Salt On Your Tongue: Women and the Sea

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Saliva and tongue movement pushes the ingested food into the grooves of the tongue and finally into the taste buds. Hänig found that there was some variation around the tongue in how much stimulus it took for a taste to register. Though his research never tested for the now-accepted fifth basic taste, umami (the savory taste of glutamate, as in monosodium glutamate or MSG), Hänig’s hypothesis generally holds up. Different parts of the tongue do have a lower threshold for perceiving certain tastes, but these differences are rather minute. Geographic tongue. The American Academy of Oral Medicine. https://www.aaom.com/. Accessed April 20, 2023. Li Q, Cui Y, Jin R, et al. Enjoyment of Spicy Flavor Enhances Central Salty-Taste Perception and Reduces Salt Intake and Blood Pressure. Hypertension (Dallas, Tex.: 1979). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29089370. Published December 2017. Natural Celtic salt is light grey in color, which comes from the sea minerals and clay found in the salt flats. The clay ionizes the minerals in the salt, making it even more beneficial.

Certain medications can cause dry mouth as a side effect, leading to a salty or metallic taste in your mouth. If you’re taking any prescription medications and notice a dry mouth, talk to your healthcare provider. They may be able to switch your medication or recommend home remedies, such as dry mouth lozenges, to combat the problem. Allergies or a postnasal drip that enables mucus from the nose to drip into the throat can cause a salty taste. There is no easily exact difference between the river and the sea; no invisible line where the freshwater ends and saltwater begins. The sea is a gradual process of becoming, of widening and ageing and growing into more. There’s a human scale to an estuary. Settlements cluster around them, growing into industrial heartlands over the centuries because they’re so useful for transport and trade and connection to the world. Even before industry, though, people were drawn to them to build their homes. They are poised on the edge, but still connected to home, to land, and to life-giving fresh drinking water as it turns to the salt of the sea.” Chandrashekar J, Hoon MA, Ryba NJP, Zuker CS. The receptors and cells for mammalian taste. Nature. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17108952. Published November 16, 2006.See your doctor. If you are experiencing a sore tongue and home remedies don’t help, consult your doctor. He/She will help identify the cause of your pain and the right kind of treatment for you. Whether it's because I am an Australian who lives on the east coast, or because I have the blood of Vikings and Samoan sailors through my veins, or perhaps it is because I was born under the sign Pisces - but whatever the reason, I have always felt an affinity to the Ocean. Reading this book was like going through a Wiccaning (a Neopagan ritual comparable to a christening or baptism) or a saining (which is a Scottish rite/word for blessing and consecrating). It feels like I've risen out of the Sea a new woman, made up entirely of salt water and foam. This novel is a love letter to the briny deep, but also to women and the power they hold.

Runcie's pregnancy and experience of motherhood and the strong women in her life is the emotional narrative in the book, surrounded by mythical and historical tales of sailors, kelpies, sirens, Odysseus, sea creatures, and so much more. If someone were to ask me to slap just one genre onto this book, I don't think I could do it. A Spiritual Autobiography? A Mythic Memoir? A Collection of Memories, Myths, and Motherhood through the lens of The Ocean? I think the latter probably describes it most appropriately. The full taste profile of something is experienced after all the sensory information from different parts of the tongue is combined.

Boring’s version also had no meaningful scale, leading to each taste’s most sensitive area being sectioned off in what we now know as the tongue map. A large proportion of my childhood was spent growing up next to the sea at a tiny place in Sussex called Normans Bay. This shingled beach gave way to sand as the tide went out and I spent many hours there, in, by and on the sea. In a country that is no more than seventy miles from the sea, I am not alone in having that strong affinity to its salty wildness. Charlotte Runcie is one of those who is lured to its calming and yet ever-changing waters. When she loses her beloved grandmother she relies on time spent by the coast as she grieves for her.