Spicy and hot are two very different things

This afternoon, I went looking for lunch at Scarborough Town Centre. I didn’t feel like Bourbon Grill or Mrs. Vannelli’s. I wanted something different… something homecooked… something… yum, West Indian.

I hurried over to Calypso Island Grill.

Usually, the most I buy from this restaurant is some fried plantains, but today I felt like some good West Indian grub.

So, I got some chow mein, Calypso chicken (spicy) and plantain. I should have turned the other way when I saw ‘calypso’ in front of the chicken. The last time I dined on ‘calypso’ chicken was years ago on an Air Canada flight to Barbados. The so-called calypso chicken was stewed chicken with pineapple and almonds.

Now, really, any West Indian reading this would know that we don’t use pineapples in cooking unless we’re making a sweet and sour chicken dish or pineapple upside down cake. And almonds? Unless you’re making a marzipan for your black cake, almonds are snacks, not ingredients for a meat dish.

But I digress.

Anyway, I began to eat the chicken and slowly the heat began to blaze in my mouth.

Lawd’a’mercy! De fire burnin’ troo my mouth! Lawd call de fire brigade!!! Dear Lord, my taste buds are exploding one by one from the intense heat!

Now, I’m not one who is scared for a little heat, but I understand West Indian cuisine to be flavourful, not just plain hot.

Scratch that, it wasn’t even hot; it was causing first degree burns on my tongue, lips and down my throat.

I leave that foolishness to the folks who make hot sauce with skull and crossbones on it. I don’t deal with that mess. I like food that has flavour, not food that’s blistering your tongue with scotch bonnet peppers.

So, when I read spicy, I’m thinking of some yummy West Indian seasoning – you know, the green stuff your mom/grandmother/auntie keeps in a glass jar in the fridge. It’s onions, thyme, garlic, salt, pepper – a dash of pepper, not an entire set of hot peppers – and slathered on everything from red snapper and flying fish to roast pork and fried chicken.

It’s what makes West Indian food ‘spicy’ as opposed to people who jook a big set of pepper in the food and try to pass it off as West Indian cuisine.

I’m vex, ‘cause I’m sitting here with $8 (yes, $8, chupse) of food that I’m scared to eat for fear long tears start to roll down my face because the heat is too much for my poor belly. It burn me going in and I pray it doesn't burn me coming out.

From now on, I will stick with my plantain and leave all that so-called ‘spicy’ meat to those with flame-retardant tongues.

I only wish I could get my so-and-so money back.

Chupse.