Forum: Author Hangout

Like barbed wire.
Like moonlight.
Like blood.
Like mushrooms braised in butter.
Like thin smoke.
Like snagged hair.
Like a seal's bark.
Like the first time.
Like pink chalk.

'Taste' is a subjective mixture of signals as to whether something is bitter or sweet as decided by your tongue, how the item feels in your mouth (rough/smooth/slimy) along with the scent detected by your nose. All these sensory inputs are collated by your brain to form the 'taste' of an item.

This means no item taste's the same to a variety of individuals.

It also means that some items taste differently to people depending on how sensitive their nose and 'palate' are.

I'm not sure about other countries, but in the UK, one of the first (and easiest) Biology experiments you do in school, is to eat something bland whilst smelling something strong. The point being, to demonstrate how smell has a large impact on what you taste (and how easily the brain can be fooled).

If you want to describe a taste, I would start by how the item looks, how it feels in the mouth and finish with the images the scent conjurs in the eaters consciousness.

This is your chance to invent a five character hexadecimal string representing the degrees of sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savoury, analogous to the three character hexadecimal string for RGB colours. If you copyright/patent it, you might make millions because it could revolutionise the culinary arts.

AJ

"tastes worse than a microwaved booger"