Feeling hot, hot, hot

Drawn into the chilli’s fiery embrace at a young age–when sneaking a sip of his father’s Tabasco-laden Bloody Mary–Tom Parker Bowles is addicted to the fruit with a sting in its tail

- Tom Parker Bowles

IT wasn’t loved at first bite. Which is hardly surprising, as intense pain and amorous infatuation are hardly the most natural of bedfellows—unless you’re that way inclined. However, this is a column about food, rather than the exploits of the Marquis de Sade, and my lifelong infatuation with chillies started not with a whimper, but a bang. When, at the tender age of seven, my unsullied taste buds were flayed into submission by an excess of Tabasco sauce.

In fact, this was the only form of chilli you’d find in our house, apart from a dusty old pot of curry powder at the back of the cupboard, which was annually exhumed to take part in that godless mess they call Coronation chicken. But this first searing experience, the result of a sneaked sip of my father’s Bloody Mary, certainly left its mark. At first, there was pain, intense pain, like Vesuvius erupting in my mouth, with waves of molten fire coursing down my throat, laying waste to my senses, flooding my eyes with tears.

I spent the next 20 minutes with my tongue— now little more than engorged, useless gristle —under the tap. All to no avail, as capsaicin, the irritant alkaloid where the heat is found, is not water-soluble. Which means the agony is simply spread further. Milk, bread or bananas make a far better sop. Yet, once the fury had subsided and the world came back into focus, I felt enraptured, enveloped in the warmest of glows. Colours seemed more vivid, sounds amplified and a great grin was plastered across my face.