Grrl Power #839 – Demographics and Dinner
There’s probably an upper limit to how good something can taste, right? I mean, electrochemically in your brain. Or maybe there’s an overload state, once your taste neurons are maxed out, the extra levels of “yum” get dumped on your oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin factories. But probably not. I don’t think it’s possible to taste something so good that you basically have a heroin stroke. I have no idea how taste works. Or heroin.
But those mushrooms are “bend your fork” good at least.
I always wondered if Colossus tasted things the same way in his metal form as his meatbag form. I’m pretty sure The Thing was drawn with a pink human tongue, (as often as he took one on the chin, it’s a wonder his tongue didn’t go flying off panel) but I’m also pretty sure Colossus’s tongue turned to metal.
Maxima’s tongue (and lips and eyes etc) aren’t standard human issue meat any more, but they function exactly as they should. It seems unlikely that there’s some sort of silicone life variant of a tongue that’s cobalt and titanium and is able to taste things exactly like a human tongue, so I’m thinking there’s some layer of translation going on. Like maybe her skimbiote (a slightly upsetting portmanteau I just coined) has a lookup table and when she eats salt, it’s like “oh, okay, stimulate these nodes in the brain that make her think it’s salt.”
Or, maybe everything tastes totally different to her, but her memories of what things taste like have been changed and she thinks everything tastes like it used to before she got her powers.
Carême (the restaurant they’re at) is one of those dining establishments where the average diner is going to drop $750-$2,000 a meal. If a guy shows up in a 2-piece, single breasted suit, they’re shown the door. Deus doesn’t always rock the vest, but he’s always been a double breasted jacket man. Plus, as previously stated, he owns the place. Maxima was right though, as long as she’s reasonably well dressed, they’re not going to turn her away.
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lets hope its aactualy good food reaction and nto poison or something truly sinister. but I think we all expect the date to go completely wrong so to counter that prediction it goes perfectly correct.
Salted with the exotic trace elements found in the geode, which she is, without realizing it, deficient in. The symbiot REALLY wants more of that mushroom.
While possibly true, I expect it’s either a carved truffle or stuffed with truffle bits.
UMMMMMM – truffle.
Deus: Oh. She got more powerful. That’s nice.
A new kind of Venom symbiote perhaps? That could be rather hot actually.
From the back Deus looks like he is wearing a jacket but from the fromt just a shirt.
I am going to assume the armour he’s wearing underneath has sharp sholders.
Maybe he’s just trying to project the image of a strong, confident 1980s businesswoman
Or, he’s simply had his shirt starched? It smooths out in the final panel when the material is stretched
Actually Dave in the military “dress mess” is as high dressed as you can get while in uniform. Attending fancy parties in fancy places eating damned good mushrooms is literally why it exists.
Since Mess Dress is the equivalent of a tuxedo, it’s Deus who’s underdressed at the table.
I don’t think so. We invented the tuxedo to be a more casual formalwear.
Exactly. Mess Dress is considered “Black Tie” or Semi-Formal, the same as a tuxedo.
Military FULL DRESS is considered “White Tie” or Formal.
It also aint cheap.
A quick google says that the cape she showed up in runs around 600 bucks.
It might not be 10,000 dollar suit range all in, but it’s gonna be a lot closer to 10k than not.
We also see that she arrived at the table sans outerwear. When she passed by the coat check room a short dark haired woman with big glasses yelled ‘No Capes!’ and grabbed it off of her.
People don’t appreciate how good the high end stuff is. Audio is like this too.
heh, I keep hearing that…ain’t true doolie. I’ve gotten better sound from some cheap console TV speakers I’m talking chintzy factory stuff from the early 70’s maybe late 60’s when even quality speakers were not good enough to be crap. Didn’t even tune a box for ’em. As for the food. Sometimes yes sometimes no. I’ve had some outstanding high end and crap. I’ve been to more than a few mom and pops that were as good as or better than a place with a 2 year waiting list. One was greek the other Korean. With an honorable mention to the nice german joint outside of Austin in a old feed store. Oh and Truffles? Underwhelming.
Well aren’t you just the most special little hipster?
Word
That story isn’t “Truffles are underwhelming” but rather “Once I had subpar truffles that were cooked by someone who didn’t know what they were doing”
He’s clearly conflating expense with quality. Dude if your “quality” speakers were crap then they weren’t quality they were just expensive.
