Taste Buds

 Let's talk taste buds.  There are salty ones, sweet ones, bitter and sour ones, and combinations of each.  Taste buds include the visual perceptions of the observer and the aroma wafting to our nostrils.  We taste things first through our eyes, then our nose, the texture of the food we are stuffing into the chewing machine and finely the taste that surrounds our tongues and cheeks.  This whole working mechanism is our taste bud machine.    

Some of us have practiced palates and know how to approach the dish before devouring it.  Other's of us just dive in like our pets, and barely breathe to taste  what we are eating.  This is a sad truth, people should be trained to enjoy and experience their food, not inhale it without a thought, ruff.  

Just down the road from where I live is a fairly competent culinary school.  It is part of the White Mountain Community College, and has a good reputation for creating high level chefs who get hired in all levels of cookery in restaurants all over the region and beyond.  One of my top ranking students is a graduate from that culinary school and is a very good cook.  It's not often that he lets his cheffyness out to play, but when he does the taste buds are happy.  A few years back I stole one of his bread recipes for a standard white bread.  It is very good.  With the help of my wife, an accomplished cheffy person herself, I managed to create that recipe and am proud that I actually pull if off from time to time.  

It took me all of 20 years to become a competent home cook.  However, due to the hard work of my wife, her mother, a master chef, and other people like my student, I have learned how to do the cooking thing without sending the taste the buds of folks trying my cuisine running in fear.  I have been known to get that, "hmmm, mmm, and yum." noise, a supreme compliment.  

When I was a tad pole my Grandma Schmaing was a Master Chef.  She and my Grandpa owned and operated a small restaurant, and pool hall.  Yes, food and billiards a supreme mix of entertainment for the up and coming hustler.  I have memories of learning how to shoot a good game of pool, but was not tall enough to see over the rails of the table.  A chair was employed.  I haven't played for a few years, but the last time, I was still a decent shot.  Not to fancy, just put the ball in the pocket.  I have happy memories from Grandma's kitchen.

A balanced palate knows how to manage the tastes together and make intelligent decisions based on those tastes.  After all we are all addicted in one form or another to our taste buds.  Some of us more than others, yum...

Peace and Balance,

John