As an Asian, KFC's hot and spicy's spicyness is virtually tasteless. Why is Westerners definition of spicy so low?
KFC's Hot and Spicy Is Neither Hot or Spicy
canberrascooter on 15/07/2020 - 11:05
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I once got on a Lufthansa flight from Germany and the girl next to me complained to the attendant that her inflight meal was too spicy. Took me a while to realise that the bland chicken had some pepper on it.
I really liked the KFC Tabasco promo when they had that. Was an enjoyable hit with the crispy chicken.
And Tabasco is just an orange coloured vinegar.
I always get hot and spicy and I'd forgotten that it wasn't the original recipe, I know I specifically ordered hot and spicy each time, it was just routine.
The ordered original once, and it was so much greasier and blander.
The hot and spicy is at least crispy.
I'm a fan of KFC hot and spicy with ABC chilli sauce, in Malaysia there's a bottle on every table at KFC.
It's not a crazy hot sauce but it's a bit more interesting.
As a white person, I love my food truly hot and spicy - i.e. verified by Thai and Indonesian people as being hot. I think there's lot of white people who enjoy hot food these days. But yes, many white people who haven't grown up with spices are adverse to any spice. It is disappointing when ordering something like KFC when you want it to be hot and it's not hot at all.
Hmmm… not buying your theory. Lots of cultures with tasty non-chilli food dishes also have some with chilli in them. Italian, Thai, Malay, Indian.
@[Deactivated]: Putting chilli in carbonara is wrong, but then italy also has arrabiata. Just because some dishes taste good with chilli doesn't mean that the rest of the dishes of that country/culture are no good.
@morse: Arrabiata with bacon in it is my go to. I use 2 ghost chillies, 3 Trinidad scorpions to my sauce with krio Irish Portuguese seasoning. It's blisteringly hot but sooo tasty!
Spicy is not the same as tasty, and a lack of spice is not the same as tasteless. It's all about what we are used to.
I like a bit of spicy food, but some is just too spicy for me. If I'm having wings, standard buffalo chicken is about the most I can handle, but I know there are many levels hotter than that. I've tried hotter which haven't tasted great, and I've tried weaker that had more flavour.
My brother has spent years putting different chili sauces into his food, and I've joked that the hot sauce he uses has killed his tastebuds - because he can no longer taste the food without it.
My mom on the other hand seems to find it too hot if a chili has even been in the same room (not even joking).
@[Deactivated]: it's essentially just putting sauce on a pie though. but chilli instead of tomato :-)
@dizzle: Lol my cousin took me to some super hot wing joint in Melb. He ordered 2 levels below mine and said he ordered us the same. His was brown mine was like bright red lol. I ate 5, he ate 1 and 600ml milk hahaha. I do eat ghost chilli and t scorps off my bush though.
… most western nations didn't have access to spices… ever heard of something called the Spice Road…
Also read an interesting tidbit recently.
What spices there was…. ie pepper use to be for the rich… but as it became popular and more available… the rich stopped having spices, and bland food became the norm.
There's also the access to more food meaning there's less focus on taste, places where food is abundant tend to be pretty bland
Britons over centuries developed the love for spicy food via Indian and Asian food range. Same is not true for other parts where Britons migrated and for them black pepper is deemed too spicy.
True, I moved over in 2001 and couldn't understand why Australian food was so bland. It wasn't just spice though but also applied to cheese and so on.
I quickly formed the opinion that the food Australia exports is often better than what's left for local consumption. E.g. we used to get a really nice "Australian Cheddar" in Sainsburys but nothing over here in the normal supermarkets compared.
In fairness it's certainly improved a lot in recent years so perhaps programs like Masterchef etc have really helped?
Not sure that's really the case. Yes Indian and Chinese have become part of the regular takeaway scene in Briton to the point where some curries were actually invented in England. But you'd also find that what people eat there is nothing like what you get in India.
However most Brits I knew going out for a curry with friends order the hottest thing on them menu as a way to prove they're men. They then spend the next hour force feeding themselves something that they are clearly not enjoying.
