You can call me late for dinner, you can call me a beer snob. Hell, you can even call me "husky" (though I'd prefer you didn't; I'm just big-boned). But goddamn if I'll let you call me crazy when I tell you that I can't stand Sriracha.
This fiery-red fluid is the bane of my epicurean existence. No sooner have the acrid tendrils of its aroma passed my nostrils than I am transformed into Hyde, or Jekyll, or whichever one of them hated hot sauce more. For years, I've suffered in silence at soup dumpling stands & college cafeterias full of lunatics addicted to the savage sauce. But I can't fake it anymore, so I admit it: Sriracha is flat-out foul.
What's up, Cockmongers? You think I'm nuts? Then find me in the comments, where I'll tell you why these reasons for my Srirach-aversion are beyond reproach:
IT BURNS! IT BUUUUUUUUUUURNS!
If there's one thing worse than death OR taxes, it's the unbearable havoc that Sriracha's heat wreaks on my body. Fooled by Mister Scoville's tacit encouragement (this crimson fury supposedly clocks lower on the spice scale than even the pedestrian jalapeño), I've given it plenty of chances. My lips tremble. An unquenchable fire of a thousand Thai suns rains down on my tongue. It's around this point that my esophagus begins scream-singing the opening bars of "Rolling in the Deep."
"We could have had it allllllll
enjoying things we eeeeeeee-at
he had my digestive tract in his hand
but Scoville played me, and lied about the heat" -- Adele, probably
The carnage is severe, and no one's yet warned my stomach -- or my toilet -- that Sriracha's coming in hot.
IT MAKES EVERYTHING TASTE LIKE THE SAME BAD THING
"I don't even remember what food tasted like before I discovered Sriracha." If I had a nickel for every time I heard some self-righteous foodie or Liz Newman say that, I'd be so rich, I wouldn't have to spend my days writing screeds about the South Pacific's cruelest condiment. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I would anyway, because this sinister stuff turns pizza, ice cream, and salad into the same mouth-singeing schlock. Actual "seasoning" enhances a food's natural flavors. Sriracha just smothers everything in a consistent taste-blanket of garlic/battery acid. There's a difference, dammit!
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