Yea, there’s a big business selling over priced shit. You have to be able to sort the quality out from the bullshit.
Also your source matters. If you’re just playing MP3’s off your computer, it doesn’t matter what you plug them into, its still an MP3 with compression artifacts and a flattened dynamic range. MP3’s and a 50 dollar headset will do just fine for most people, so I’m not trashing them, but plugging 2000 dollar speakers into a generic audio player with generic audio files will just be loud and generic sounding.
High end audio really involves going all in, better input, better output, better processing. Upgrading any one isn’t going to matter much when you have a choke point slowing you down.
:D let’s be friends
The same applies to restaurants. Almost every restaurant vastly over salts their food. It’s an incredibly cheap way to make people think it is good, when all it is doing is masking the actual flavor of the food.
Watch any cooking show and you should be able to pick up on the fact that almost every chef has had their taste buds blown out by years or decades of eating too much salt. See Gordon Ramsey sit down to a meal in most episodes of Kitchen Nightmare and you’ll see him complaining that the food is “bland.” You’ll hear the same from the judges in any cooking competition show. This is a code word for “under salted,” but then remember that almost every restaurant over salts their food. In order to impact these blown out taste buds you’ve got to way over salt your food.
I have to agree. In Dallas, the higher-priced places we’ve been to have had really poor service, and okay meals. (We regularly cook better at home for less than $50 for the entire meal, which makes it very disappointing to drop a couple of hundred and get a “competent but uninspired” meal.
On the other hand, we’ve been to some 3 star, $-$$ places where the food was amazing and the servers seem very glad to have you there.
True. At least in the Texas- Oklahoma region you also find restaurants that have one really good specialty. This seems particularly true for steak or catfish places. If you aren’t going to get that specialty dish, it isn’t worth the trip.
Truffles are just nature’s garlic mushrooms, albeit with a slight hint of non-specific rhizome.
That’s true for some folks. I know people who are epicures of high end speakers. As for myself, I can tell the difference between Wal-Mart speakers and a $500 dollar speaker but I don’t have the aural acuity to take advantage of anything beyond that. As a matter of fact, I call it the “audiophile rule”. After a certain point, I can’t distinguish any further benefit so spending more is a waste of money. On the other hand I have put what some people might call a ridiculous amount of effort into finding really good ball bearings.
Well, beyond a certain level of fidelity, it’s a matter of taste, but good ball bearings are *objectively* better.
A lot of that has far more to do with the hearing capability of the individual than with the quality of the speakers or whatever.
I recall a time as a kid when I was blasting some music in my room in my father’s home for some friends. Really “blow out your ears” level, as I had recently picked up some new speakers and was showing them off.
So I hear an off noise, and kill the volume. Suddenly everyone can hear a newly arrived friend who is pounding the front door knocker as loud as he can. *SLAM* *SLAM* *SLAM* He knew from our cars that we were all inside and he wasn’t amused by what he thought was us all ignoring him knocking normally on the door.
No one could hear it but me, and even I only heard it as a “Hmmm, that’s odd, let me see what the fuck” kind of noise, which is why I’d killed the music.
The version I have heard is that the speakers should be nice. But what is pushing on them should be rated better. Since you can blow $2000 speakers as easily as $20 speakers with a bad amp.
After 20 years of turbines, I’m happy to just be able to hear them at all.
The frequency gaps and tinnitus whistles are all over the spectrum
Now I go for comfort in headphones and avoid the ‘extra bass’ ones
The lower frequencies are pretty much all that’s left and too much bass easily overpowers the rest.
“Demograpghics is one sexy topic.”
“To you, the Phone Book is one sexy topic.”
“Mmm… I love it when you talk dirty, Maxima.”
Errg…I now hear Deus speaking in the voice of Zap Brannigan.
Damn. If you read the whole page with Deus having Zaps voice and Max having Leela’s then its even funnier, especially the chair-holding bit :)
I’m never gonna be able to unhear that now.
Her hair is purple even
Obligatory XKCD on statistical voyeurism.
Wasn’t there an organism mushroom talked about a few years ago? A fungus that could cause women to organism from eating it?
I think the word you meant to use is “orgasm”, not “organism”. An organism is a Living creature. An orgasm is a good time. Apparently. I haven’t had 1 yet, but…
I gotta stop it there, Daniel the Human saw what I was writing & gave me the “NO” look…
Orgasmism?
