So far most of the discussion on hot stuff has been in relation to
southwestern american cooking and mexican cooking.
>From my stay in SE Asia I can add a different perspective on the hot
and spicey conversation.
Lao people definitely like spicey food and most Lao food is very hot.
They tend to use the fairly short thin red (although I've seen them
range from green to orange to red) chillies which I believe I've heard
called "bird chillies". They're usually used fresh which is when they
are spicest but they are also dried and made into chillie powders or
flakes.
The most common dish you see would be laap which is a type of meat
salad (usually cooked beef although chicken, fish and raw beef are
other variations) with lots of chopped cilantro and some chopped
chillies usually only moderately spicey but it can get quite hot.
Another common dish is papaya salad which can range from mild to
obscenely spicey depending on how it's made. Usually you go to the
shop and they make it in front of you and you get the chance to taste
it and have the flavour adjusted to how you like. The main ingredient
is green papaya (unripe papaya) which is shaved very thin. Numerous
chillies are added (I've had as many as 10 in 1 plate of papaya salad)
as well as fish sauce and another type of fish sauce which is thicker
(called "bpaa dek" in Lao) and some other ingredients (not entirely
sure what). This is all put into a mortar and pounded with a pestle.
What this means is that the chillies are thoroughly pulverised into
the mixture. With laap if it's too spicey for you you can avoid the
chillies but there's no escaping the heat in papaya salad. There's
also peanuts in it but I believe they're added after the pounding.
One of the lao teachers where I worked used to get it for the office
about once a week and she would have it made extremely spicey. It was
so spicey that it would make our secretary cry whenever she ate it
(not that it stopped her from eating it). Many lao people would say,
"if it's not spicey it's not delicious".
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