Salt is mixed with almost everything we eat--_sal sapit
omnia_--and pepper or cayenne is nearly equally common. Butter is put
into the peas, which have been previously adulterated by being boiled
with mint; and cucumber is unknown except in conjunction with oil and
vinegar. This makes it comparatively difficult for us to realise the
distinctness of the elements which go to make up most tastes as we
actually experience them. Moreover, a great many eatable objects have
hardly any taste of their own, properly speaking, but only a feeling of
softness, or hardness, or glutinousness in the mouth, mainly observed in
the act of chewing them. For example, plain boiled rice is almost wholly
insipid; but even in its plainest form salt has usually been boiled with
it, and in practice we generally eat it with sugar, preserves, curry, or
some other strongly flavoured condiment. Again, plain boiled tapioca and
sago (in water) are as nearly tasteless as anything can be; they merely
yield a feeling of gumminess; but milk, in which they are oftenest
cooked, gives them a relish (in the sense here restricted), and sugar,
eggs, cinnamon, or nutmeg are usually added by way of flavouring. Even
turbot has hardly any taste proper, except in the glutinous skin, which
has a faint relish; the epicure values it rather because of its
softness, its delicacy, and its light flesh. Gelatine by itself is
merely very swallowable; we must mix sugar, wine, lemon-juice, and other
flavourings in order to make it into good jelly.
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