurvedic concoction. 'Timur' seems to be the Indian name for sichuan peppercorn!

[JaisimhaAllalghatta]

interestingly confusing english expressions :-) and thanks you sir for adding more masala to that
In our kannada language
hot by temperature is "bisi"
hot by taste is "khara"

[nagavenikj]

Hi sir please make a video about dishwasher (dishwasher washing tablets or powders are safe or not) some people say they are carcinogenic, is it true?

[SupriyaMondal]

Previously I didn't care about this, Now I am more confused after watching the video, LOL

[chefsachin]

The way u have explained Schezwan cuisine is awesome... Thank God you aren't a professional chef which I'm 😅😅

[Amuzic]

I first got the taste of a numbing spice in Bhutan, right out of the plant itself...I called it a LSD of taste perception. I also noticed Bhutanese people eating chilies as vegetables..so, now I know how they do that, they combine them.

[AnkurGupta-ozmw]

Please tell us more about Sichuan cuisine. Would your thyself also know about why add hot-spicy and numb-spicy to food if one will not feel the spiciness.

[ofAwxen]

Sichuan pepper is called TIRphala and not TRIphala. The latter is a combination of three fuits in Ayurveda

[artus]

Please do a video on "precision fermentation", the next frontier in biotechnology, to produce our food using this technology. It is similar to the "lab grown meat" initiative that started some years ago

[VeBe]

The numbing spicy when eating might be fine, but the next day morning might be troublesome !

[zaphbrox]

I'm curious to know ... if the heat sensation is just due to capsaicin, why do some chilli peppers "hit" on the lips, while others "hit" on the tongue, inner cheek, throat or oesophagus while others burn the rectum?

[AnuAnu-qohf]

Could i request you to talk about plastic containers for packing food? It's chemical reaction with food and how much can our body take it..

[CjArin]

What's the point of eating that dish if I can't feel the burn?!

[bhumit]

English is funny language
In India we say
Either garam ( hot ) hain or tikha ( spicy ) hain.