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Quotations about Spicy Food,
Peppers, Hot Sauces & Salsa
Hot? Those things? They are for children. For nursing children. And furias are for growing boys. They'll wake you up all right, and put fire in your blood. But listen, my friend, I'm a hot-pepper man. And when I say hot-pepper man, I mean hot-pepper man. ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise" [A little altered. Cordell Hoyle speaking.
Pleasure from pain is uniquely human... Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce. ~Paul Bloom, "Foodies," How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, 2010
For the true culinary thrill seeker, habaneros are the king of sting. ~“The Gardener’s Year: May,” Rodale’s Gardener to Gardener: Seed-Starting Primer & Almanac, Vicki Mattern, editor, 2001
The U.S. palate now understands spicy. ~Lynn Dornblaser, quoted in "Food Trends," White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, January 2006
They have hot peppers in Louisiana. Little red devils with fire in their skin and hell in their seeds. ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise"
This is the kind of plant that endears itself to a teenage boy. These weren't vegetables, they were weapons! And it was legal to grow them. ~James Gorman, "A Perk of Our Evolution: Pleasure in Pain of Chilies," New York Times, 2010 [of habaneros, a.k.a. congo peppers
Ghost peppers are sneaky mothers. There is a fifteen- or twenty-second delay before the burn kicks in — that's why they are called ghosts. ~Eddie Hernandez, "My Mex-American Kitchen: Cranking Up the Heat," Turnip Greens & Tortillas: A Mexican Chef Spices Up the Southern Kitchen, 2018
Accept all kinds of people, even those that use mild sauce. ~TijuanaFlats.com
Mention chili outside the Southwest and conjure up a painfully familiar comedy: an unsuspecting tourist bites into a murderous jalapeño concoction. His ears light up. And, as he strangles, hilarity convulses the ghouls who laid the trap. ~Lee Coe, "Chili Pepper: The Spice that Ate the East," in Arizona Highways, 1983, arizonahighways.com
No doubt there's been a "global warming" of culinary palates in the United States, in which foods and condiments are getting hotter and hotter. ~Adrian Miller, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, 2013
But they do not eat hot peppers in the United States. Here and there, yes. But hot peppers there are weak peppers here. ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise" [Village of Feliz, Tabasco, México, "nine hundred miles from nowhere"
We don't like spicy food. Once we found red fang-shaped fruit among the cargo of a shipwreck. We ate it and regretted it loud and long! ~Isuna Hasekura, Spice & Wolf, Vol. 1, 2006, translated by Paul Starr
What is not to love about the hot and spicy? There is something alluring in the thrill of the spicy buzz, the zing that travels up and down your tongue, the tingling of the tastebuds when you eat hot and spicy food. ~Mike Hultquist & Patty Hultquist, chilipeppermadness.com, 2015
There were green infernos and green terrors, yellow jackets and yellow furies, red torrids and red frenzies. ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise"
As of today, the hottest chile on record is the Carolina Reaper. I have grown it as well, and let me tell you, if you bite into one, you need to start praying before you start eating. They take your breath away. You will be on fire, sweating, with tears running down your face. ~Eddie Hernandez, "My Mex-American Kitchen: Cranking Up the Heat," Turnip Greens & Tortillas: A Mexican Chef Spices Up the Southern Kitchen, 2018
Spicy food lovers are pyro-gourmaniacs. ~Author unknown, c. 2006
Juliet England... runs the Santa Cruz Chili & Spice Company, a venerable family chili pepper factory, just down the road from San José de Tumacacori. It is hard to say which is the more irresistible siren — the haunting remains of the old Spanish mission or the chili showroom, the very aroma of which would glow in the dark. Here is the full orchestra of Mexican seasonings and sauces, and a few of their Anglo relations: cayenne pepper, Anaheim peppers, cartillas peppers, jalapeño peppers, cumin, oregano, red salsa, green salsa, jalapeño jelly, jalapeño mustard, and Mrs. Renfro's Hot Chow Chow. It is the best whiff in Arizona. ~Lawrence W. Cheek, "Mexican Cooking," in Arizona Highways, August 1986, arizonahighways.com
In New Mexico the green chile is more than a simple ingredient — it is a necessity... Everyone I've encountered in Albuquerque seems to have them in bulk stored in their freezer as if an impending green chile shortage is coming... I heard there is talk of reshooting all the episodes of Breaking Bad, but instead of meth Walter and Jesse sell green chiles. ~Jim Gaffigan, "Mexican Foodland," Food: A Love Story, 2014
Habaneros are pure heat. They are a small, orange lantern-shaped chile that should be handled with respect, if not downright suspicion. ~Mary Sue Milliken, Susan Feniger, & Helene Siegel, Mesa Mexicana: Bold Flavors from the Border, Coastal Mexico, and Beyond, 1994
