This last weekend I was making a large tub of fresh salsa (no jarred picante/salsa here!). Since the serranos peppers I brought home from the market were rather large, I was concerned that it may be too hot for the salsa. I love salsa, but if it's too hot, I can't enjoy it. My own quote:
"Food should not be painful"
What I mean by that is if it makes you cry or inflict pain – me no likey!
Back to the salsa … I pulled the flesh out of several serranos to taper down the heat. No gloves. Do you know what's coming? Pepper burn! OMG! Felt like I had hundreds of tiny cuts all over both hands, burning like hell. You can't tune out the discomfort. You look at your hands and expect to see it beet red and swollen, maybe even bleeding, but it isn't. The discomfort was unbearable. The only temporary relief I could find was running it under very cold water or dunking my hands in a bowl of ice. While my hands were numb, I'd quickly run to the computer and look for remedies. I tried at least half-a-dozen to no avail. From rubbing alcohol, vinegar, lemon juice and milk (I used heavy whipping cream) — nothing felt like it was really working. After a couple of hours, the discomfort subsided to a tingling sensation, until it all but disappeared. Whew!
The pepper trauma happened last Sunday. Wednesday, I'm thumbing through the August/September 2009 issue of Saveur magazine. Well, I'll be doggone — there's an excellent 7-page write-up and a smartly laid out section about peppers in this issue "A World of Peppers" written by Marciel Presilla. Beautiful photography by James Oseland (Note the online version does not include the images that went along with this article) accompanied the four full-paged arrangements of 48 different peppers with quick details about each of them. In this feature, there is also a section about the handling and storage of peppers!! No remedies, but about wearing gloves.
I make fresh salsa and chile rellenos — use many different types of peppers in my cooking and am not usually subject to pepper burn. Guess there's a first time for everything and certainly some lessons to be learned!
