Yesterday the AC was out in out building. Tim Rogers wrote about it on Frontburner. It was a challenge to produce a magazine in large area full of sweaty people. Tempers flared. One co-worker couldn’t eat. She was too hot. I tried to explain to her that a number many cultures that live in hot climates eat spicy food to cool down (India, Thailand, and Ethiopia). The second I mentioned a restaurant in Eritrea, I thought she was going to vomit on her clammy keyboard.
Consider these loosely arranged facts. Spices have anti-parasitic properties. So if the meat you’ve been hanging on the patio has spoiled a tad, spices will not only mask the smell, the antimicrobial (think Pac-man) critters will chomp up the bad protein.
Eating spicy food makes you sweat. Especially if you are already sweaty and irritable at your co-workers. Once you add this spicy layer of sweat to your natural lawyer of sweat, your body cools down as the second layer dries up. It’s a short-term solution, but worth an order of extra spicy chicken vindaloo.
So I’m headed downtown to the sweatbox armed with Thai food and pistachio, almond, and cardamom kulfi bars.
And you? What do you eat to beat the heat?
