I was so hungry today for something exotic and different. Eating locally is nice, but I have always loved all manner of foreign foods and enjoy trying new things. I miss that. So I decided to get myself something unusual for lunch that I’d never had before, a task that isn’t terribly easy at my neighborhood grocery store.

I did find some tasty looking Central Market organic TV dinners. They had a selection from places like India and Thailand, so I read the packages and settled on two that sounded good and which were things I had never had before: Chicken Vindaloo and Pad Thai. The final decision rested solely on the heat rating for each meal. The Chicken Vindaloo was three peppers out of four on the scale, and the Pad Thai was one pepper out of four. I don’t mind a little spiciness, but I can’t tolerate (or enjoy) anything too spicy. Therefore, the Pad Thai it was! It said “mild” right on the front of the package! Perfect!

Well, it smelled really good while it was heating up in the microwave, and the first couple of bites were very tasty. But … I would not describe it as mild. In fact, the more I ate it, the more I realized I couldn’t eat it and didn’t really even like it. Too hot! I picked out a few pieces of tofu and a shrimp, and the rest is now wrapped up in the freezer. I’ll feed it to Lin sometime this weekend. He’ll love it, after he puts more pepper on it, of course.

See, I am a supertaster, and while it probably sounds cool to have more taste buds than 75% of the population and be able to taste things more intensely, in reality, it isn’t so cool. In my adult life, I have learned to love some bitter foods (like Brussels sprouts and spinach – they are so good for the body), but there are things I can’t tolerate well that other people think nothing of eating. Plain generic ketchup makes my tongue burn. So does regular old ranch dressing. A single sip of coffee without a good dose of milk/cream and sugar makes me grimace and want to spit it out. Soda water makes my tongue burn too, and it’s always too sweet. In fact, all sweet things are always too sweet, even the peanut butter cookies I make at home with very little sugar in them. It doesn’t mean I don’t eat any of these things. I’m human, and I have cravings just like everyone else and enjoy having a varied and flavorful diet. Being a supertaster just means I have to eat these things in moderation, which isn’t difficult, because after a few bites of one of the things that sets my tongue off in some way, I quickly lose interest.

I do love the flavor of various peppers, but I can only eat a small amount of them, and afterward, my tongue will be feeling the burn for hours on end. It’s been an hour since I ate those few small bites of Pad Thai, and the tip of my tongue still feels like I held it against a hot skillet. Capsaicin fries my tongue, and then I don’t taste anything at all. I just feel pain. This sucks, because the meal was pretty tasty for a TV dinner, and I know had it not been too peppery, I would have loved it. It also sucks because I live in Texas where absolutely everything has to be spicy, so eating out is always a challenge.

Not that there aren’t benefits to being a supertaster. I can taste a finished meal and tell what is in it and recreate it, and when cooking for just myself, I can add far fewer herbs and such and enjoy it just as much as anyone else. So, it isn’t all bad … except when I really want to have something exotic and different for lunch and three bites of the thing I selected fries my tastebuds and leaves my tongue burning. Oh well, guess I’ll go have a turkey sandwich, with some horseradish on it. See, I like hot and spicy, and horseradish fills the space others would fill with hot peppers. I can eat the hell out of horseradish, and I do … putting it on anything and everything I can justify putting it on.

You can chase me with artificial sweeteners and grapefruits. Yuck and yuck. I understand that normal people can’t tell that artificial sweeteners taste just like the awful chemicals they are, and that some people like grapefruit, but those two things are some of the most vile flavors on the planet to my tongue.