It was a late evening at the bar one day when my friend pulls out these tabs of paper and tells me to put it on my tongue. “Woe man, I’m up for a few shots if you want, but I don’t know nuthin’ about little tabs of paper.”, I thought to myself. Nevertheless, he told me that these tabs would be able to tell whether or not I can taste bitter. So I put it on my tongue, but I can taste nothing.
Now I am a fairly decent chef. I have never had any complaints, so I find it difficult to beleive that my set of taste buds is anything less than complete. I claim that I may not be able to taste that particular compound just like some people can’t smell cyanide, but I know what bitter tastes like, but he says I have never tasted bitter and never will.
Sounds like it was probably PTC paper. Some people don’t have the gene that allows them to taste this particular chemical – which doesn’t, as you’ve probably already surmised, mean that they are unable to taste other bitter things.
That was my first thought too. We had that in biology class in high school. I could taste the chemical, but my first cousin couldn’t. It would have been interesting to trace the inheritance of the gene through our family, but we never got around to it.
I’m a non-PTC taster. From all accounts, I don’t think I’m missing anything.
IIRC, there was a thread a while back which discussed the idea that non-PTC tasters such as myself are generally below par when it comes to the sense of taste. I don’t recall finding the argument particularly persuasive, though.
I once worked with a food technologist who used to train milk-truck drivers many years ago. Back in those days they were pretty technical about testing a load of milk before it went into the tanker. They took a glass and sniffed and then tasted it. Anything suspicious was rejected. The drivers had to be able to identify specific problems by taste and smell, and one required them to distinguish bitter and sour. This was explained with the use of caffeine as the bitter agent.
Apparently quite a few people realllly can’t taste bitter. They can taste sour perfectly, which they think is bitter, but they don’t respond to bitter at all. As such they were immediately disqualified form driving a milk truck.
Don’t know how much that anecdote’s woth but it comes from a reliable source (via yours truly, who is a much less reliable source).
We did the same in class, about 3/4 could taste it (myself included) and the others could not. Nothing was mentioned about not being able to detect other flavors, just the presence of that particular chemical.
some articles on PTC. BTW, where did you get the PTC paper? I’ve never tried the test, but I think it might start explaining my aversion to a number of foods
i went to a doctor in '98 and he put some junk in my mouth and asked if i could taste it. i couldn’t, but i don’t know if it was ptc or not. he said it indicated a vitamin/mineral/who-knows-what deficiency.