Munchies/Vice: A Brief Taxonomy of All the Different Ways that Korean Food Can Be Spicy

March 7, 2018

I think my eyebrows are sweating.

Can eyebrows do that?

I’m normally no slouch with spice. But this Haek Buldak chicken ramen—famous for being the world’s spiciest instant ramen and known by its viral YouTube name, nuclear fire noodles—has kickstarted physical reactions akin to allergies. After just a few bites, the spice has filled my mouth with a runaway, quick-spreading fire and produced a level of heat my body is unfamiliar with.

Despite my trying to expel the spice by exhaling it out, the heat refuses to evacuate, and instead decides to spin around and around over itself, like the tumble cycle of a clothes dryer. My face feels swollen, shit’s running all over the place, and I’m breathless and panting as though I’ve just run my fastest 10k. Between hot, salty tears, I squint down and see that I’ve involuntarily clenched both fists which have come to rest on either side of my ramen bowl. Shit. I forgot the milk. And what the hell is going on with my eyebrows? I’m now wondering if my grand plan has backfired.

After a terrible few days of general, overall, existential angst in which I’ve been forced to question some of my life choices—country of residence, career path, bangs—I’ve borrowed a strategy out of the modern Korean handbook for stress therapy, and am trying to exorcise my anxieties with a bowl of spicy ramen.

More at https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k7md5/korean-spicy-food