Yes there was, but the small survey was very badly run and the results have never been replicated.
“6 out of 10 women who took part of the study were, unfortunately, woefully unaware of what experiencing an orgasm was like”, perhaps?
That said, Deus is EXACTLY the sort of individual who would perfect it and have it served as a delicacy to a woman he was trying to turn into his next conquest.
That said, I can’t quite see panel 10 as showing the same level of emoting as an orgasm would generate.
That said, there’s not any real disagreement here.
I choose to blame autocorrect for that.
All mushrooms are organism mushrooms. An orgasm mushroom, on the other hand, well that’s a fairly spectacular organism.
I choose to believe her occupational specialty badge is an EOD crab.
Could be, I earned one of those, along with my Cdn one, which looks quite different.
The ‘wings’ are the right shape and the central device is further from them unlike most others
but a lot of the US badges look the same to me from a distance and do they come in gold ?
https://www.coleccionesmilitares.com/eod/images/cnd15.jpg
Several Navy officer’s qualification badges a some enlisted ones, come in gold. My basic jump wings were pewter ‘bent wings’ given to me at Ft Benning by the Army. But then I had to do advanced jump training to get my gold wings. Navy air crew, parachutist, and SEAL badges re gold, regardless of your rank. Warfare specialization badges are pewter for enlisted, but gold for officers.
Maybe it’s the new style ‘Master Blaster’s’ badge ?
It has a multi-coloured central device and come in gold for officers…
They didn’t have that when I took the course at Eglin/Indian Head 30+ years ago
Then again, this is a ‘parallel universe’ so maybe it’s something completely different…
Possibly a ‘Mushroom Recognition, Classification and Connisseur’ badge ?
I was already out at the time, but I had a friend who served in Desert Shield/Storm. He picked up a theater medal that was provided by the Saudi Arabian government. According to my friend, and from what might have been scuttlebutt, the Saudis had wanted to pay each serviceman some amount in cash. But US laws against being paid as mercenaries prevented that. So they gave a gold theater medal instead, which still had some significant value. My friend framed his after he left the service.
Can Max max out her taste buds or just her powers? Also, apart from the *munch* sound effects, it doesn’t look like Max is chewing.
That’s because the freeze-frame happened at the end of the *MUUUUN…*
Same as when an image shows them ‘speaking’ while their mouth is closed (people still feel the need to comment, negatively, on that)
Hey, I wasn’t being negative! I just found it weird, that’s all.
No, didn’t mean to imply you were being negative :(
Just that most people who do comment tend to do it negatively, like “How are they talking with their mouth closed?”
Snaaaake!
It’s like magic.
At least Maxima, as far as we know, can’t taste the dishwasher soap the plate was last washed with.
How would u show Maxima the door if she can just flash by without u noticing
By asking nicely? Then calling over your Super strong coworker?
OH, OH, um, seems he wasn’t strong enough to stop her. Um, right this way m’lady…
If Maxi wanted to flash you, would you stop her? o_O
Maxima is behaving *very* coolly. Maybe Deus makes her forget her people skills because he’s so aggravating. Maybe she’s stuck in work mode, because that is an unnerving declaration he made and she REALLY needs to sort that out. Maybe the thong is really having an effect, and she’s having trouble juggling mixed feelings of kismesis attraction to Deus, awkwardness (perhaps it rode up a little), and just how good that mushroom tastes.
Just kidding, mushroom is terrible and nobody should ever eat it, except the special kind that is used for cheese. This one is my friend it can stay. Have you ever tried to melt a touch of roquefort with walnuts and pine nuts on your pizza? That’s the stuff.
Maybe it’s a bit of all three. The thong-Deus-geopolitics triumvirate, not the roquefort-walnuts-pine nuts one.
Strangely enough, pieces of mushrooms make me sick,, but mushroom gravy does not.
I respectfully disagree re: mushrooms. They are some of my favourite food ingredients!
Some of them are really good.
but you’d never see me pick them. I like to live.
I always keep a few cans of sliced Champignon mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) in the kitchen.
any time I need to rescue a lumpy white sauce, I chop some slices finely, and mix that into the sauce.
No one can really tell the difference between clumps and bits of mushroom…
The leftover slices goes on the next pizza…
Mushrooms are a really amazing food. They encompass umami, provide body, are sops for any flavor you care to invest them with, and have a great texture.