I was looking forward to some real Capsicums, fresh from the bush and oozing their pungent piperine. ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise" [a little altered
Not many consumer products resonate through my childhood memories as strongly as Tabasco, that smoky, tangy red fireball packed into a tiny clear bottle. ~Denver Nicks, Hot Sauce Nation: America's Burning Obsession, 2017
I looooove hot sauce! I like spicy hot sauce! I like flaming hot sauce! I like screamin' hot sauce!... Hot Sauce is the best invention since cell phones, glitter, and tutus! Hot sauce is better than an all-night sleepover with Santa! ~Corina J Patterson, Hot Sauce on my Cereal, 2013
I'm sorry, was this chicken seasoned with molten lava? ~Psych, "Bollywood Homicide," 2009, written by Steve Franks & Anupam Nigam [S4, E6, Shawn Spencer]
You know you're an Arizona native, when your lungs don't deflate when you bite a jalapeño pepper. ~Cappy Kirby, quoted in You Know You're an Arizona Native, When…, compiled by Don Dedera, 1993
We run crazy after things that are like the red peppers, — pretty outside, but hot as fire when we get to playing with them. Our lesson is right hard. But a punishment sin brings with it is remembered longer than a hundred warnings. God doesn't push us towards hot peppers — He lets us alone, but we are mighty apt to run to Him after we've got a fair taste. ~Marion Harland (Mary Virginia Terhune), Alone, 1857 [a little altered
My lips stung and the lining of my mouth was hot with quick and then prickling stings. I had taken two red frenzies, and without sweat, without the hard blowing of the breath. Then a red torrid. My lips had hardened to the sting, but my mouth was ridging inside. Then the tingle was in my throat and deep down. Now a greenish yellow fury. I felt the sweat ooze out on the back of my neck, down under my collar. I was hurting, the numbing burn of piperine, a crystalline alkaloid that tightens the tissues like wet rawhide. Each minute got longer. Next, a green buster. The heat seared down to my belly. ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise" [a little altered
According to my mother, there pretty much wasn’t anything I wouldn’t eat as a child. Not just try, but eat... I was even inclined to dig into stuff she about which she expressed open disgust — lobster and other shellfish, and cheap Chinese food with pepper so hot it made your gums feel like a medieval dentist had been at them. ~Alice Domurat Dreger, "Falling In Love with Calvin Trillin's Wife," AliceDreger.com, 2012
Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, or any other condiment which destroys the original flavor of the dish. ~Henry Miller (1891–1980)
We have become a nation obsessed with hot sauce. ~Denver Nicks, Hot Sauce Nation: America's Burning Obsession, 2017
The MOSQUITO... bites the 1st time as sharp and natural as red pepper does. ~Josh Billings
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeños. What you do today might burn your butt tomorrow. ~Larry the Cable Guy, unverified
What Your Hot Sauce Says About You:
• Scotch bonnet sauce – You used to lick batteries in your youth; minus the past tense
• Habanero pepper – You have a PhD in flaming swords
• Rocoto pepper – Xena, Warrior Princess uses hot sauce!? Nice
• Trinidad scorpion sauce – As you stand on two different motorcycles soaring over a chasm, the memory of an old flame burns within
~Steve Patrick Adams, excerpted from a comic made for Bite.ca, 2014
I was warm inside from the beer and peppers, and felt chipper for the first time in weeks... ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise"
Tucson had opened my eyes to the world and given me... a taste for the sensory extravagance of red hot chiles and five-alarm sunsets. ~Barbara Kingsolver, "Called Home," Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, 2007
Chipotles, the dried and smoked version of ripened jalapeños, taste like bacon in a chile. ~Mary Sue Milliken, Susan Feniger, & Helene Siegel, Mesa Mexicana: Bold Flavors from the Border, Coastal Mexico, and Beyond, 1994 [a little altered
I would think wolves would prefer spicy things. It's bears that crave sweets. ~Isuna Hasekura, Spice & Wolf, Vol. 1, 2006, translated by Paul Starr
Novice cooks should be forewarned. Chili can increase in strength under some conditions. A salsa mild in the evening may grow startling by morning, numbing by noon. ~Lee Coe, "Chili Pepper: The Spice that Ate the East," in Arizona Highways, 1983, arizonahighways.com
Hilario Villareal is the best pepper man in Feliz. He eats furias for breakfast. With beer. He grows his own peppers and has a secret. He wet-rots leaves for his plants and grows them on a south slope that is sheltered on three sides. And in the dry season he waters them from a bucket. I tell you to have respect for his peppers. His soil is very sour and his peppers are very hot. ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise" [A little altered. Tio Felipe Ignacio de Fuestes speaking.
