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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3034 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 1, 2023

Happy New Year!

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I believe that Indian restaurants make food less spicy for non-Indian patrons and spicier (or at least regular spicy) for Indian patrons. This belief stems from a) Indian friends telling me that the white-washed Indian restaurants they've gone to aren't nearly as spicy as home, and b) me ordering the spiciest dishes (generally vindaloo) and not being phased by the spiciness.

I'd like to run some experiments to determine how true this is. I have practically zero experimental design experience and would like input/advice.

Here's my basic plan:

  1. Order vindaloo takeout under a white name and pick up

  2. Wait 30 min to prevent order batching

  3. Order vindaloo takeout under an Indian name and pick up

  4. Cool both in the refrigerator for two hours (this is to blind me to which dish is which by temperature)

  5. Mark both to distinguish white vs. Indian (do this in a way that doesn't allow me to see)

  6. Heat them both up evenly

  7. Randomize so I don't know which dish I am eating

  8. Sample one dish

  9. Cleanse my palate (to start at spiciness zero)

  10. Sample the other dish

  11. Compare the two dishes' spiciness

I think recruiting a friend or two would help to add more data points and make the blinding easier/less prone to failure.

Open to any thoughts. And if you're in the Dallas area and interested in participating, let me know!

I'm in DFW and vaguely interested in making this happen. But I am not particularly good at handling spicy food. I find standard "hot" wings to be enjoyable in small doses but not for a full meal, and I tend to order a 2-3/5 for Thai. Embarrassing, and I don't know that I would survive optimized vindaloo.

Your experimental design sounds good as long as you find somewhere that takes online orders. Doing it over the phone would likely confound the results. The other trick is palate cleansing since if one really is spicier, it may be hard to reset. I think Rov_Scam's design might mitigate this challenge?

Most of the Indian restaurants I've visited have an online ordering option. If not, I'd ask an Indian friend to order for me.

Agreed on the palate cleansing. I think a small dose of food plus milk will be fine. We'll see at the first try.

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