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Quote by Katja Millay

“I decline the coffee. I don't drink it, because no matter how much sugar I put into it, it still tastes like ass-water to me. Maybe it's because my taste buds are so desensitized to sweet that anything not comprised of at least ninety percent sugar tastes wrong”

Quote by Katja Millay

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The Sea of Tranquility

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Katja Millay

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“Do you remember your first sip of beer? Terrible! How could anyone like that stuff? But beer, you reflect, is an acquired taste; one gradually trains oneself—or just comes—to enjoy that flavor. What flavor? The flavor of that first sip? No one could like that flavor! Beer tastes different to the experienced beer drinker. Then beer isn't an acquired tast; one doesn't learn to like that first taste; one gradually comes to experience a different, and likable, taste. Had the first sip tasted that way, you would have liked beer wholeheartedly from the beginning!”

“Try this," Cosima says, handing him a sliver of lemon-pistachio cake. "While you wait." George's eyes widen as he takes it. "Looks delicious." He gobbles it down in one gulp. "Incredible." Cosima laughs. "You barely tasted it." "I have highly sophisticated taste buds," George explains. "They only need a passing lick of something in order to fully appreciate the delicate subtleties of its flavors." "Oh, really?" Cosima smiles. "Okay then, try this and tell me what's in it." She hands him a slice of wild mushroom and grape tomato bruschetta. "Every single ingredient." "All right then," George says, as he begins to chew. "You're on." He swallows. "Okay, in addition to the obvious: basil, garlic, olive oil, black pepper, salt... a splash of lemon juice and a dash of rosemary." Cosima studies him with a raised eyebrow and a curious smile. "That's very impressive. Anything else?" "Nope." George shakes his head. "That's what my extremely sophisticated taste buds are telling me.”

“We started in produce. It's my favorite section, but it can be the hardest too---because vegetables carry a whole variety of tastes, aftertastes, acids, sugars, textures... Nothing can make you gag faster than a vegetable turned sour in your mouth or your stomach. But I needed tons of them because nothing delivers vitamins, minerals, fibers, and nutrients in such digestible ways. Beets, radishes, carrots, kale, and spinach had worked for Jane. I wanted to expand my list to broccoli, red and green cabbages, and other dark greens. I even played with the idea of baby roasted brussels sprouts---strong taste, even sometimes bitter, but if prepared right, that very element could appeal to Jane and Tyler. Olive oiled, salted, peppered, and broiled---it might remind them of popcorn with a sharp tang and a nutritional wallop on the side.”

“The cream sauce has a rich, full-bodied bitterness to it that makes the tongue tingle... Its spicy freshness lightens up the thick, heavy flavor of the roast beef to exactly the right degree! The wallop the meat's juice packs is no joke, but I feel I could keep eating this forever! Sure, he shoved a mountain of artichokes into this dish... ... but how did he manage to make their uniquely fresh, vibrant and astringent flavor stand out this much?! "This, too, is the result of Mr. Eizan's highly skilled use of cynarine. Any unnecessary source of sweetness has been removed, which makes the taste of the cream sauce stand out even more starkly." "Whoa, Whoa! Slow down. I'm totally lost here!" "I get that cynarine's supposed to make stuff taste sweet, but how does that even work?" "Is it so bitter that anything tasted afterwards seems sweet by comparison?" "No, it isn't anything as simple as that. Cynarine directly affects the taste buds." Yep! When you eat food that contains cynarine, the compound spreads across your tongue as you chew, covering up and thereby blocking the taste buds for sweetness. That's what's happening with Yukihira and the judges right now. Their tongues can't taste sweet, so bitter flavors really stand out. As they eat other food, the act of chewing gradually wipes the cynarine off the tongue. Slowly, their taste buds resume their normal functions. But here's where the important bit happens... Since the tongue has been blocked from tasting sweet flavors for a time... ... even a tiny bit of sweetness will now stick out like a sore thumb! "When there's a ton of cynarine smeared on the tongue, even a cup of water will taste supersweet.”

“Barrels of oysters wrapped in seaweed came by boat from Stollport. Fat beam and trout were carried in dripping wooden boxes lined with wet straw. A great conger eel arrived in a crate large enough to hold a cannon and appeared so fearsome Mister Bunce quelled the kitchen boys' mock-screams only by bringing out Mister Stone to take his pick among the screechers. Sacks of raisins, currants, dried prunes and figs piled up in the dry larder. In the wet room, soused brawn, salted ling and gallipots of anchovies crowded the shelves and floor. In the butchery, Colin and Luke marshalled four undercooks, six men from the Estate armed with saws, a grumbling Barney Curle and his barrow to skin, draw and joint the hogs. Simeon, Tam Yallop and the other bakers lugged in sacks of meal from the Callock Marwood mill while a dray from the ale-house made journeys over the hill, past the gatehouse and into the yard until the buttery and cellar were filled with kegs and barrels. Rhenish wine arrived in a covered wagon, the dark oak tuns resting on a thick bed of bracken. Scents of cinnamon and saffron drifted out of the spice room.”

“Pots hung from the ceiling beams, between the festoons of braided garlic, the hams, the salsicce, bunches of mountain herbs for medicine, strings of dried porcini, necklaces of dried apple rings in winter, chains of dried figs. The smell of onions, of hot lard and smoldering oak wood, of cinnamon and pepper, always seemed to hang in the air. The larder was full of meat at all times, needless to say: not small pieces, but huge joints and sides of beef and lamb, which Mamma and Carenza could never hope to use just for our household, and which were quietly passed on to the monks of Santa Croce so that they could feed the poor. Carenza made salami with fennel seeds and garlic, prosciutto, pancetta. Sometimes the air in the larder was so salty that it stung your nostrils, and sometimes it reeked of spoiled blood from the garlands of hares, rabbits, quail, thrushes and countless other creatures that would arrive, bloody and limp, from Papa's personal game dealer. Next to the larder, a door led out to our courtyard, which Mamma had kept filled with herbs. An ancient rosemary bush took up most of one side, and the air in summer was always full of bees. Sage, thyme, various kinds of mint, oregano, rocket, hyssop, lovage and basil grew in Mamma's collection of old terra-cotta pots. A fig tree was slowly pulling down the wall, and a tenacious, knotted olive tree had been struggling for years in the sunniest corner.”