'Bon apetite' was Re: [extropy-chat] wretched journalists strikeagain

Brett Paatsch bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au
Wed Dec 14 04:17:09 UTC 2005


The Avantguardian wrote:

> --- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>> I'm curious and slightly sceptical about that
>> "tasting yucky". I think we
>> have touched on this before here. I wonder if there
>> is in fact any good
>> data or science behind it. 
> 
> Google and thou shalt recieve. Apparently the question
> has been considered by the Cullinary Institute of
> America.
> 
> http://food.oregonstate.edu/ref/culture/allen.html


The following excerpts sound passably, plausibly, true: 


"The difficulty in describing taste experience is compounded
by the nature of our tasting apparatus. Our tongue actually
tastes only sweetness, sourness and bitterness. It, together
with the lips, can also feel both kinds of hotness, as well as
coldness, a large range of textures and the odd numbing 
sensation provided by ... some spices.  ....The Japanese add
 "umami" ... sometimes approximated by the term "savory" 
.... so there is good reason for thinking of taste as one or
more of but five sensations. "

"What we commonly think of as "taste" is actually a fusion
of one or more of the four (or five) "tastes" listed above with
one of more smells, with one or more mouth-feels, or touch
sensations. "


The author, of the paper linked above, Gary Allen, goes on to
describe the adventures and experience of William Bueller
Seabrook one time "reporter and City Editor of the Augusta, 
Georgia Chronicle" who after describing his disappointment
at being fed only monkey meat by his cannibal dining associates
was assisted by his friend who 

"obtained for (him) from a hospital interne at the Sorbonne a
 chunk of human meat from the body of the first healthy human
carcass killed by accident, that they could dispose of as they
chose. (Seabrook) cooked it in Neuilly, at the villa of the Baron
Gabriel des Hons, who was (his) translator. (He) ate a lot of it
in the presence of witnesses".

"It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet 
beef. .. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that
(Seabrook thought) no person with a palate of ordinary,
normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal".

--

So Americans wouldn't taste "yucky". And such an anti-American
suggestion would be quite unscientific. It seems that Americans
would taste like veal. 


Brett Paatsch




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