Some folks think the entire idea of hot foods is to be hot without regard to flavor. I might have in my mis-spent youth eating jalapeno slices and washing them down with beer. And if I did that regularly I didn't suffer the next morning.

In later youth I discovered habanero peppers and while I have yet to eat slices of them they taught me the difference between heat and flavor. And then I discovered the small red Chinese peppers, American rooster spurs and the search was one.

Since I have discovered a source of pure heat I can add that to anything that has flavor it opens a whole new world I am just beginning to explore. At age 55 in 2000 that proves there are always new frontiers in eating.

Hot for the sake of hot is not to my taste. The hotter the food the more flavor(s) it should have. The heat is to add to the dish, rather like the real Mexican dishes with the hot sauces on the side. It is a bit like my recommendation for frying eggs in hot pepper oil as it compliments the taste of eggs rather than making you think a chicken laid a jalapeno.

Most of the folks who are producing sauces out of habanero peppers have the right idea in that they have flavor on their own by what they add to make the sauce and can be used as marinades. The folks who make jalapeno sauces don't quite have the idea yet but rather into the American Southwest jalapeno eating contests. If the Tobasco/Louisiana folks and their cayenne products don't have to have the idea as their peppers are not all that hot to begin with.

What does all this mean to you? If your experience has been that you have tasted nothing but hot, that it has overwhelmed flavors, there is an eating experience for you in piquant foods if you look for it.