Tasty Cakes and Silent but Deadly Surprises

Originally Posted on February 5, 2005 Last Updated on November 20, 2006

After googling why do some things taste good and being sufficiently unsatisfied with the results, I’m bringing the question to the table here at the world’s premiere hot spot for desperate singles and physical magicians.

So what is it about olives that are so appealing to me when bananas go unchecked from my list of Things I’d Love to Eat Right Now? Texture, I suppose, was my only answer…but that only explains my dislikes. I don’t like chomping into a big brainlike gooshy tomato, but I’m all for tomato sauce. I’m not big on cooked spinach, all runny over the edge of my pizza, but I love the stuff raw and crisp. But why I dig on jalapeno so much, or why oatmeal cookies are just to die for, those are the questions at hand here…

And in the interest of my lude title, and after considering what smell has to do with taste, I started thinking about why things smell bad. This is just ridiculous, to me. Farts don’t smell bad. What is bad about them? It’s just another smell. Actually, intense perfume is more discomforting to me than the natural sputter of a little human backfire. I can barely smell anything, due to smoking no doubt, so maybe I just dislike all strong smells in general, as they’re so rarely experienced I don’t know what to do in their presence.

Up Next: Do you sleep in your sockies?

Discussion

chad was marco 5 Feb 2005

my first thought was that because you smoke you like the stronger flavors. i thought this right when you mentioned olives vs. bananas. i, recently, started liking olives and hot stuff and all kinds of strong flavors i would never touch had i not started smoking and chewing. a tomato has a bland taste if you don’t pepper it with spices. this works for all your likes except maybe oatmeal cookies. i’m not sure about this one because i dislike them for their texture. uh, wait ‘what women want’ is back from commercial.

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olivia 6 Feb 2005

Smoking has a lot to do with it as it desensitises and almost paralyses the tastebuds. So something that may taste bland to you is actually delecately fragrant to me. A fart may smell inoffensive to you, but to me its extremely fermented and detailed to the point where I could guess what your staple diet is and want to gag. (However if your diet is balanced and healthy your farts shouldn’t smell at all)

I can smell or taste details that would be lost to you, which is good for trying new exotic food but really bad when you have to sit in an office full of men who are heavy drinkers and bad eaters, which I had to do for years.

Any smell whether it be considered good or bad in general, if too strong, is off-putting. This could be similar to a nerve sensation, too cold or too hot, we can associate it with discomfort or pain, but if its *just* bearable it could be considered titillating.

Having said all that, I love olives! I love them with garlic and/or chilli and any new and different flavour to the max, but as much as I love salt they can’t be too salty or I’d want to gag after eating the whole bottle full.

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ClickNathan 7 Feb 2005

Hmmm…thank you both for those comments…I guess what I’m really getting at is exactly what defines good and bad, whether it be taste or smell. Or pain, for that matter.

While I’m sitting at the dentist, without novocaine as he likes to do it these days, and I’m feeling this intense drilling, stinging, pulsing sensation that is obviously something I’d rather not be experiencing, sometimes I can just sit there and think, “Oh, this is just another sensation, not better or worse, just different.”

Of course, if my arm were to be blown off or if I had biting late-stage cancer I’m certain it would be much more difficult to realize this through the exact feeling of pain.

This all needs more research…

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