The July 23 Taste section article “Some like it hot!” reports on the surging popularity of spicy dishes among the general blandness of Minnesota cookery.
It’s been obvious to anyone who visits restaurants that this has been the case for some time. Spicy food is everywhere. I have no beef with that. I didn’t mind a little of the heat when I was younger. But I’ve gotten to the age where culinary heat is not a matter of taste, but a matter of health. If I eat a spicy dish at dinner time, the heartburn keeps me awake most of the night.
My problem is that restaurants often don’t let me make an informed decision on what to order. I get ambushed by heat where I least expect it — in a tuna salad sandwich, a plate of risotto, a candied pecan atop a muffin or a pork chop doused in black pepper. Young servers especially cannot be trusted to help choose nonspicy dishes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been assured “no heat,” and it still comes on the plate.
My plea to restaurant owners is this: make an objective assay of dishes that are spicy. Let some heat-hater specify what’s hot and what’s not. Then provide the information to heat-hating customers, so that they can avoid that unpleasant burning sensation in their mouths and throats — and a sleepless night.
D R Martin, Minneapolis
Letter to Minneapolis Star Tribune