As a side note, check out this sketch from Goodness Gracious Me https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=401780193909640 (if the link doesn't work, search "going for an english"
On your bike, mike.
Silly statement.
Definately a TROLL POST by someone pretending to an Asian person. Been happening a lot on Australian forums. They call this "race baiting".
Cmon, how old are you mate?
You made a post about why you didn't get a job and now i understand why. Seriously im not sure if you are a troll or mentally r_tarded.
"I eat rice everyday" - Thats like a Mexican saying, Im Mexican because i eat tacos everyday or Im Indian because i eat curry everyday.
Do you not understand the hypocrisy of everything you say and all the negative responses you received?On the other hand, you cant prove that you are Asian without giving evidence or links br0.
While you're at it, might as well just state if your international, what Asian you are and where you came from.
While visiting Melbourne for work, I chose chicken wings with a very hot (death?) sauce, and the waiter came twice to confirm and warn me that it was extremely hot!
But I love my chillies, and Extra hot means "tangy" in my lingo.But, please note that the spicy has to cater to a majority of people, not just a few.
I would not, for example, say in some parts of China or India to make it extra hot.
I ordered hot and spicy at kfc in thailand one time. It was about 4/5ths hot red chillies. It was the exact opposite problem to OP
OP - How many times have you tried it?
The chicken is seasoned on-site so it has been my experience that even 'original' chicken may vary from store to store, or even at the same store.
Everyone's tolerance to hot/spicy is going to change, and if you eat hot/chili often, then even the mild chili likely won't affect you.
Plus it's been proven that your mood can impact your taste buds. As example, when stressed, your body is unlikely to taste what would normally be flavourful for you, such that some seek for more flavourful items when stressed. It happens unconsciously.
Further, chili/spicy is a lot more used with asian cuisine over non-asian. It would make sense that anyone that is not used to spicy may find the chicken so, also noting that the level will likely vary as mentioned.
Chicken is breaded on site.
The brining/ marinade for h&s is done at processing plant outside.If I recall correctly, the first (official) step of breading is dunking the chicken into water so the breading sticks to the chicken better. As a result of course, a certain amount of the marinade is lost. So really it can depend on how (or even if) this first step is carried out by whatever random cook you have working.
Unless things have changed, the chicken is only breaded in store before cooking, like someone above said.
All marinading and brining was done by the supplier, it's unlikely you'd get a huge variance in the way people dunk it before breading the chicken.
The breading was just a bag of flour and then a sachet/bag of each seasoning mix, so minimal chance for variance here. The main difference is likely in how well they look after the breading mix by regularly sifting it and how old or dirty the oil is.
Oh and as a side note, back in those days I used to think a Zinger, New Orleans (the smell of this stuff was sensational though), Hot and Spicey, Wicked wings, etc were all too hot. After getting a bit of a taste for chili after my travels to SE Asia, I had a Zinger recently and to me it just tastes plain now without any heat at all. I think chili and tolerance to heat is really one of those things you just have to gradually condition yourself for but I'd agree western cuisine is in general quite low levels of chili…
Yeh this, quality and experience varies from store to store
I had the Hot & Spicy from Oakleigh KFC last week, was actually really good, really crispy and a good amount of flavour and spice
When they start using KFC's Hot and Spicy to see if people have a loss of taste instead
of other Covid-19 tests, let us know…So OP has….
Oh yeah? Try giving it to a 1 year old.
Lol, try giving just about anything to my 1 year old and it will end up on the floor.
We don't care about your kid. It's not spicy!
FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, WHY WON'T ANYONE REALISE THAT SUPER HOT N SPICY KFC CHICKEN IS LIKE THE BIGGEST THING WE HOPE FOR EVERY YEAR. My happiness depends on it.
So, my one year old tasted it by mistake when she was eating something else on my plate. And boy, what a reaction! I guess it is spicy! Just not spicy to me.
Agreed - Doesn't taste spicy to me at all. I get it for the crispiness!
