Why Is Mala so Addictive? All about This Numbing Spicy Sensation | Eat China: Back to Basics S4E6

Spice addicts love mala. Wonder what the science behind that is? Also, how did the sensation become the hallmark of Sichuan cuisine?
This is the sixth episode of our new season of “Eat China: Back to Basics,” where we answer burning questions you might have about Chinese food.
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0:00 What is mala
01:48 How to make a mala dish
03:08 Why is mala so addictive
04:31 How mala got so popular
06:08 Sichuan food is more than mala
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Producer: Yoyo Chow
Videographer: Guo Yong
Editor: César del Giudice
Narration: Victoria Ho
Animation: Stella Yoo
Mastering: César del Giudice
#mala #sichuan #spicy

[@Goldthread]

Still remember the first time you had mala food? What was that like🥵?

[@ropro9817]

I would kill for a bag of mala Doritos... 🤠

[@alvinko47]

Mapo tofu and it was delicious.

[@BenjiSun]

laziji, and then i was hooked.

[@Eleora1997Msia]

i'm a Malaysian Chinese. i grownups with Malay & Indian friends. eating spicy food is totally normal meal for us in this country (Nasi Lemak is count as spicy sambal for breakfast) No spicy will not eat with appetite at all. so for me eating mala is so dang easy, not very flaming at all is just numbness in the tongue. I love flaming hot, feels bodyache free after the thick curry meal. Meanwhile, most Chinese in local don't like spicy food, they said it will make acne in a fast rate, and also eating without a proper ying & yang way of health will cause stomachache... Well i still see a lot Malaysia & Singapore Chinese not a big fan of spicy. To spot the spicy lover friend, will totally hang out in Thai/Indian/Malay cuisine

[@Goldthread]

@@Eleora1997Msia LOL I totally get the bit about needing spiciness to kickstart the appetite!

[@chenliang7550]

Ah the legendary and timeless tomato and egg stir fry.

[@Towkeeyoh]

Kid was adorable, he was really wrecking his head

[@calatheaflamestar4924]

I can assure you *it is addicting.* During the pandemic I was obsessed with foods like mapo tofu (and everything with sichuan style chilli oil) but my stomach can't cope with the spicy food anymore... I had trouble swallowing and couldn't eat anything real for weeks. Attention people with *heartburn* and *stomach* problems - *don't overdo it* ❗❗❗

[@BenjiSun]

sichuan peppers is actually not related to peppercorns which are stone fruits(like apricots or peaches). sichuan pepper is actually a very specialized citrus, in the same genus as other prickly ash, like Japanese sansho (sprinkled over grilled freshwater eel - unagi kabayaki)

[@bobbymoss6160]

I love this channel so much, I love hearing all the different regional dialects spoken through out China.

[@tngchinghwa]

lmao, the ending part when they asking the kid, and he answered a dish that's not sichuan specialty, gold comedy

[@sendoh7x]

tbf the interviewer asked what food he ate the most when the kid couldn't answer the 1st question lol

[@MonsieurDecent]

We live in Los Angeles. We noticed in the last ~2 years, many non-ethnic-Chinese young Americans in their 20's and 30's were hooked on mala. While feeling very funny and happy for them, we hopes they also knew mala was not the only flavour of REAL Chinese food.

[@overseastom]

Amazing ending to the video. Instant sub.

[@vinniekay0967]

That Chef's facial expression at 7:50 is priceless! Enjoying his own soup-dish 😄

[@SuperStargazer666]

I love it!!! Sechuan peppercorns really are addicting

[@erikandersson9063]

Looking at this while sitting on the toilet after eating some mala. Trying to think - it’s not a real fire down there, just the fire alarm 😅

[@purplealice]

I love ma la! I bought several Sichuan cookbookswritten by Fuchsia Dunlop, and tried cooking it at home. My family enjoys it. And I make chili oil and keep the bowl on the table with salt and pepper. A drop of chili oil on a spoonful of vanilla ice cream is very interesting. Vanillin and capsaicin have similar molecular structures RIght now I've just had gall bladder surgery, and I can't eat spicy or oily foods.

[@mark-angelofamularcano237]

Aah, the tomato and egg stir fry 😌

[@erickchandra3771]

Szechwan peppercorns make this taste very distinctive. I really love mala flavour ❤️ It's a combination between spicy, minty and lil bit of electric shocking. Tastes so fresh in my mouth.

[@purplealice]

Fuchsia, you are my idol.I own four of your cookbooks - my family has instructions to give me a new one whevever it's released around CHristmastime

[@shanicestella2226]

Yesterday , I have my mala crab meal and its so delicious 🌶️🌶️🌶️🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦞🦞🦞🦞🦐🦐🦐

[@jamespayter6948]

5:31 - That's Park Street in Bristol. I'm really glad she showed this, as there have been seom decent Szechuanese joints opening up around this area in recent years. Chilli Daddy in particular is fantastic. It's nice to get to try some Chinese food that isn't the bastardised, sugary version of Cantonese that we are all so used to. (There are some decent, proper Cantonese BBQ meat joints though - Nice and Spice being one of them. Their duck is superb!)

[@olivier2553]

Mala has become quite popular in Thailand too in the recent years.

[@padredemishijos12]

Spanish and Portuguese brought the red chili peppers from South America and New Spain. The Amazonian chili pepper is a sub species of the normal peppers.

