There is no specific food that could be termed Nepali except the generic daal bhat tarkari, but there are plenty of dishes whose mere mention can put foreign tongues on fire while making a Nepali's mouth water wildly. There is nothing better to stimulate the noontime mind of a snack-minded civil servant than achar or a hot dish with chiura. Your mouths watering already? That's called the Pavlov Effect.

Kathmandu being a red hot melting pot is also a connoisseur's delight. From authentic Newari dishes, to influences blown in from the hills of the east and the west and the plains of the south, one can get anything and everything. And a lot of it is very spicy.

Sanyakhuna is a Newari dish that cannot be anything but spicy hot. It is a broth of dry fish, salt, oil and chilli powder, and other exotic spices, which is boiled until all the ingredients dissolve into one unrecognisable translucent reddish mass. It is only eaten after it cools down and resembles jelly. Takhala is also prepared using the same procedure but with water buffalo meat, including the skin. Both are dishes that Newari people just can't do without during Kathmandu winters. Chhwela is roasted buffalo meat, garnished with generous amounts of spices-mainly chilli powder. Haku (black) chhwela is a variant of chhwela that can be even hotter than regular chhwela.

A delicacy at the famous Hunacha's Pasal at Patan Darbar Square is aalu tarkari (potato curry). Fiery red in appearance and equally fiery in taste, the dish attracts masochistic people who nearly have smoke coming out of their ears, but love every minute of it. Then there is tama aalu, made with bamboo shoots and potatoes and considered to be more delicious with that extra green chilli floating on top. The greatly relished gundruk ko jhol (gundruk soup) is a generic dish eaten by almost all Nepalis. Made from fermented and dried green vegetables, usually radish leaves or spinach, it goes with anything and everything provided the gravy has whole lapsis and is mined with large red chillies.

One community that cannot be ignored when we talk of hot Nepali food are Thakalis. Coming from the higher climes, Thakali food seems to be designed to keep warm during the long windy winters on the Kali Gandaki Valley. Dishes like Aalunkhu (soup with dry meat and white flour balls) can be so spicy that they actually serve as a central heating system for the body. One spice that needs mention here is the timbur ko chhop, which is a double whammy of ground spicy timbur berries, with chilli powder and salt. Just goes to show that it is not just chillies that give Nepali food its zing-timbur can be just as potent.

The momos that Kathmandu lives on cannot, in their turn, do without a chilli sauce. The achar is a paste of chilli, garlic, tomatoes and salt, and you can have a thousand variants of the sauce in little shops across the Valley. Discerning momo buffs follow the trail of good achar, and the spicier the better.

Then there are the pickles. Almost all pickles must have chillies, but there are pickles made solely from chillies. These are the mothers of all pickles: pure red hot lava coming out of a volcano. These must be handled with care. Sarala Bhattarai, a pickle supplier for the WEAN cooperative says: "Even if the pickle is not very hot, the combination of vinegar and chilli gives a good colour to the product." So the scary-looking pickle bottle may not be the spiciest, but one can never tell. The proof of the pickle is in the eating. There are some families whose pickles are famous far and wide. "There is a family I know which is believed to have been using the same pickle for the past twelve years. Every time a woman gives birth in any house, they send for pickle from there," says Pramila Shah, another pickle supplier.

Research has shown that chilli is highly advantageous to the body. And this is partly explained by Amit Gupta, a homeopath, who says: "Pickles might not do the body much good together with excessive spices and oil, but chilli has ulcer-healing properties and is very good for rapid healing of ruptures during labour."

Chilli is also supposed to boost blood circulation, and helps maintain body heat. Not surprisingly, the sale of pickles soars in winters. A great analgesic and antiseptic, chilli is also believed to strengthen the body's immune system, normalising blood pressure and protecting against heart disease. "My own grandmother, who lived till 95, was very active and had an amazingly good memory till 90. We suspect that her daily diet of scorching hot chilli sauce that nobody else ever touched must have done it," says Amit Gupta.

Which chillies are the hottest? Kathmandu markets offer a wide variety of chillies of all shapes, colours and sizes. Arguably, the hottest of them all is the jire chilli, or the bird's eye chilli, and, according to those who have survived to tell the tale, it can be like swallowing a live grenade. Its origins are traced to Jiri (in Dolakha district) and legend has it that it is even hotter than Mexican chillis. Jyanmara chilli, as its name indicates, is bloody murder, and is used sparingly for its taste, especially in pickles. As the sahuni in the famous bara shop in Patan Darbar Square puts it: "The jyanmara is too hot. It sets your mouth on fire and smoke comes out of your nostrils."

Then there are varieties with similar appearances like jhene chilli or the red cluster pepper, the dhorke chilli and the chhuche chilli or cone pepper. In the presence of such worthies, the common capsicum or bell pepper is considered a vegetable rather than a spice.