[Sca-cooks] The Sense of Taste, was Non-chocolate treats

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Bronwynmgn at aol.com wrote:
>Yes, it is unusual, but I simply hate chocolate in all its forms.  I'm not
>allergic to it or anything.  To me, it tastes so bitter that I cannot stand
>to eat it or to even eat anything that has been packaged with it for any
>length of time.  I have learned, over the years, to like graham crackers,
>but I couldn't stand them when I was little.

This is so fascinating. The senses are so variable. Each of us
trapped in our own body with nothing but our own senses to rely on
often assumes that the basic sensory perceptions of others is like
our own. We can acknowledge some "difference in taste", but this
often seems more to be some sort of personal "prejudice".

But in fact it appears that our senses really do perceive things very
differently.

I LIKE bitter foods. Yes, they taste bitter to me, but i enjoy
bitter. Two of my favorite flavors are
Coffee (with milk or cream, NO sugar) - and -
Dark extra-bittersweet chocolate (especially European, but NOT
English) (and NOT milk chocolate, yuck, only if i'm really really
desperate) with a high cacao mass ratio (Hershey's Special Dark is
waaay too sweet, so is Paul Newman's dark)

Sweet puts me off (as i've said before on this list). For example,
Splenda is touted as a good sugar replacement for people on diets.
I've heard many folks recommend it because it doesn't have an after
taste... Well, if i put a teaspoon of Splenda-sweetened flavored
syrup in 8 oz of water, the unpleasant-to-me sweetness lasts for at
least half an hour. When i used more syrup, i had to go eat a bunch
of cheese to kill the lingering sweetness. In order to NOT have the
unpleasant after taste, i have to put so little into the water that
there's barely any flavor there.

I find discussing how we each perceive taste or color or scent really
interesting. It gives me more understanding of the great array of
human variation.

Anyone have other comments on taste and scent and how they perceive
them? I know this isn't directly related to Medieval and Renaissance
cooking, but it certainly affects how we re-create recipes.

Anahita