Thursday, June 3, 2010

Rambling: The high-speed trip from beautiful to tiresome


I went to lunch today, and was served a salad with a very pretty green ribbon of tarragon dressing. I enjoyed the first two or three bites very much. And then I didn't like it one bit.

This is my normal reaction to tarragon - I remember, years ago, a diner that had a chicken salad heavy on tarragon. The first two bites were so very good that I would sometimes get an order just for the pleasure of eating them, and then pick at the rest, or take it home so that I could reset my tastebuds and experience another "first two" bites the next day.

The same is true of salmon. I love smoked salmon. Adore it. Dream about it. But I only eat it at buffets, because the dream is entirely fulfilled in three bites, and then I don't want to see it again for at least a day.

Some perfume notes affect me the same way. I've mentioned more than once that orange blossom is gorgeous for less than a minute, and then it annoys me. Whatever note usually produces grapefruit pleases me for a good five minutes, and then I read it as synthetic. That lime peel note in Sweet Lime & Cedar is lovely for perhaps half an hour, and then it seems to grow and grow until I want to flee.

Is this just me? Do I have naturally fickle tastebuds? Or do you also have some scents and flavors that you adore, and then promptly push away?

Image: By Helen Cook. Wikimedia Commons.

3 comments:

  1. I have that! I feel that way about SOME vetiver notes--others I adore, and some citrus notes--grapefruit is a felicitous example, Chickenfreak. Also, aldehydes....

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  2. Oooh, orange blossom can just annoy the crap out of me sometimes. Patchouli is the same way for me- one minute it's sensual, the next I'm back at my socialist hippie summer camp where it was not uncommon to go two weeks without a shower.

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  3. Hey, LBV! It's a shame about grapefruit, because I love the real-world scent of grapefruit. But there it is. Now, aldehydes, I tend to dislike from beginning to end, but on the rare occasions when I like them I usually keep liking them.

    Greetings, scentofself! Yes, I don't know what it is about orange blossom. Tuberose used to make me think of Annoying Pushy Women Who Expect You To Hug Them, but I got over it. Orange blossom tends to be Annoying Teenyboppers That Giggle Among Themselves, and I suspect I won't get over it.

    Is that weird?

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