I cook with mushrooms often, and keep more than one kind of mushroom powder on hand for adding umami to all kinds of dishes.
You know, it really does pose an interesting question in regards to supers. They are clearly physically different from all the normal people. That’s kind of a given, but what about their senses? Would supers in general possibly have a different sense of taste than the rest of us? I’m not necessarily talking heightened, but slightly different. Kind of like the deal with airline food having to add more salt to be palatable at high altitudes and that kind of thing. That might actually go double for supers who can fly actually. Imagine what that must do to the sinuses or how they would have had to physically be structured differently to compensate.
So, you think people with powers must be… super tasters? ;)
If i were to desing Maxima’s senses… the 0point telequinesis would be a great factor for smelling, tasting, hearing and touch.
Let’s go to the easy terms so I can explain myself in English.
Her hiperdurable body, albeith flexible, has a high resistance to probably every kind of basic force in the universe. That would make her senses… unable to proces the subtle changes that we, as humans, can.
But, if her 0 range teleknesis can sense the vibration and atomic binding of molecules that reach her, she sould have the ability to feel as we do and as her new body can.
Ultra deep sounds, high end electromagnetic radiation and end of spectrum acids and alcalines woud be a new reach for her.
Sharp works too, l suppose
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7wRHBLwpASw
Neural adaptation is a THING. You can receive so much of a stimulus that the sense receiving it stops noticing THAT particular stimulus. It’s the reason we can wear clothes without our body itching continuously or why people who wear glasses stop having that infuriating pain in the nose bridge after a while. It’s also the reason it’s hard to notice your own body odour.
Hmmm, I wonder if this also applies to over salted foods and how most chefs appear to have blown out their taste bubs with regards to salt sensitivity.
Yes, expensive restaurant food really can be THAT good.
IF the ingredients are at their absolute best (freshest/aged to perfection/picked & preserved at just the right moments, each depending on ingredient).
IF the chef knows what they’re doing with all those flavors.
IF all the timing on marinading, preparing, seasoning, cooking (or chilling, etc) is performed just right.
AND IF it’s served & eaten exactly when it’s at its best.
Seriously, this last one can make or break a magnificent meal. If it’s meant to be served steaming hot, but not blister-your-tongue hot, that’s perfectly served. Example: pizza so hot it’s still melty and gooey, BUT it doesn’t burn the roof of your mouth. Or if it’s supposed to be marinaded and served chilled but NOT marinaded so long it turns to slimy mush, but is still crisp or firm, yet properly infused with flavor.
Stuffed mushrooms are one of those dishes that could be served best hot, served best cold, or be quite alright at a range of temperatures from hot to cool. There’s no telling exactly how punctual Maxima was (though I’d say within a minute or two at most of the agreed upon time), but the apperetif course being served to Deus while he waited would indeed be one of those things that could sit for a little while and still taste holy godd amn delicious.
I have NOT personally had stuffed mushrooms that were that great…because I am, alas, allergic to mushrooms. (Major migraine trigger, NOT worth risking it.) But I HAVE had absolutely startlingly SWEARINGLY GOOD food. (Though I should call it what it was: Cuisine, and not merely f-word level fud!)
(…And yes, it is very difficult & often quite trying to be a gourmet level foodie in preferences while stuck on a fud level budget. *sigh* …This is why I garden, so at least my veggies are literally fresh-picked at least a few weeks out of the year…)
While it is possible to suffer tastebud burnout, it almost never happens on the very first bite (not without some sort of thermal shock or chemical burn, or both, like gnawing on a frozen ghost pepper). In fact often takes at least a dozen bites, if not more.
This is one of the reasons why complementary flavors in different dishes are served together at each course of a truly good banquet, but NOT identical flavors. There *might* be 1-2 herbs or spices or other ingredients among many that most of the dishes share, to “tie together” said dishes (think Iron Chef’s secret special ingredient challenge), but you don’t pour 50-spice curry sauce over every single dish in a full meal, from salad to soup to main meats to veggies to dessert, and use it as a dipping sauce for your bread on the side. All you’d be tasting is weird textures covered in curry, and not actually tasting your food.
Anyway…yes, Maxima is indeed enjoying some seriously holy god damn GOOD food that is indeed the absolute best she’s ever tasted. It does exist.
