Wine is Red

14 December, 2010 – My mum taught the cat to like Marmite. It’s not true that you either love it or hate it. Dabbing it on his paws he soon came to love it, pester for it. A ginger tom quite oblivious to umami can acquire a taste for a salty beer by-product. All sorts of taste transformations are possible.

Mimicry & Nigella Neurons

28 November, 2010 – Why does every post set out with a question? I’ve done it again.

What love told me; or the Senora and the little dog

12 November, 2010 – We would joke that I liked the loud bits, joshing about my simplistic tastes, about my rough and ready appreciation of music. The joke started after a riotous Mahler symphony, which we both enjoyed but in markedly different ways.

A snout that tastes like a good snout should – or a masked trout replica?

30 October, 2010 – I decided to smoke. It’s said to be sensual pleasure, surely within the realm of taste. Chefs smoke. It’s bad for their palate, they know, yet they’re romantic professionals making a living from their keen taste buds.

When I first had the idea for The Unpalatable Truth I did a cursory internet search for “improve my palate”. From the results I learnt little, except that I would not be taking an algorithmically-friendly route. I’d be wayward, off the beaten path, exploring under my own steam, unaided by an engine of search optimization.

Nose to Dead Rat’s Tail Salad

23 October, 2010 – I knew someone with thirty perfumes. I lived with her, for her, for just shy of three and a half years. I will call her the Maximalist, not least because that is what she called herself.

I did more of the cooking. She didn’t have much of the learned intuition for food, but no one could doubt that she loved it. Perhaps I was the better cook but she certainly seemed to have a far better sense of taste. She had the heart-felt, passionate, the elevated response to food that I crave.

Cook on, Give me excess of it

15 October, 2010 – There were many reasons why it took me so long to knuckle-down and begin writing. Laziness wasn’t one reason, physical exertion was.

I had the idea for The Unpalatable Truth, and at that time I also threw myself into exercise. Indeed the thought that I should explore my sense of taste came while I was on a treadmill, a treadmill with an excellent view of the Fryer’s Delight, a chip shop. This, I think, hints at something of the dilemma.

Chilli, garlic, olive oil with linguine plus parsley too

5 October 2010 – Any fool can follow a recipe. I’m told I can cook and cook well but all I do is do what it says in the book. There is no magic, no conjuring up of flavours. I don’t engage with what is on the plate, never mind with what is on my palate. I have this nagging sense that I don’t really appreciate food: for all the praise, for all the satisfied eaters, perhaps I don’t have a particularly good sense of taste.

And yet cooking is the one thing which I understand. The one thing I know, while I don’t know if I know food at all. There are times too when I don’t really know life at all. With food, and with life, there are hidden depths, things which are passing me by, things which I am missing – or more keenly that I am missing out on. I eat but do I truly taste? I taste but do I really savour and enjoy?