How Does the Tongue Taste? 

Source of pictures: Pixabay.com

After school, Daniel was doing his homework in his room. After all, he had too much fun yesterday, and the teacher found that he had not finished his homework. Half an hour later, dad and mom came back, seeing Daniel doing his homework quietly, so they went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. After another half-hour of struggling, Daniel closed his book, and stretched. Done! It felt so good. Daniel ran to the kitchen to see what mom was cooking.

Mom was chopping. Daniel looked at the weird purple ball and asked incredulously, "Is this our dinner?"

Mom looked at Daniel strangely and said, "Why? It’s purple cabbage, and it has a lot of vitamins. It tastes good."

Daniel shook his head incredulously and said, "I've had this at school, but I can't remember its name. I spit it out after taking the first bite. It’s bitter."

Mom stopped chopping and said, "I promise it won’t be bitter this time." Then she put the cut purple cabbage into a big glass bowl, added some olive oil and unknown sauce in it, mixed it with chopsticks, and then tried to put some into Daniel’s mouth. Daniel wouldn’t open his mouth, but mom assured him confidently, "Don’t worry, it won’t be bitter." Daniel took it doubtfully, chewed for a few times, and then he felt something was wrong. He turned around and spit out to the garbage can beside him, saying, "Mom is a liar. It’s still bitter."

Mom couldn’t believe it. She took a bite, chewed a few times and said, "It’s not bitter at all." Daniel wondered if there was something wrong with mom’s tongue. It was so bitter! Thinking about it, he took a spoon to take some salt from the seasoning box and said, "Try this, mom."

"What is it?"

"Salt," Daniel answered honestly.

Mom stopped chewing the purple cabbage and said, "What? Why would I eat salt?"

Daniel felt the pain in his teeth as he watched her eating the purple cabbage casually. "I want to see if mom’s tongue is alright."

That almost provoked mom. Fine, my dish is bitter. And why think my tongue doesn’t work now?

Dad just cleaned the table and went into the kitchen to pick up the dishes. Seeing the mother and son looking at each other, dad wondered what happened.

Daniel asked dad for help and pushed him to mom and said, "Try it, dad, and tell us if it's bitter."

Dad looked at the cabbage in the bowl and said, "Why is this bitter? Your mom and I have been having it for years. It’s not bitter."

Then he picked up some and just ate it. Daniel stupefied. Is there anything wrong with my tongue? He carefully licked the salt from his spoon. It was so salty that he couldn’t help sticking out his tongue.

Dad and mom laughed sawing his silly behavior.

Mom didn’t argue about what happened before. She just said, "Now you know it’s not bitter."

Daniel insisted, "It’s bitter to me."

Mom bent down to have some more, as if she proved to Daniel that it wasn't bitter. But Daniel had suffered once and wouldn’t try it again. Dad looked at them and said, "People have different tongues. There is no right or wrong. Maybe you have too many taste buds."

"What are taste buds?" Daniel asked.

As dad took him out of the kitchen, he said, "Taste buds are things on the tongue that allow us to taste. You can take a look at all the little bumps on your tongue." Then he put out his tongue. Daniel looked at it. It was not smooth. He tried to touch it, but dad put his tongue back. Daniel had to scrape his teeth in his mouth with his tongue quietly.

"People believe that there are five basic tastes in the world, sour, sweet, bitter, salty and fresh. Each taste can interact with the taste buds on the tongue. There are many receptor proteins on the taste buds, and each kind of them recognizes a basic taste. Different people have different number of taste buds, so they taste differently. That is why people say that some prefer turnips and others greens. What you like to eat doesn’t have to be what others like." Dad continued.

Daniel secretly rolled his tongue. He didn’t expect his tongue to be so complicated.

Author: Huang Jing