(For me, it was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in downtown Reykjavic, called Old Iceland. Roughly 50 Euros a plate BUT TOTALLY EFFING WORTH IT!!! I wish I could post a picture of what it LOOKED like, it was freakin’ gorgeous edible ART!! IT TASTED AS GORGEOUS AS IT LOOKED!!! *ahem* Ask for the salmon, if you ever go there; it’s just a handful of blocks from the Phallological Museum.)
*That is, presuming it still has the same management & chef. I visited in August 2017, so there’s no guarantees to this day…but they’d be fools if they didn’t train staff to such exacting standards & maintain that sheer level of skill.
The biggest drawback to the restaurant above is that it is NOT handicapped accessible for anyone who cannot manage a curb-height step or two without handrails. (MOST of Europe is like this, btw; NEW construction is more disabilities-compatible, but the vast majority of buildings were designed purely with ableism in mind.) The second biggest drawback is that it was a dinky place with like 7 tables, maybe 8 at most, so try to go early, maybe? Or ask if they do take-out? (Though THAT would run you up against the whole “your food is too damn cold now, and won’t taste as spectacular as it should” thing.)
You don’t need an expensive meal to get food “really that good”, you just need to know your own tastes. Reheated just means it’s had time to age, artificial just means it can be backed up by science to taste better than the real thing, and so on. A single well-placed spice can easily surpass a similar food that utilizes a twelve-spice gourmet recipe.
It also depends on what you order. At a cheap place you could have one dish be awful and another amazing…and the same could be true at an expensive place, especially true if they serve foods you may not be used to.
Honestly, the best thing I ever tasted was a $5 orange-cream shake with a shot of caffeine. Every time I took that first sip(and often the second sip), I would devolve into a giggling mess, and the remainder would just be gravy. Some foods really are as good as orgasms.
You are paying for, on average, higher-quality food at an expensive restaurant, but all the extra is really doing is lining the pocketbooks of the owner. The higher quality is not guaranteed, just more likely.
True enough to a point, but in a way you’re also paying for the hard-earned expertise of the chef & the waitstaff. (Nobody gets to tell ANYBODY that restaurant service isn’t a skilled job anymore. The really good staff take years to learn how to do everything perfectliy, because almost nobody teaches it, so they have to learn it the hard way, aka the long way.) Plus some ingredients really are expensive…like really really expensive. (And some of them technically illegal in the U.S.)
Admittedly paying $1,000 for a single meal is most definitely lining the pockets of the owner. If the owner also lines the pockets of everyone in the restaurant down to the lowest-ranked busboy/dishwasher, then I wouldn’t mind nearly so much.
But don’t discount the training & experience deserving recompense for a meal that’s well-prepared, fresh, and fantastic.
Now, with all that said, there IS something to be said for a restaurant up in my old stomping ground. It makes Mexican 24/7 (not an easy thing to find!!), but I would NOT call it gourmet food. What I WOULD call it is home-cooking-for-sale. As I once told a friend, “It doesn’t taste like a chef prepared it. It tastes exactly like home cooking.” Good-tasting home cooking, but still home cooking, not cuisine.
Still, you know what? Even for a foodie/gourmet, sometimes you WANT home cooking…but don’t want to cook yourself, or bully anyone else into cooking it for you. So no, not all chefs or cooks in restaurant HAVE to strive to produce Cuisine each and every time. Just so long as it’s safe to eat and tastes at least reasonably good, it’ll do.
…And absolutely yes, some restaurants have mixed results menus. The best way to cure this is to poll customers, asking them to fill out a survey form for each dish and why they order it…and don’t be butt-hurt when some of them come back, “This one dish sucks, never ordering it again.”
I recall that time a few years back we stayed at CNN plaza in Atlanta, and the joint was EMPTY; Somebody had gotten fired for screwing up bookings. Ordered scallops, and the head chef came out to serve them, he was that bored. (We were the only couple in the restaurant!)
Man, those were some good scallops. I never tasted scallops that tasted so much like scallops, if you know what I mean. Usually you can tell you’re getting scallops, but they’re sort of meh, but these were like Platonic Ideal scallops.
Yeah, if one person says a dish sucks, that’s just personal opinion, if it’s consistent with many customers? Either stop serving it, or get a chef who knows how to make it properly
Can anyone work out what Maxima has in her fruit salad?
