We've all seen it before: a corn-fed Midwesterner starts to enjoy a meal with his more worldly friends at an establishment that serves spicy foods. The first few bites go down just fine, but inevitably, the uninitiated diner ends up tearing up, turning red and gulping down glasses of water.

By all conventional estimates, this person should be incredibly embarrassed — I have often regretted a situation that left me sweaty, crying and blushing. However, in spite of its seemingly nasty effects, spicy food is a favorite on college campuses and in big cities all over the country.

The love of spicy food is an odd phenomenon, especially considering the sensation of "hotness," which food scientists refer to as pungency, is just a mild form of pain. One explanation for the love of spicy food comes from psychologist Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania. He refers to the love of things pungent as "benign masochism." His argument goes that eating spicy foods is a way for people to experience something moderately dangerous on a small scale. However, this thrill-seeking behavior is just one of the many reasons to eat spicy foods. Many people find that the slight irritation that comes from pungency makes them more sensitive to the temperature and texture of foods. Furthermore, some scientists speculate that the eventual relief that comes after waiting for the burn to go away produces a general sense of well-being.

One of the most common classes of pungent molecules that brings the beloved spicy afterglow are the thiocyanates. These pungent lovelies find their way into a variety of foods, but their most concentrated sources are mustard, horseradish and wasabi.

Anybody who has been a wee bit overzealous in her application of the wasabi at a Japanese restaurant can attest to the fact that thiocyanates have a unique type of pungency. These molecules are tiny and light, consisting of just a couple dozen atoms, and quickly escape from our food to our nasal passages. It is there that they do their real damage. However, in spite of the intensity, the irritation that thiocyanates cause is generally short-lived.

The big daddy of pungent molecules, however, is capsaicin. The principal molecule found in most hot peppers, capsaicin has a different effect than thiocyanates. Since it is much heavier, it stays in the mouth and irritates the tongue and palate, creating a longer-lasting effect that builds with time. It is this long-lived pungency that makes the creators of hot sauce toss chiles or, occasionally, pure capsaicin into their brews.

The many uses of capsaicin do not stop with food, however. Despite pepper spray's name, its primary ingredient is not pepper but capsaicin. Amazingly, people all over the world have thwarted would-be attackers with the very molecule that makes Buffalo Wild Wings a successful establishment.

Another interesting potential use for capsaicin in the future is as a drug abuse deterrent. In 2006, Clifford Woolf, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, proposed a method of lacing prescription drugs like OxyContin and Adderall with capsaicin. That way, people snorting the crushed-up pills would get a rude, pungent awakening, while people taking the drug orally would experience no negative effects. Woolf's system hasn't been implemented in mass-market medications yet, but it is yet another example of capsaicin's seemingly limitless potential.

Thiocyanates and capsaicin are wonderful molecules. Whether they appear in mustards, hot sauces, hot peppers or painkillers, they work wonders on our palates as well as our nerves. As is the case with any food, however, too much of a good thing can be very bad. Unfortunately, thiocyanates and capsaicin are nonpolar molecules; that is, there is no difference in charge between the two ends of the molecules. This means that water, which is a polar solvent, does nothing to wash away the spicy little devils.

Fortunately, two nonpolar solvents are very good at banishing the pungency from your palate: fat and alcohol. Moderate amounts of either have the power to wash away the pain of pungency. However, be warned: After "curing" yourself of the burning in your mouth, you may find yourself itching for a little more pungency just a few seconds later.

Jason Engelhart is a junior majoring in economics and history. Are thiocyanates the spice of your life? Let Jason know. E-mail him at [email protected].