New Flavors

If you're like me, you've discovered by now that all food tastes basically the same. They can use all the vivid colors and ingredients at their disposal, but as it turns out, all food pretty much tastes like tomatoes, like coffee, or like dust. Some foods are sweet, and some are salty, and the texture may vary, but there just aren't many different things to eat.

Some people can live 90 years without longing for another taste, even though they've tasted them all by age 20. Most people, in fact, which is why chemists in New Jersey are focussing more on recreating strawberry (i.e. tomato) flavor than on inventing truly new flavors. Still, there must be someone out there yearning for new flavors to conquer, so let me suggest these ideas:

Hydrogen peroxide: This stimulates nerves when you put it on a flesh wound. Sounds like a roundabout way of saying "flavor!" I understand that some people use H2O2 to brush their teeth. It's a pretty good disinfectant, so I can understand wanting peroxide toothpaste. But does it have any flavor? It's a strong oxidant, so I'm going to guess it's "piquant". Am I right? Does anybody out there know what it actually tastes like?

Camphor: Camphor isn't exactly edible, being a kind of wood. But camphor oil, which you presumably get by boiling the wood and skimming the surface of the pot, is sort of edible. Wikipedia says it is "poisonous in larger quantities" without giving any hint to the actual quantities. Camphor, like nutmeg, causes "confusion" upon overdose. Could camphor be the next big fad among 16-year olds left home alone? Assuming you don't take too much, the actual flavor of camphor is intriguing. Floral? A little. Like mothballs? A little more. Medicinal? Yes indeed. It is an acquired taste, but a new one.

Ammonia: Highly toxic in large amounts, but used to revive Victorian matrons. You could probably market ammonia, diluted even further, as a "new hot sauce". Acrid sauce, more like, but you're the one who wants new flavors; I'm just trying to help. I'm not sure what goes well with ammonia. I guess you couldn't eat it with anything very acidic. Would it taste good on bread? Only by trial and error can we know for sure.