I have been trying to figure it out honestly.
Well, she looks like she has been through the Air Assault school.
1st – I don’t know
2nd – I don’t know
3rd – Interesting take on Distinguished Service Cross
4th – I don’t know
2nd Row
Don’t know, their colors are covered up
Still, whatever those two are, they are higher up in precedence than what might be the Distinguished Service Cross. Perhaps custom ribbons for saving the world once or twice as a super.
One of those has to be for the Battle of the Twelve-Second Mosque.
short answer: it doesn’t matter, since they’re service-unique and drawn by somebody with no military experience (and little military exposure)
from a discussion I had with DaveB some years back, we know that Max was an Air Force pilot (and heavily implied she was specifically a fighter pilot). For her rank, her medal would probably include an Airman’s Medal or even a MOH, Bronze/Silver Star, DMSM (possibly a LOM for unique circumstances), Air Medal, AFCM & AFAM – since none appears on the rack, there might be a bunch of Congressional stuff, but more likely they’re just different in the grrlpower universe
I dont get the tagline. Mushroom stuffed with badger badger etc?
Probably as the verb… To go on and on without ceasing and not accepting any excuse or non-performance.
Was going to post the badger badger mushroom snake clip, this is betterer though: Keep the Badgers Aliiiive!!!!
This is the original. Probably better to watch this first before anything else derived from it.
O….kay. glad I missed that the first time around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8ZGAzsGi2s
A very, very old internet meme.
Like Icarus wrote it’s an old internet meme. Though I disagree about calling it very old. AFAIK It splashed onto the scene in 2003, which makes it about 17 years old. Not old enough to have a drink yet…
The badger song was presented using a Flash animation and it repeated in an endless loop. The original animation went out of sync if left running long enough, something a lot of people actually did. This was improved upon by some enterprising soul with to much time and questionable taste in music. The improved version will stay in sync for well over 24 hours, and I won’t answer any questions about how I happen to know this.
Now that Flash has all but been buried, even though the carcass is still twitching, I’d heard that another good Samaritan (questionable) had ported the Badger song into HTML5, ensuring it’s available for future generations. Unfortunately it seems that was just a one hour video and not a true HTML5 implementation of the original Badger Flash animation. And several people has already uploaded it as a video to YouTube and other streaming video services, making it more likely that future generations will be able to enjoy this fantastic piece of art. Though making it a video means you do lose the option to keep it running indefinitely. At least there is a ten hour version on YT, and if you set it to loop it’s a pretty good alternative.
Please note that I do not accept any responsibility for any mental problems that may / will develop on exposure to the Badger song for more than a few minutes. This post is only meant to be informational and is not to be take as a recommendation to listen to the entire 10 hour version of the Badger song that is available on YT.
(https://youtu.be/hGlyFc79BUE)
Panel 1… Why does Maxi look like a nervous young miscreant being hauled before the headmaster? She’s definitely not wearing that Mess Dress with any kind of authority.
That would be because of the G-string wedgie
BAD Anvil!
Sorry Maxi, that was a magic mushroom
You should have known better than to accept anything from SmugD
More Hello-cinogenic than hallucinogenic, right?
If it was THAT kind of magic mushroom she would have become taller or smaller.
Wrong sort of magic mushroom (no drunk Italian plumbers from Brooklyn, unless they were the chef)
The taste thing is something I’ve considered, since one of my characters is a cyborg, with only her organic brain remaining as original parts… but her body does have a “human emulation layer” that does its best to try to cater to human psychology through things like natural body language, and to map her cybernetic senses to something a human brain can deal with.
And one of those important tricks is providing a sense of taste, so that she can enjoy a fine whisky. It’s important to enjoy such things, when so many of life’s pleasures are unavailable…
We humans have 5 basic flavors that our taste buds are capable of sensing. These are sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Everything we taste is a blending of these 5 components. Stuffed mushrooms are likely to be quite heavy on the umami (savory) with a bit of saltiness to enhance the experience. Depends on both the type of mushroom and what they have been stuffed with.
Except flavour is not just taste in any combination.
Just hold your nose closed while eating a meal and you find just how bland everything is.
Oh you missed the flavour that isn’t a flavour that is the various irritants like Capsaicin.
You have to include smell which adds multiple layers of subtlety to any morsel.
