13 hours ago, Shelby said:So, after I say* this out loud, it's going to sound utterly ridiculous and not possible, but I swear it's true. I had the flu in January --it hit me on the 8th. That's how bad the flu was, because I can barely remember my own birthdate much less any other date. Anyway, it knocked me for a loop to say the least. After the first week it had moved from my chest up into my ears and throat. Thus, the only things I could taste were salt and hot peppers...everything else was like a 9 times less version of it's real taste. Anyway to sum up my long story, before this flu, I had become a big heat weenie. The tiniest jalapeño sent my eyes to watering and heartburn like you wouldn't believe. So, during the flu, the one good thing was that I could eat everything hot. 700 jalapeños plus all the seeds went into the chili and so on. I really took advantage of it because I knew that once I got rid of all of the junk in my nose, head and throat that I would go back to weenie-ness.
I haven't gone back. I can eat everything hot. The hotter the better. I've googled to see if this phenomenon is a thing and I can't find that it is. Now DURING a cold or flu, yeah, but not after it's all gone. I cannot get enough hot. Thus the following meals--I'm still afraid I'm going to lose my tolerance lol:
Hotdogs boiled in the cajun seasoning that I do crawdads in
After a trip to Santa Fe where I found everything quite hot initially - I developed receptor fatigue and soon it took much more to notice the heat. Same thing in Silver City a few years later.
