Trivial pursuit - 6

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.

Amazing…and all this so it can taste worms and the occasional leftover bits of liver and flakes thrown at it? And then we applaud nature. Forget the sunrise and sunset and the ocean tides…say wow, look at those taste buds. Just throw me a worm and I can give you 27,000 interpretations of it. Humans are of course lower down in the evolutionary scale –we have only 10,000 of those buds tickling our tongues.

What do we do with those? I only know sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, hot, cold, rancid, and tasteless, like water and chewing gum that has been chewed into a hard ball.

All those connoisseurs will go sniffing at the wine in the glass, the one with a small opening so that the aroma does not escape, then take a sip, roll it on their tongue (where else will they roll it?), then nod their heads and pronounce their verdict. Ah, be careful, hold it by the stem or it will get all warm and fuzzy and ruin the temperature. Damn, the wine did not complain when it was rotting in the barrel.

All right, I have now lost complete track of taste buds. You got Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Indian, Puerto Rican, French, English, and the rest of the Commonwealth and European Union. You still do not have use for 10,000 taste buds. Even if you try out cockroaches, ants, and other delicacies.

So, I don’t understand why nature has bestowed upon the cat fish all those taste buds. Do they even chew worms and let them rest on the tongue long enough for anything to register?

Heck, it is said that if you and I hold our breath, then apple and onion taste the same.

Now, why would anyone hold their breath for this?

But then if we shut our eyes we can’t tell cat fish from anything large and amphibian. Go ahead, enjoy nature’s bounty. And tell me how it tastes.