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Revision 4 . . June 22, 2001 5:05 am by Lee Daniel Crocker
Revision 3 . . June 22, 2001 5:04 am by Lee Daniel Crocker
Revision 2 . . June 22, 2001 3:13 am by Janet Davis
  

Difference (from prior major revision) (author diff)

Changed: 6c6
What we colloquially call the "taste" of a food is indeed a very complex mixture of taste, smell, and texture. With smell supressed, one generally can't tell the difference between an apple and a pear, for example. I don't know what it is about celery that you find unique, but you could do an experiment: find something that will puree to a similar texture (like lettuce ribs or jicama), and adjust the puree to have the same sugar content, acidity, and salt content as an equal amount of celery. (Celery should not significant glutamates or alkaloids, but I suppose you could adjust with MSG and parsley too). Clip your nose shut, close your eyes, and have someone randomly select one of the purees for you to taste and see if you can tell the difference. These are the kinds of experiments that led to what we now know about taste. --LDC
What we colloquially call the "taste" of a food is indeed a very complex mixture of taste, smell, and texture. With smell supressed, one generally can't tell the difference between an apple and a pear, for example. I don't know what it is about celery that you find unique, but you could do an experiment: find something that will puree to a similar texture (like lettuce ribs or jicama), and adjust the puree to have the same sugar content, acidity, and salt content as an equal amount of celery. (Celery should not jave significant glutamates or alkaloids, but I suppose you could adjust with MSG and parsley too). Clip your nose shut, close your eyes, and have someone randomly select one of the purees for you to taste and see if you can tell the difference. These are the kinds of experiments that led to what we now know about taste. --LDC

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