I tell the story fairly often, but not sure I have on lemmy.
Back in the day, my dad and mom would take me and my sister out for dinner maybe once or twice a month. It was usually a rotation of their and/or our favorite places. There was a dine-in only chinese place, a pizza hut, a steak house, all the usual kind of stuff you'd find in the eighties in small and medium sized towns.
But, one day, they decided to go to a newly built place. It wasn't any distinctive "cuisine" at all. They did all kinds of stuff. Pizzas, burgers, diner food, "family style" dishes like meatloaf, etc.
But for whatever reason, one of their sandwiches was intriguingly named "the cannonball".
It was basically similar to subway's Italian sub. But it featured a thick layer of melty cheese and jalapenos.
I had never had jalapenos before. Now, I know that by the usual pepper fan standards, jalapenos are a starter level of heat. But for a ten-ish year old kid, those suckers are brutal.
But that's the sandwich I decided I wanted. My mom and dad tried telling me it was going to be really hot. The waitress tried to talk me out of it because it was piled with jalapeno rings, with the seeds intact. My dad even said that if I couldn't handle it, tough crap, I wouldn't be getting anything else.
And yeah, all that made me both more curious and more stubborn. There was no way I wasn't ordering it.
So it gets to the table, and I dig in. Tried one of the peppers by itself, and wasn't bothered much. But as the meal progressed, I discovered that capsaicin builds over time.
I start getting red. Enough so that my parents and sister stop eating and just watch me. The waitress keeps finding excuses to see how the silly kid is handling it.
I start sweating, it's dripping off my ears.
And around then, the high hits. Anyone that enjoys super spicy foods knows what that means. The endorphins are kicking in. I'm feeling all light and drifty, my mouth is on fire, but it's delightful. I'm just grooving on the feeling, and the sandwich was yummy as well, so I'm sitting there just going at it, making happy sounds.
My mom thought I was faking so that I didn't look like I'd made a bad choice, offers to order me something else. I get annoyed with that and told her no in a very forceful way.
But I sit there and finish every damn bite. I'm glowing, and blissful and have that full belly happiness as well.
I asked if we could come back tomorrow.
They had no idea what they had unleashed lol. I was never one of those folks that chases the hottest peppers or whatever, but I very much enjoyed spice after that, and would put cayenne or whatever we had into anything I cooked (which was mostly stuff like ramen at that age). For a long time, we kept a jar of jalapenos in the fridge, and my maternal grandparents kept some for me too.
Hot sausages as well! Gods, those things with that mouth watering vinegar bite and the spicy kick make me salivate still, and my guts stopped tolerating the peppers years ago.
I still love the experience of capsaicin heavy foods, but I can't tolerate them any more.
