Choose your pepper wisely

 I didn't grow up with hot food. The spiciest it ever got was a single, intact chile (which would have been spelled chillie, in South Africa) in a curry—accompanied by strenuous warnings to the effect of, Watch out, there's a chillie in there somewhere! Perhaps a whole chillie in a bottle of sherry used for cooking. Surprisingly effective, actually. My mom added it to soups.

So where and how did I convert? This country. Living with a food-loving Mexican for four years may have had something to do with it. New York City, and it's plethora of Southeast Asian eateries. And simply being on the continent in proximity to so many forms of fresh and dried chiles had significant powers of persuasion.

I like heat, now. A lot. But there's heat and there's heat. For my recent experiments making shatta, a gently fermented and staple chile condiment eaten in Palestine (and other Eastern Mediterranean countries), I learned that long red cayenne peppers make a fantastic shatta—sweetly hot and mellow. But that compact Scotch bonnet peppers (I know, what was I thinking?) blew the house down.

I have been eating a dab of shatta almost daily, especially on lunchtime eggs. (The eggs above were for a picnic after a plant walk, and there were no complaints.)

And atop labne, with an egg and some crisp celery and mint? Delicious, and pretty darn healthy, too. 

My shatta recipe is up on Gardenista.

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