Sunday, May 2, 2010

Vanilla

My taste buds seemed to have become dulled.

Food just has not tasted as vibrant as it once did. Two very obvious sources of this are my new tooth paste and mouthwash. They just seem to overpower the taste of food to some kind of extent for the whole day. I actually believe that it is directly affecting my happiness. I get less pleasure from food now. In a way, some would call this state (pardoning the pun) vanilla.

But I actually quite like the flavour of vanilla. Far from being boring, vanilla is absolutely fascinating. The plant is a strange blacky green stick that is quite sticky. The seeds inside contain the real flavour of the plant and can be mixed into just about any liquid to give it a vanilla flavour. It would also be one of my favourite types of ice-cream, up there with the top notch raspberry ripple.

So why does vanilla get a bad reputation? A colour, flavour and plant that is so bizarre that it is seen as completely normal is quite amazing. I really do find myself adding vanilla to different foods these days in an attempt to get back a bit of the flavour of food that I have missed. Maybe I am trying to restart my entire taste system by regaining a standard plateau.

But in the end, maybe normal life, normal sensations can be vivid in and of themselves.

-The English Student

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