(no subject)

[moominmolly]

So, I had wasabi last night. "Big deal," you might say. "Don't you have wasabi all the time?" Well, maybe, but I've never been as gung-ho for it as a lot of people seem to be. dilletante, for example, gets a faraway, dreamy face when he eats too much wasabi. I've never understood it. Slightly increasing the amount of wasabi in my little wasabi-soy-sauce plate only ever led to more pain. Last night, I found that goat gets exactly the same look. She said some things about the sensation that intrigued me, so I had to try to overload my wasabi receptors, past the point of pain and out through the other side into curiosity.

It turns out that if you take a big ol' hunk of the stuff and sort of... spread it around the roof of your mouth, close your eyes, and inhale slowly, a fascinating sensation goes up through your palate and out the back of your head, spreading upwards from there. Well, that's how it worked for me, anyway. I had to keep trying it, of course: after a certain point, more wasabi only allowed me to increase the surface area I was working with, and not to increase the sensation.

At this level of wasabi, I don't think I'd call the feeling pain. Once it got to the point where I had to deal with it and think about it directly, it became a curious little thing that required all of my concentration. Very strange, and kind of fun. I don't think I can do that with hot-pepper hot. But this feeling, it was entirely unlike tasting food! How do you people mix this with food? For example, I like the taste of eel and mackerel. Wouldn't I lose it, if I was concentrating on the wasabi? If I only put a little wasabi on something, I know my tolerance level. I can make the food taste spicy and good, to me. But if I do this bizarre sensation experiment, won't it just distract me from the food?

All very strange. Maybe I'm not making any sense, and everyone else figured this out ten years ago. Maybe I just process this differently from eating hot hot salsa, and other people can integrate wasabi-hot feelings with food just fine. I'm not even sure if I have a concrete question, but I'm still thinking about that strange dinner-coda half a day later.

Comments

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

I definitely feel that the more wasabi I add the less I can taste the sushi I am eating. Perhaps people who eat lots of wasabi have destroyed some of their tastebuds while getting to the point where they can do so, I know that is true for most hot/spicy things.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Wasabi apparently does have a different mechanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasabi), which doesn't affect the tongue at all. Perhaps that's why it seems so un-food-like to me. What interested me last night was that there was a point after which the pain became interesting rather than annoying. This seems to be the orgasmic wasabi point that some people experience. But... but that's like enjoying a nice massage while you eat, or a punch in the nose. It still seems so un-food-like. Maybe I just need to relax. :)

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

I've been known to look (and feel) nearly orgasmic due to wasabi, particularly wasabi tobiko. The sensation spreads from my palate to my brain and then this incredible rush runs through me ... and is extended by taking a sip of coke after swallowing the wasabi tobiko (or maguro with a fair bit of wasabi). My idiot-theory is that the carbonation in the coke extends the burn. :)

Mmm ... wasabi :)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I was being all circumspect and polite when I didn't refer to goat and dilletante as looking orgasmic. :)

[ladytabitha.livejournal.com]

(a) I like wasabi and not other spicy foods because wasabi isn't oil-based, and thus doesn't sit there FOREVER.

(b) Oh god, do I love overloading my wasabi sensors.  I frequently get that "I'm teary-eyed with pain for my lord!" look that religious self-flagellators usually get.

(c) I forgot what else, because now I'm hungry.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

(angel) Yes, the not-oil-based thing is lovely for me, too.

(coffee) Hooray! Eat!

[armoire-man.livejournal.com]

The only time I've experienced that was accidental, when I was about twenty, a victim of "Hm, what's this green stuff next to the fish?"

It was pretty darned amazing. Someday I'll have to try it again.

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

It's not considered good manners if you're eating real sushi where the chef can see, to add ANY extra wasabi to it- you're supposed to trust your itamae to spice the food correctly, and you're supposed to taste the fish.

That said, there is something very nice about the bite of yummy sushi taste, followed by your sinuses exploding out the back of your head.

[ectropy.livejournal.com]

OTOH, since they already expect Americans to be boorish and culturally inept, you won't lose any points for eating the food the way you want.

[dpolicar]

Welcome to endorphins. They are your friends. At least in the short term.

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

I just don't get spicy. Spicy=pain. Pain=bad. Perhaps me=missing out. Oh well. I'll stick to fun that does not =pain.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

For mexican-food or thai-food spicy, I basically agree with you. There's a point after which spicy food is painful rather than good, and I don't like it after that point. I've had food that was far, far too hot for me, and it was just unpleasant. (I do like a medium amount of spice, since it adds an interesting dimension to the food, but I can understand someone having a much lower tolerance than me but the same basic preference.) I guess that it was fun for me to discover that wasabi really *didn't* register as pain, when I had too much.

I doubt this is universal. :)

[oonh.livejournal.com]

How does your spawn react to it, particularly given that we know she seems to enjoy capsaicin-spice/capsaicin-spice metabolites?

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Good question! I hadn't considered it in exactly that way. She seemed to have absolutely no interest, either positive or negative, in wasabi. Perhaps the interesting parts of it don't transfer well to amniotic fluid? The hotness of wasabi is easily washed away by water, unlike capsaicin-y oils, so perhaps she didn't get the full experience.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Item 1: Because of this post, I was forced to buy sushi for dinner tonight.

Item 2: You wouldn't want to enjoy a nice massage while eating? Why on earth not? Maybe not a full meal, or a full body massage, but what about, say, a good head rub whilst eating fresh chunks of watermelon? Sure, not every time you eat watermelon, but, then, sometimes I don't overload my sushi with wasabi, either. But there's a great combination there, though they're truly two different things.

Item 3: Maybe my mouth is funny, but I can taste things through spicy.

Item 4: Wasabi! Dear god, wasabi. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Item 5: Through wasabi, I was able to make a profound (or something) connection between my food preferences and my sexual preferences. What it means, who knows? But there it is.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Item 2: a good head rub whilst eating fresh chunks of watermelon?

I think I'm very used to focusing on enjoying a single type of sensation at a time. Other sensations can be nice background noise, but it's hard to appreciate them both at the same time. I should perhaps work on this.

Item 3: I can, if I concentrate on it. I guess I'm exaggerating. :)

Item 5: Huh! I'm intrigued.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Given items 2 and 5, it suddenly strikes me as odd that I've never taken a tube of wasabi to bed.

But you know that opening-up feeling you get with a rush of wasabi? There are other things that do that, too :)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I see how it's like sex, certainly. :) I guess I'm wondering (for myself!) what that connection could illuminate. I think that that strange opening sensation is what made me feel it was terribly unfoodlike. In fact, wasabi might be one of the *only* foods I'd take to bed, if that's not oversharing -- it's not food, it's sensation in a tube!

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Well, I actually haven't had straight vanilla sex that was like wasabi. I'd like to, though :)

But singletailing is a hell of a lot like wasabi for the back.

I'm not sure that the connection illuminated anything for me beyond, "Why, yes, I DO like intense sensations in any number of contexts."

Also, sometimes it's inappropriate for me to eat wasabi in public. *looks innocent*

[drwex]

OK, *that's* going in my quotes file.

[rosefox]

A friend just sent me this and I thought you might appreciate it.