[@pawealbrzykowski9251]

Wonderful, mala taste is my favourite for last 40 years

[@Met845]

Can u share the original mala youve using until now. Im confuse

[@pawealbrzykowski9251]

@@Met845 Mala is the word for taste of sichuan peppercorn, sometimes alone, but in cooking mainly mixed with differnt kinds of chili, garlic etc.

[@hermanchow1405]

@ 5:11 Boston Chinatown !

[@randmayfield5695]

I love mala but have a question. How does one deal with those hard little seeds found in the hull? One site recommended to use a spice grinder and make the prickly ash into as fine a powder as you can.

[@qiaonasen3559]

I love MALA

[@2010XJP]

Delicious mala. I'm salivating and sweating just watching this video. 🥵🤤

[@guusvangerrevink2484]

FINALLY

[@TsukiNuUsagi1]

The laptop was looking pretty ‘mala’ there 😂👌

[@tinlunlau1]

好久沒吃麻辣火鍋🤤🤤🤤

[@Eleora1997Msia]

Do you remember about Rick & Morty (adult swim cartoon) about the Szechuan sauce that had been go crazy in the internet during the year (2016/2017). is just a Mala sauce anyway

[@p0331546]

i love mala. extra spicy :D

[@savire.ergheiz]

Yea its fun when you are choking on spicy food 😁

[@altang884884]

so where can we find information on the other 23 flavors?

[@calatheaflamestar4924]

I would also like to know that.

[@zihaoding4864]

1、麻辣味型2、酸辣味型3、泡椒味型4、怪味味型5、糊辣味型6、红油味型7、家常味型8、鱼香味型9、荔枝味型10、咸鲜味型11、甜香味型12、烟香味型13、椒麻味型14、蒜泥味型15、五香味型16、糖醋味型17、咸甜味型18、陈皮味型19、酱香味型20、姜汁味型21、麻酱味型22、椒盐味型23、香糟味型24、芥末味型

[@muslimlosari8567]

merica dalam mala, mungkin seperti andaliman atau cabe Jawa jika di Indonesia.

[@ArminWiesinger]

Great video, but at 1:29 why the green and black pepper as pictures. That is botanically totally different. Pictures of szechuan peepercorn are not that hard to find

[@samueleng1439]

me too kid, me too

[@duncanmit5307]

💜👍💜👍💜

[@deel699]

I can't eat spicy normally but I like mala

[@atlasaltera]

Great intro for people, but peppers didn't arrive in China in the 15th century. The Columbian exchange would've happened at the very earliest in the 16th century, or 1500s, as the first voyage to the Americas from Europe happened in what, 1492?

[@erickchandra3771]

You're right! China got chili peppers later than other Asia regions. It should be around the end of Ming dynasty, around the end of 16th or early 17th century, chili was entered to China. But the other ingredient, Sichuan pepper, is endemic to Southwest China and there's no any correlation with chili.

[@atlasaltera]

@@erickchandra3771 And what's fascinating is that it was the inland provinces that took up the pepper, leading to people trying to figure out the pathway/trade routes that brought the peppers over. It also led to the accidental naming of one of the species, Chinensis, because early classifiers thought the species was native to China (this is the same species that gives us varieties like the habanero, Scotch bonnet etc.). Another curious fact about peppers in Chinese cuisine...coastal provinces tend to prefer more conservative palettes, at least traditionally. They did not take up the chili pepper as easily, despite cities in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu having extensive connections to foreign markets and trade networks.

[@VerlorneFeldwacht]

@@atlasaltera A few years ago, a scholar named Cao Yu did some research on the history of spicy food in China, he wrote a book 中国食辣史 Zhōngguó shí là shǐ. (Cao was born in Guangdong in the 1980s, but his mother came from Hunan and cooked with chili.) He found out that chili was introduced as an ornamental plant. In central China, salt was very expensive. In Guizhou, Hunan and Sichuan, peasants who could not afford salt discovered chili, which is easy to cultivate, as a cheap condiment. For centuries, the spicy food belonged to the peasants' cuisine, the upper class shunned and rejected it as crude and "unhealthy." In the last decades, spicy food has become popular all over China. This is a result of the inner-Chinese migration triggered by the market reforms: Millions of peasants from Sichuan and Hunan came to the coastal cities as migrant workers and brought their dried chilies and Sichuan pepper with them. So the recent nationwide popularity of spicy food is actually a victory of the working class.

[@stoopidness]

If I could eat mala every meal, I would 😅

[@sendoh7x]

Spicy food is my favourite but I just couldn't appreciate szechuan pepper 'numbing' sensation. Basic chili oil is just good enough for me

[@just4therecord]

Ma laat- Cantonese 😅

[@zacharyyan4898]

Mon Late

[@outandaboutafterthestorm]

I don't know if this is true, some people say the numbing sensation also get rid of intestinal parasite that can be present in your body.

[@ychongy]

Numb mouth sores?

[@johnchernabcinterviewandca3153]

The accent that the guy in Black has is THICC.....

[@dearcoolz]

Sounds french mumbling

[@Brick-Life]

Yummy but painful

[@dearcoolz]

The guy in black has a sexy accent almost French like. Soft mumblings

[@LV_fromhtx]

Ice cream is more addictive

[@jasonreviews]

i'm not addict to mala. Im not that into numbing spice.

[@Dancingleaf243]

Two ads one minute into the video…

[@johnnychang4233]

No wonder Masochism is addictive.

[@K_B_H_]

unsubscribing because you video bumped this

[@phunagewine]

Masochists, word