Oh Mexico
part seven
This was the village where I ate me first (and last) habenaro pepper. I didn’t know what habenaro peppers were before then. I’m not a huge fan of hot food, but I like it okay. The pastor noticed that when we had our meals I joined them in eating a few jalapeno peppers. One lunch break, he got up from the table and disappeared for a while. He returned with a pepper and said something about it in Spanish.
I looked at Johnny and asked, “What did he say?”
Johnny said, “He said since you eat the jalapeno’s you’ll like this pepper. It isn’t hot at all.”
Gullibly believing Johnny, I picked it up, tossed the whole thing in my mouth and bit down.
The pastor rose up from the table in a panic. “No! No! No!”
“What?” I thought. Then it hit me.
Johnny was laughing hysterically. The pastor was panicking. I had turned bright red, was sweating profusely and thought I was going to die in a Mexican fishing village. The pastor’s wife hurriedly began making one of her wonderful tortillas on the fire, something I thought was highly inappropriate considering the dire circumstances. But she did it quickly, pulled it from the fire, handed it to me and the told me to fold it in half and put it in my mouth. I did. It helped. A lot. Apparently, the tortilla soaked up some of the heat from the pepper and made things tolerable.
I learned to always get a second opinion on translations in such circumstances.
lol… Jeremy did a similar thing as a teen at our table one evening while we were eating chili. I had purchased a jar of habaneros to add a bit of spice to the chili and the jar was on the table. He said something like, oh what’s this a new pepper and popped into his mouth. We all had a good laugh at his misfortune, but it would have been nice to know the tortilla trick at that time in life! Hah! I also did not know this bit of knowledge until this very morning and reading your story. You always have a way of providing great information. Thanks Steve!