Sweet Heat

Last night, Jason and I went to Chuy’s for the opening night of their annual Green Chile Festival, which celebrates all things wonderful about the Hatch native.

If you live in Austin (or Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio), you must go and sample some of the items on the menu. Last night’s standouts were these: The Macho Burrito and the Green Chile Brownie.

The former was macho in all the right ways: Hefty, persuasive, confident. Zesty but not abusive, straightforward and honest. No lies from this burrito. The roasted pork and green chile tomatillo sauce were enough to convince me to surrender to its charms. Yes, I am in love with this burrito.

The brownie though, is what has stoked my lust. It was a brownie a la mode, but with a hint of green chiles mixed in and topped with green chile syrup and bits of almost candied chile. Oh my. A hot brownie. Chocolate and red chiles have been done—look at mole for a traditional example—but I’d never tasted this particular combination of sweet and green chile. It may be quite common, but if so, I’m unaware of it. In any case, this is a combination that somehow makes the sweetness of the dessert so much more pleasurable.

I once had a mango-habanero crème brulee, and it was much the same. There is a kind of “all circuits on” effect, where the heat on the tongue intensifies the enjoyment of the dessert, though not by making it sweeter, only tastier. It's hard to explain, but come to think of it, the sprinkling of cayenne on sweet corn (as is widely done in Latin America) has a similar effect.

It’s as though the soothing, palliative experience of sweetness is sharpened (and completed) by the sting of the burn, just as comedy is made more whole with moments of gravity, or drama is with moments of comic relief.

I am not a “food writer,” though I do like to think and write about food, especially as we experience flavor and how the taste of things creates emotional response, but I do know that balance in food is highly prized. The more I think about this as a principle the more I recognize how much of our food is unbalanced—too salty, too sweet, too rich. I am not going to say that a too-sweet cookie will wreck your life, but too many may corrupt our sense of balance. And, who knows, maybe just like a small foot injury can change the way you move, an injury to this sense may end up producing far larger effects.

Anyway, all I know is this: Spicy brownie = Deep thoughts

Thanks, Green Chile Festival, for freeing my mind. Now, the rest of you, go, and see what I'm talking about.