The following article was written by Kristen Keck, a Teen Associate at the Manitowoc Public Library.
Hey there! Kristin Keck here, the Teen Services person at Manitowoc Public Library, fresh from the farmer’s market and ready to tell you about a brand new program for teens this summer.
Say ‘summer’ to me and I immediately think of food. Summer tastes like barbeque with baked beans and potato salad, hot dogs with mustard, and ice-cold glasses of lemonade. Summer smells like coconut and wood smoke and burning marshmallows. Summer sounds like a crackling fire and sizzling sausage skins and the snuffle of a straw looking for the last of a milkshake.
Every person is born with about 30,000 taste buds – the little receptors that let us savor those summer treats. However, the average adult only has between 2,000 and 10,000. We’re not good at replacing the ones we’ve lost, so our sense of taste will gradually diminish over time. No wonder babies make all kinds of faces when they taste things. Imagine experiencing a pickle with 3 times the taste buds!
That sounds like a lot of tasting, but humans are middle of the road when it comes to smart mouths. Some animals have a duller sense of taste than humans, and some are far more sensitive. Dogs, for instance, have fewer taste buds – only 1,700 to 2,000 – but have very specific taste buds for water, something humans don’t have. Cats, with their sharp ears and keen eyes, have only a few hundred taste buds and can’t taste anything sweet at all.
Surprisingly, fish win for most receptors, with catfish coming out on top. A large catfish can have up to 175,000 taste buds – not just in their mouths but spread out along their whiskers and over their whole body. Octopuses have taste buds on their suckers, so they can feel and taste at the same time. Butterflies have taste buds on their legs as well. At the lower end of the scale, chickens only have about 24 taste buds. If you’re a chicken, you don’t really care what bugs and seeds taste like, I guess.
If you’re interested in giving your taste buds a workout, you should look no further than our new program, that game show that’s taking mouths by storm – Face the Flavor! This teen event will challenge contestants to identify ingredients from far and wide, but mostly the grocery store. Contestants will experience a myriad of taste sensations, with correct answers advancing them to the next round. Please note that registration is required for this event, and there will be a mandatory question about allergies when you register. This is Face the Flavor, not Fun with Epi Pens. For the exceptionally adventurous, there will be a bonus science round with the mysterious Miracle Berry!
So let’s put those taste buds to work this summer! Can you tell a radish from a turnip? Or a kiwi fruit from a melon? Just how smart is your mouth?