On curries

[bellinghman]

Last night, I was looking for some pre-made curry sauces (because I'm lazy) and remembering artela's moan about finding chilli in a masala, I thought I'd check the list of ingredients.

Of the 4 Indian manufacturers - and I include Pataks here because I've met them and eaten with them and I know they're not blacked up Yorkies - three of them list chillies as an ingredient in their masalas, whereas only Pataks don't, and they merely list 'spices' in the relevant place, so quite probably including them.

I think that if I were suddenly to develop an allergy to the noble fruit, I'd have to be extremely careful around any form of curry. Which would be a bugger, because I like curries, and I like also Thai food, and even some Chinese dishes have chillies in them.

No Malaysian, either.

Pretty please, tell me allergies aren't infectious.

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I note that you did manage to find places that worked back in Bedford, but I can also imagine that took a little looking and training.

Of course, chilli is not the only hot spice, nerely the hottest.

I assume it's the capsaicin that causes the problem. How are you with peppers (i.e. capsicums)?

[artela.livejournal.com]

Some problem, but not as "severe"...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Which makes sense, since the capsaicin level in them is very low, but not totally absent.

On the other hand, I'd expect you to be allergic to anyone who has recently consumed some of the very hot sauces.

[artela.livejournal.com]

I only have problems with ingestion (although I have never tried handling chillis, and if I do handle peppers when preparing things for other people to eat I'm always very careful to make sure I wash hands and where I've worked and the knife straight away when I've finished). It's a severe stomach reaction to ingestion, but definitely an allergy as it responds to the antihistamines I take for my hayfever (ie. it's not as bad a reaction if I'm on anti-histamines) - it would be a terribly good way to diet, except I suspec that things wouldn't remain in the stomach long enough for me to get any nutrients out *LOL*. Luckily it isn't of the anaphalaxis level - just uncomfortable and needing of me not being far from a bathroom within about 1.5 hours of having eaten the stuff!