Hot 'n Spicy Meets AARP

May 29, 2021: The day the flavor ends. Apparently, the vast majority of people's nerve receptors in those taste-gathering hubs, the nose and tongue, drastically decrease in efficiency after the age of 40. This, according to an article in Sunday's Boston Globe 'Ideas' section by Sacha Pfeiffer, called "Some Like It Hot." Though I'm not sure whether the author is a male or female, I do know this--I cried a little tears for my future self, and his diminished capacity for experiencing the yum.

The point of the article was not to induce everyone to start a Countdown Clock to the moment when all flavor would be dimmed by time's cruel atrophying ways. Nor was it one possible answer to the question haunting all younger-thans, bewildered by the diets of many of their purple-lip-stained elders: Why all the prunes? (That answer can be found by skimming the newest edition of the textbook Gastro-Intestinal Tract at 60: Why Your 'Playground'* Needs Some Grease on the Curvy Slide.) The point of the article was to hypothesis why hot 'n spicy foods seem to crowd the grocery aisles in a way that hasn't been the case in the past 20 or so years. A list of brand-name products kicked up the proverbial notch makes for good reading by itself: Smokin' Cheddar BBQ Doritos; Mo Hotta Mo Betta Cayenne Garlic Hot Sauce; Crazy Mother Pucker's Maniacal Mustard. Seems like every flavorable product out there (foodstuffs manufactured, thereby able to be dusted in a fine, super-spiced flavoring that takes the place of natural, Mother Earth-created taste) has succumbed to some variation on the James Brown 'Too Hot for the Hot-tub!" theme. Chocolate's been given a piquant bite by mixing in chilis with the cocoa. Ice cream and jalepenos have been combined and eaten (and in most cases, regurgitated) with varying degrees of success. Special ketchups are now most popular in their spiciest incarnations.

So the question remains: Why? Pfeiffer wraps up the near-unanimous reasoning in food labs and market research kitchens across the industry--it's because of the Boomers. The Baby Boomers are getting older, and with an increasing amount of disposable income, and for some a wider desire to cook for themselves, or at least spluge at fancier restaurants, the demand for these spicier foods (to counteract their weakened taste-buds) has grown. And the suppliers have responded.

Thus ends the Article Summation section of the post. What I found most intriguing is the description of those types of spice that bust through the decrepit tongues, to still deliver an impactful, powerful burst of flavor. These are a group of flavors labeled "sensory irritants." According to the article, they "hit the body not through taste or smell, but through the chemosensory system, which conveys sensations like touch, temperature, pain, and pressure." This permits an interesting observation--as we age, we seek out foods that smack, heat, hurt, or squeeze us. Do we grow weary and dull from life's constant nudgings, such that we endeavor to find something, anything that can shake us from our repetitious reverie? Throw some Tabasco in that oatmeal, Grandma says. I can barely feel my legs--but those Spicy Nacho chips knock my orthopedic socks off! Maybe these are the ponderings behind an endless array of hot sauces on store shelvees, and why Ultra-Caliente! Chips Ahoy cookies might not be far behind. I'm not sure. But I've got 14 more years of blissful undiminished tasting to find out.



*Assumed reader knowledge: The idiom, "The G.I. Tract is the playground of the emotions."