brownissues "It's bad," said Gustavo Miranda, a Mexico City resident, after downing tacos with work colleagues. "If you don't want it to be spicy, don't use any. If you lower the heat on a salsa, now it's a dressing. It's not a salsa anymore."
An influx of foreigners to Mexico's capital has set off a debate about how much to adapt to outsiders - and specifically, the spice tolerance of visitors.
Jorge Campos, the manager of El Compita, a taco shop that opened a year ago in the heart of the Roma neighborhood, one popular with foreigners, said that the taquería had dropped the heat level on one of the three table offerings — a charred, tomato-based salsa — by using more jalapeños and fewer habanero chiles.
International customers, he said, would sometimes send tacos back because the salsas had burned their mouths.
Since the other salsas are inherently spicier - the red one is made almost entirely of chile de arbol, while the green one has serrano chiles - they tweaked the charred salsa to make it easier on some diners.
But what might be good for business might not be good for the Mexican psyche. (x)
Photos by @luis.antonio.rojas RP @nytimes
