So this didn’t happen today but has been happening for my entire adult life. However I DID come to the realisation today.
For context, I grew up in New Zealand and now live in Australia.
I’ve always loved Mexican and American foods, and over the years I’ve added quite a few recipes to my go-to list. One of those being chili.
I’m definitely a fan of spice, and I always thought I could handle it, but the all the recipes I found for chili ended up being mind blowingly spicy. Like, tears running down my face, nose running, can’t feel my tongue spicy. I do enjoy this level of spice from time to time as the rush I get is like a drug. I just thought that’s what chili was supposed to be like, as all the recipies I’ve tried called for a similar amount of chili powder.
However today, after finding a new recipe I wanted to try, I decided to actually read the blog post that came before it instead of scrolling past it like I normally do. Today was the day that I realised that what we call chilli powder is not what Americans call chili powder.
In New Zealand, chilli powder is pure dried chillies. And here I was thinking that the spelling difference was just an American English thing…
I found out today that for the past 13 years I’ve been loading my chili with about 50x more ground chilli than the recipe calls for….
tl;dr: I thought when the recipe called for chili powder it meant 100% pure ground dried chillies and loaded my chili with about 50x more spice than the recipe called for.
**edit: For clarification, the chili powder the recipe called for was a mix of cayenne, paprika, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder and oregano**
**edit: Just as a disclaimer, this specifically refers to American recipies that call for chili powder (one L), don’t go putting this stuff in your curry**
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