sense of taste and smell and carrots

[DaisyD]

I'm off work with bad cold and have lost my sense of smell and therefore can't taste anything either...except carrots!

This has happened before. I did an experiment: I ate some smoked mackerel, which obviously has a very strong flavour, but I couldn't taste it at all. Then I tried carrots, and I could taste them fine!

It doesn't seem to matter whether the carrots are cooked or raw. And it's just carrots - I can't taste anything else at all! It's not fair, as I'm not mad on carrots.

Bit of a strange question, but it's annoying me and I need to know if it's just me?

[naz_nomad]

Two snowmen standing in a garden .. one says to the other, ''can you smell carrots?''







sorry, I'm not really helping am I?

[Jugglering]

I suspect you are just *finely tuned* to that well known aroma of carrot ! When I've had a cold or the flu, I can only smell vinegar and BO and I'm not mad on either of them !

I always thought that we only had four types of taste bud - sweet, salty, sour and bitter, as described in an easy to follow way here , but I've been reading about a fifth one (umami) here.

So, what we think of as taste is often smell instead !