+1 … crrrrrissssspyyy
if you like crispy go for Korean fried chicken with ext hot sauce
I like Korean fried chicken, but these are completely different beasts.
but i can get 4 burgers, 2 large chips and a 1.25lt for $21 at KFC…. a big single meal is $20+ at gami etc no? Obviously time and place for everything but KFC is good value for the occasional phat-boy meal right
How are you getting this deal? The family burger box is $27.95 for me
Korean fried chicken with extra spicy gochujang…
Why do ozbargainers stereotype things up so much that their posts are tasteless and just burns their mouths? :)
idk, ask OP. They decided to base their conception of the "Westerner's definition of spicy" on KFC.
Yet OP is doing just that and no one has an issue with it.
They're used to eating hot food just like Caucasians like to eat bland food.
That definitely is NOT what the spices are literally doing. Capsaicin activates nerve receptors, and does no permanent damage.
You understand chilli isn't actually on fire right?
Lol. Touché!
Try this: eat grilled salmon with sambal terasi - tell me what you think?
it don't burn (it just burns your mouth). Spice adds flavour - chillies add heat and once you're used to it - ain't no going back. the aromatics of asian spices can't be beat.
Had an Asian mum explain this to me recently…
In their home country they didn't have much food, adding a lot of flavour to it, made it feel you had more that what you actually had.
the thing is, even though they have access to a lot of food now in Australia… why would they stop, flavour is awesome.
Its tasteless because you're not use to their level,
Your tastebuds get used to it over time. Soon mild chili doesn't do it for you any more.
In some countries, everyone except small kids and people with gastrointestinal problems are used to very spicy food.
*nor
We're in Australia not the US
You've obviously never eaten Hispanic food which is loaded with some of the hottest chilli's in the world, or had food at a black persons house or diner who love their hot sauce with everything
Hispanics hot is also hot.
Guacamole. Nice. It's a shame that stuff is hard to come by in Australia.
The chicken is served hot.
The chicken has spices.
It's hot and spicy.Pen pineapple apple pen.
That's not what the hot means in hot and spicy means.
I'm a super logical person and even I didn't think of it that way hahaha. Good one!
So even the original recipe chicken is Hot n Spicy now? it's hot and it is seasoned with spices…
Well played KFC.
They got me good
The problem with KFC's hot and spicy is that it is highly inconsistent, and only about 1 in 10 times is really spicy. Wicked wings I presume use the same thing because they're also very hit and miss, moreso the latter.
gotta eat 100 for the heat to build up
I dont find it hot or spicy very often these days.
In the old days it was but not now.It hasn’t been hot or spicy for decades! The answer is mountains of Tobasco. Makes the flavour next level and you actually get it spicy like it should be. Seriously try it!
But tobasco isn't spicy. How is adding a vinegar tasting sauce going to make it spicy?
and adding enough tobasco to get it to register as being spicy would make it soggy >_<
if you can peel back the breading first and dip the chicken in the tobasco if you like vinegar with your chicken.
@dasher86: actually, on second thought, it would probably not need as much sauce if using the habanero version :-)
so maintaining crispiness while gaining spiciness!
I use the Habanero tabasco, I love the vinegar taste plus the spice/heat. Would love to find somewhere that sells the scorpion one though.
I picked up some Franks xtra hot whilst it was on sale at Aldi. It has some decent but not excessive heat to it.
Yawn…
No way! Sriracha all the way :) Doesn't make the chicken soggy.
true, it'd retain the crispiness more as it's more viscous.
but you'd still run in to the same issue i.e. sriracha, unless in large amounts, really isn't that spicy.Its a heck of a lot more spicy the KFC Hot n Spicy. I'm not looking to burn a hole in my palette. Sriracha spice level is good enough for me. I am known for using a fair bit though - who doesn't love a lot of sauce.
@djsweet: don't get me wrong, i agree with you that it's more spicy than HnS.
and i too use a lot of sriracha in place of ketchup/tomato saucebut at some point, it'd be more a sriracha dish rather than KFC. or a plateful of sauce with a side of KFC :-)
but at some point, it'd be more a sriracha dish rather than KFC. or a plateful of sauce with a side of KFC :-)
Nothing wrong with that!
Poll!
As a white person, traditionally black pepper is seen as SpIcY