After the Mutant Massacre storyline, Colossus was trapped in his metal form for a long time due to an injury he’d received. IIRC he complained about being unable to taste anything.
I know Mimic complained about that in Exiles after he was stuck in his metal form for several issues.
Why in the world that end up as a reply and not a new post?
That was supposed to be a new post, not a reply.
Okay, things are wonky. Stuff is either not posting or being posted as replies when they should be free-standing comments.
Yes, while you can only taste 5 tastes, your sense of smell is insanely detailed, and generally just gets treated as “taste” when you’re eating. The sense of smell is actually related to the immune system in the way it works, and can distinguish very similar chemicals from each other, at crazy low concentrations. It also has a direct line to your brain, for chemicals that you’re not supposed to actually “smell”, as such, but which effect the way you behave and relate to people. You can actually “smell” how closely genetically related you are to somebody you encounter, for instance, in evaluating them as potential mates.
And you missed the taste that is every taste. Creaminess is just how the tongue responds to being overloaded by a myriad of individual particles suspended in fine emulsion.
…wouldn’t that be chicken?
How long will this dinner drag out…..?
Until the last complainer finally quits
“The eating will continue until morale improves”
Taste is our built-in chemical-analysis lab. It’s the interaction between our current biochemical composition, and the chemistry of the food. When we are low in a particular nutrient, foods that are rich in that nutrient will taste “better” — NOT “better than anything else!!”, merely “better than they do when we are *not* low in that nutrient”. Once we eat enough of the food to change our biochemistry, the taste of the food will change slightly, losing some of the appeal.
Some things like MSG, and sugar, can act as dope, though. MSG might go straight to the pleasure center (I don’t know that; that’s a SWAG). And sugar and fats are rare enough “in the wild” that we might have bio-code that says, “If x = ‘sweet’, keep eating” kind of thing.
If the flavor of “high-end” cuisine does *not* alter as I eat it, so that it tastes less wonderful after a while, I’d have to suspect “high-end” culinary doping.
Glutamates in general activate a particular set of taste receptors, umami or savory, that trigger your sense of satisfaction. MSG holds the button down so you get a prolonged sense of satisfaction from what you’re eating. Too much of it will give you a headache or make you nauseous, and people with an MSG sensitivity get those side effects at a lower dose.
MSG is just sodium and glutamates. There is nothing special about it and, while it can potentially raise blood preassure to the point of causing those symptoms, it shouldn’t do so significantly quicker than any other sodium source. Like, say, salt.
As for sensitivity, I have read a lot of conflicting information on that but, if it’s not a placebo, it likely has something to do with the way in which MSG is produced, not the sodium or glutamate ions that it dissociates into. Since neither of those are uncommon in nature.
And, as for why we’re coded to like glutamates so much, consider where they’re commonly found. Things like tomatoes may contain precursors to them but, without cooking, they’re almost exclusively found in meats. Which are both comparatively high-calory and very rich in complex, complete protiens. Perhaps not as good as sugars for running the body now but a good deal better at building it to run in the future.
And for an entree they will have lobster stuffed with tacos.
I have to hand it to Deus he is good
No, he is Smug, and Evil, and Smug, not good
Whatever you do do it well. I believe that is the Monica that Deus works with and then comes to being evil jerk he’s very good
Carême is the french word for Lent
Lent (Latin: Quadragesima, ‘Fortieth’) is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later, before Easter Sunday. The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, doing penance, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, almsgiving, and self-denial. This event is observed in the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Presbyterian, Oriental Orthodox, Reformed, and Roman Catholic Churches.Some Anabaptist and evangelical churches also observe the Lenten season.
It’s pretty ironic for a gastromic restaurant
For food of that standard, one must prepare oneself properly.
(Anyone who also needs to prepare for the size of the bill is not the target clientele.)
jump wings ? easiest medal ever earned !
Normally, you get them for jumping from a moving airplane to the ground. In her case, she got them for jumping from the ground into a moving airplane.
But did you do it without a parachute and leave the school with quite an impression on the field.
I picture an asphalt angel but that’s just me trying to picture the instructors face after that one.
Ha, I’d love to see a vote incentive with Anvil getting chewed out for doing this, possibly with Max smirking on the sidelines.
Nah, Maxi wouldn’t smirk, face-palm on the either flipper?
And the start of a long friendship :D
Deus is one of (if not *the*) richest person in the world with incredibly distinctive facial features. He could probably walk into a place like that in shorts and sneaks and still get in.
