Cures for Chile Hands
On what happens when you don’t wear gloves when cutting lots of chiles.
About a month ago I had an explosion of chiles in my garden. Mostly hot Mexican chiles like habaneros, tabascos, serranos and jalapeños, plus a few others form various parts of South America. There were more habaneros than anything else, at least a kilo. I decided to make a few different hot sauces with them (including one mixed with paw paws), so I began chopping them up and jarring the different varieties in separate jars. I didn’t have any rubber gloves around and didn’t want to go to the store. I thought, people have been cutting chiles for centuries before rubber gloves were created, so I would probably be fine. I was wrong. I was not fine.
Maybe because I was so focused on prepping everything, I didn’t notice anything wrong while I was cutting the chiles. About an hour later, after I had cleaned up and sat down, I noticed an uncomfortable tingle. That tingle quickly transformed into excruciating pain. I did a quick Google search and all I found was to wash your hands with soap really well, but it did little. The same went for make a paste with baking soda. I eventually read that the fat in milk was useful, so I poured a glass and let my hands soak in it. It seemed to help somewhat while my hands were in the milk, but you can only live your life for so long with hands in glasses of milk. It was getting late, so I thought I could just sleep it off. Time, certainly, would be the cure. I was somehow able to sleep but the pain was even worse the next morning. In the shower, I lightly touched one of my eyes and it started to hurt, though I was quickly able to stand eyelids back with the showerhead aimed at my eyeballs for a few minutes and it luckily went away. I had an interview that day for the podcast with María Álvarez, of Mexican indie culinary publishing company Novo, and I had to sit on my hands to make it through it (I apologize for my awkwardness at the 1:04 minute mark).