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Hot or not, hot sauce version x Old Enough mash up:
Southeast Asian children from ages 5 to 7 try different American hot sauces and say if they’re hot or not.
Spoiler: it’s all Not Hot at all.
I remember the first time I had Tabasco as a 5 year old. “Is this.. hot??”
And my lifelong dislike of vinegar-dominant hot sauce began.
My wife and I were talking about how when we were growing up, nobody ever said any food was spicy to us. It was just food. And you just had it, or didn’t. We weren’t trained to eat spicy food, or told we couldn’t eat something spicy because of our age. It was just food.
One of the major cultural differences I see here, I guess, is the idea that some types of food have some age requirement, especially ‘ethnic’ food. We just ate everything at all times.
@skinnylatte sed to use it in high school to keep my instant ramen to myself. Would dose it liberally with tabasco so that others stopped asking for some.
@skinnylatte t is certainly nothing compared to the ghost pepper; chocolate scorpion; reaper heavy sauces I use these days. My kids are used to spice more so than some, but even they avoid “dad's ketchup” :-)
@Fridley I don’t know that I like those either. The reaper style hot sauces feel gimmicky to me, they don’t really taste of much and they’re still ultimately kind of vinegary. I suppose I despise all vinegar based hot sauces.
I much prefer Thai or Vietnamese or Indonesian sauces where capsaicin is dominant, but tasty. But what passes for sambal in America is also vinegary, which it’s not supposed to be. Ditto for sriracha.
@skinnylatte I've been pretty lucky. While there are a few of the vinegar type in my collection, they are full flavoured and generous with the capsaicin. My preference is all about flavour, while still being hot enough to feel it. Haven't tried making sambal. My wife use to get some homemade sambal from her workmate's mum. Might need to try making my own.
@Fridley this is a good reference sambal that should be exported many places. Try each type to see what it’s supposed to taste like; each has different uses. Terasi and Matah are the basic ones that go with everything
@skinnylatte I think that we were very spoiled. Hard to beat “mum's homemade” sambal :-) Will check it out. Cheers
@Fridley for sure. As someone who lived with an auntie who made dozens of fresh sambals daily, I miss it. Unfortunately I can’t bring her with me around the world.
@skinnylatte I was raised (N. California) to believe spicy things were not for me.
Then in college some friends introduced me to Thai food, and in grad school I expanded my palate further.
I’m still not a fan of Tabasco or similar vinegary sauces though. Give me Chinese chili oil instead!
@AstridBears I’m glad you found Thai food!! If you haven’t seen, Marion’s Kitchen and Pailin’s Kitchen are my favorite YouTube channels for Thai cooking. They truly make it easy for everyone to learn
@skinnylatte I recall my Chinese parents in law would not give herbal/medicinal soup to my toddler. "The medicine is too strong".
@skinnylatte when my daughter was 3 we sent her to pre-school with indian food and everything was good for a while… but then she started complaining that kids should have sandwiches and whatnot, so we had to give her blander food to fit in.
@skinnylatte I was going to say you're missing out, but really none of the great vinegar-based recipes I've had would fall under "hot" sauces - they're barbeque. But I do love the combo of Tabasco and salt. 
@thom I’m starting to come around to using them in the right moment, like with New Orleans food.
But generally not what I’d reach for in the majority of the food I eat. Mexican hot sauces (like El Yucateco XXXL Hot) are more my thing for hot sauces from this side of the world.
@skinnylatte a global “hot or not” map of kids reactions to hot sauces would be epic
This is the correct response to Tabasco
@skinnylatte vinegar based sauces are good for eggs and Cajun dishes
@mikec415 I prefer eggs with soy sauce. And I am slowly accepting of crystal in New Orleans food. But still deeply skeptical of it in most other contexts
@skinnylatte I find Tabasco (or the hot sauces that share similar traits) strange, most likely because it only gives you the burning sensation, but there's no fragrance element at all (I guess I have been pampered a lot by shallots and friends) 