You mean, “any place he owns?”
We have a character named ‘Brandy’ who is a faerie chef. As such, her food is supernaturally tasty, to the point where if she wants, all other food will taste bland forever after. She can conjure mythological ingredients and visits the Goblin Market for additional ingredients from time to time – so you can probably give a bit of handwave – perhaps the chef is a ‘super’ or an alien, and thus can pump up the food just that bit more.
That is one awfull mess dress. Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting Hugo-Boss-Nazi-Chic, but come OOOOON!
That jacket is too long and not to form, additionally the cummerbund is not wide enough which results in it sitting to low and too high at the same time. The cuffs are too small too.
And that hair! Come ON Max, I know you don’t want to look sexy for this, and you do want to exude “regulation, not a date”, but looking like a little boy does absolutely nothing for you. Lean into the Glamazon, we all know you’re Rock & Roll and you HAVE to feel better wearing something that makes you look powerfull.
Okay, this is posted under the category of creative criticism. I know that character designs have been changing over time. At this point I personally think that Deus has gone over the line from ruggedly handsome to just lumpy. (maybe it’s the shading?) It is the artist’s choice and if likes his work, I will just have to deal with it.
Max must have seriously bound them up for tonights dinner, she’s showing barely a B cup in her mess dress.
And glad we have gotten past her getting ready for the evening, that had dragged on a little.
Deus is rocking a ‘trinity’ knot at the neck, there. Someone’s got skills.
If you’re going to do esoteric necktie knots, the Eldredge knot is more intense.
Although, I always end up googling “Arkham” when I’m looking for it, due to the “Old Ones” association.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed it. I tried to do it once and found that my tie ended up being way too short. Kinda disappointed that my current line of work doesn’t have me wearing a tie more often, because I would rock the hell out of this knot. Also for those interested, Ties.com has a great guide on how to do the various knots – https://www.ties.com/how-to-tie-a-tie/trinity
You can lace a mushroom with crack and heroin and spice melange… it’s still a hunk of fungus.
Bleah.
And cheese is just moldy milk, wine is just rotten grapes, and beer is just rotten grains. Eating anything is weird if you think about it too much.
Personally I love mushrooms, and the ‘fungus’ label doesn’t bother me in the slightest – it’s the exact variety you need to be picky about.
Approximately 80% of mushroom species are poisonous to humans. Russian culture is big on picking wild mushrooms. They have a saying. “All mushrooms are edible. Some of them only once.”
When dessert comes along, Deus get a plate of brownies and offers one to Maxima…
Deus: You’ll like these,it was from a recipe my grandmother got from a book written by someone named Alice(!!).
Maxima:(raising right eyebrow)There better not be hashish in those!!!
Deus: Nope,just..um…cannabis.
Should that send red flags waving before Maxima!?
Brownies? Heavens no.
It will be just a little bit of ever so tasty yet curious cake.
Not familiar with Alice B. Toklas!?
In SAO Abridged on Youtube, Kirito and Asuna eat something that is “The best thing you could ever taste” and from then on nothing else tastes good.
Well, Asuna did max out her culinary skill and had figured out how to replicate various tastes in game. She was just a really damn good virtual cook.
In the out-of-print Games Workshop “Judge Dredd” game from the 1980s there’s a crime called Umpty Bagging. Uncle Ump discovered a taste or flavor that was so good it was addictive. There was nothing in it that was actually addictive like heroin or cocaine, it was just THAT DAMN GOOD! It was banned and Uncle Ump was exiled but gangsters found him and forced him to give up the recipe or formula, and they made illegal Umpty Candy available on the black market.
Sometimes Dredd is hilarious. That comic also have a example of one of the few times Old Stone Face smiles. It looks very creepy.
You only mention the response of organics. They put the treat in the analyzer to figure out what was in it. (rough quote, is HAS been 30 years..) “Indeterminate. Please provide additional samples.”
I Love the pinky sticking out, as she crushes the fork. It’s the little details that really bring the comic to life.
Thinking of little details, she really should have removed her gloves before eating.
I thought she bent the fork because Deux turned her mushroom comment into a double entendra(sp) for loving the taste of his dick. Expect the restaurant to be destroyed momentarily.
I guess anything is double entendre if you go deep enough.
That’s what she said… :P