I put hot sauce on my hot sauce. ~Internet meme, c. 2012
We got married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout... ~Billy Edd Wheeler & Jerry Leiber, "Jackson," 1963 [This song is most famous for its performance by Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash in 1967.
You can tell how long a couple has been married by whether they are on their first, second, or third bottle of Tabasco. ~Bruce R. Bye, 1986
But, as you know if you've ever poured too heartily from the wrong bottle of hot sauce, taste and smell are but secondary pieces of the hot sauce puzzle. There's something else happening with hot sauce unique to the chilies that are its essential ingredient, something weirder and kinkier and a stubborn mystery that cuts to the heart of what it means to be human — pain.
You may enjoy any number of things about hot sauce, like the flavors, the way it looks drizzled over a plate, or just the knowledge that it's healthier than most condiments, but if you like hot sauce, you've also got to come to terms with the unifying factor, pain-inducing chemicals in chilies, and the fact that you like to inflict pain on yourself. ~Denver Nicks, Hot Sauce Nation: America's Burning Obsession, 2017
First, soup was served in quaint, glazed pottery bowls, elaborately ornamented on the outside with vines and flowers, and on top of each bowl was a hot tortilla... Next came a roast of pork, filled with spices and pepper. While hot enough to make one scream, it was nevertheless, delicious. With all the courses, we were served with salsa de chili bravo (green pepper-sauce). Our host took great pains to initiate me into the merits of this sauce, but I could scarcely look at it without shedding tears copiously over its pungency. ~Fanny Chambers Gooch, Face to Face with the Mexicans, 1887
Life's too short for mild salsa. ~Kelly Newcomb, 1997
Go wild, mild, or something in between. The world is your burrito. ~Chipotle Mexican Grill, "Our Salsas: Comin' In Hot (But Also Medium and Mild)," 2020
When the 78th Texas Legislature convened in 2003, House Concurrent Resolution 16 was introduced to make tortilla chips and salsa the official state snack. ~Texas H. R. No. 1591 Resolution [True story.
I don't always eat chips and salsa but when I do, I do it until I hate myself. ~Internet meme, c. 2014
We chili heads can pass judgment upon an entire Mexican menu by tasting one droplet of the sauce. ~Don Dedera (1929–2020), "Don't Call it Latin Food," in Arizona Highways, 1983, arizonahighways.com
We like to cook with all heat levels, from the milder chili peppers with only the tiniest of heat to the crazy superhots that can turn a giant vat of chili or stew into a fiery inferno. ~Michael J. Hultquist & Patty Hultquist, chilipeppermadness.com, 2015
Peppers are an ancient food in the Americas, and the remains of wild peppers dating back to 7000 B.C. have been found in human coprolites — fossilized excrement — uncovered 150 miles south of Mexico City. ~Richard Schweid
Amomum melegueta! I had never seen a whole one before. The spice trade calls them Guinea peppers. Such little nuggets launched armadas in the old days, sails from Spain and Portugal. Men died for those peppers as for gold and glory. They are the hottest things that grow and their seeds are praised as the grains of paradise. ~James Street (1903–1954), "The Grains of Paradise"
Eat your heart out, Ketchup! ~Taco Bell, packet of border sauce, 2011
The first edition of that remarkable cookery book, the "Dons de Comus," appeared about 1740... It was composed by M. Marin, cook of the Duchesse de Chaulnes. The very learned and ingenious preface, signed de Querlon, is by Father Brumoy, the Jesuit... An Italian author calls a preface the sauce of a book, "La Salsa del Libro;" and certainly never was there a more piquant and spicy sauce than that of the erudite Father. ~A. V. Kirwan, Host and Guest: A Book about Dinners, Wines, and Desserts, 1864
Each year on January 16th, International Hot and Spicy Food Day celebrates all the delicious hot and spicy foods around the world... Try a spicy dish that you have never eaten before, or make a recipe with a spice you’ve never used. ~NationalDayCalendar.com
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published 2008 Feb 29
revised 2016, 2020, 2022
last saved 2023 Mar 25
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