Conversations with Calliope- A Matter of Taste

(Spring Rock)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. I missed you yesterday.
JOE: Sorry. I was anxious to take a peek at my new website and finally saw it yesterday morning.
CALLIOPE: And?
JOE: I discovered that it wouldn't do as posted. I thought I would try a quick fix and ended up spending most of the day revising it.
CALLIOPE: How does it stand now?
JOE: I'm still working on the revisions but think I have a good plan. We shall see.
CALLIOPE: Did you spend every minute working on it?
JOE: No. I went with Carol and some friends to a Michael McDonald concert last night at the Rochester International Jazz Festival.
CALLIOPE: Did you enjoy the concert?
JOE: Not in the least. It was the first time since I was eight that I so thoroughly bored and agitated by a concert.
CALLIOPE: What was that about?
JOE: I wish I understood it. Those who went with me agreed that his style was repetitious although it didn't seem to bother them like it did me. I thought he shouted everything and that all his songs sounded the same. I didn't like his rendition of the songs I recognized.
CALLIOPE: Do you think it's just a matter of taste?
JOE: I wish I knew. I don't like leaving a concert feeling the way I did last night.

Gustatory Delights

After my post yesterday on the joys of smell, I thought it only fair that I gave some recognition to the sense of taste. This is another of those shortchanged if not entirely overlooked source of sensory information. I find it interesting that the mere memory of a taste can start the digestive juices flowing as easily as the taste itself. We have four taste receptors in our tongues-sweet, bitter, sour, salty. Whoa! I just looked to be sure I had this right and discovered that there is a new taste classification whose acquaintance I have never made, the umami variety which senses certain salts like MSG. I wonder how long that has been lurking in the collective consciousness of the internet. Learning through taste is usually reserved for foods. We do taste other things sometimes by accident. I suppose we could learn something about each other by tasting although that doesn't usually happen until we are on a quite intimate basis. Please enjoy you umami taste receptors at your discretion.