Scotland is well-known for its love of spicy curries but it seems that only one Scottish city ranks when it comes to finding out which cities around the UK can handle the most spice. Edinburgh beat out Scotland's largest city, Glasgow, to be named the Scottish city best able to handle a spicy curry.
Meal-box delivery company, HelloFresh, put together the research as part of National Curry Week celebrations looking at which city prefers the hottest curry.
The data found that Norwich are the biggest eaters of Phall, a curry that is considered the hottest available in the world and hits up to 350,000 Scoville units, making Norwich the city that can handle the most spice.
To compare, a Vindaloo sits at around 100,000 Scoville units and certainly isn’t for the light-hearted, but of the cities surveyed, people from Birmingham gave Vindaloo the most love, with 1 in 20 Brummies voting for it and ranking them in 2nd place.
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It’s Geordies that don’t seem to be able to handle the heat, with Korma receiving the most votes from the North-East city, followed closely by Bristol who favoured Pasanda over any other city.
Edinburgh was the only Scottish city to be named placing in fourth, with the likes of Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and Aberdeen all not even getting a look in.
Recipe development manager at HelloFresh, Mimi Morley said: “When it comes to spicy food, there are many nutritional benefits that are overlooked. For example, chilli peppers are loaded with vitamin E, as well as vitamins A, B6, vitamin K, iron and fibre.
If you’re wanting to delve into spicier cuisines, like Indian, start small to build up your tolerance with a curry that is slightly spicier than what you usually order. Rather than opting for a Tikka Masala, maybe try a Saag or Rogan Josh as they’re not typically that much hotter.
"Never force yourself if you can’t handle the heat and a nice little hack is to drizzle yoghurt over the curry which acts as a coolant.
“Also, if you're making curry at home and you want a particular flavour but not all the spice, you can add less chill than the recipe recommends - it will still be delicious.”
The UK cities that can handle their spice:
1. Norwich
2. Birmingham
3. Sheffield
4. Edinburgh
5. Belfast
6. Liverpool
7. Leeds
8. Southampton
9. Nottingham
10. Manchester
11. Cardiff
12. Bristol
13. Newcastle
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