"Chefs" .....Ad Nauseam
Masters – Judges - Kitchen Rulers
In recent weeks and months it would have been hard and challenging times for any television viewer to flick his or her remote control between the commercial stations - the Seven, Nine, Ten networks and their affiliated stations to avoid watching hapless contestants trying to cook a meal in view of ticking clock and cheering observers. The final cooked meal is to be assessed by the taste buds and smell of self crowned chefs acting in their purported capacity either as masters, kitchen rulers, or fellow contestants. In the case of the latter it is normally a competitor of the hapless cook deliberately chosen for his or quality to be rude, arrogant, disgusting and nasty.
That said one should keep in mind the fact that commercial television stations are in the business to make money and they make their money by sponsoring shows that attract viewers and commercial sponsors. The sad and unfortunate fact is that the society that we live in had been conditioned to appreciate nastiness, rudeness, and ill manners. So the nastier the contestant on the cooking shows the higher the rating! 
It is common enough experience for all of us that when we suffer from cold or flu our ability to taste, smell, and appreciate good food or drink greatly diminishes. Why? Because swelling, mucous, bacteria, viruses, and floating air particles that collects in our nose and mouth plus our hygiene status blocks the sensory nerve attached to our taste buds and olfactory bulb. Whilst this blog is not a lesson in sensory human anatomy of taste it is nevertheless important for the purpose of judging those presiding and making decisions on taste or otherwise on those unavoidable cook shows to ask when they last cleansed their taste buds and olfactory bulb.
Brief Anatomy of Taste
There are three basic taste buds papillae: vallate, foliate, and fungiform. The vallate are 8 to 10 in number lying in row with the fungiform in a V arrangement at the back of the tongue. The foliate are smaller and are at the side of the tongue. The sensory organ of taste are scattered over the muscous membrane of the mouth and are especially numerous in and around the vallate papillae.
The olfactory nerve is the first of the 12 cranial nerves that is responsible for smell. It is purely sensory nerve that is responsible for our sense of smell. Its sole sensory distribution is the mucous membranes of the nose where the message is carried to the olfactory bulb in the brain to give us our appreciation of smell.
From this brief anatomy of taste and smell it stands to reason and common sense that anyone judging the food cooked by those hapless men and women contestants cooking against the clock that he or she must have cleansed their taste buds and cleared their nose and respiratory passages and preferably had passed independently conducted taste and smell test.
Accordingly I, Michael Abdul-Karim, will never watch any cooking and judging show on commercial and non commercial television station unless and until that show makes it abundantly clear that those judging or adjudicating in accordance with their skills and training had last especially cleansed their taste buds and nasal mucosa 24 hours before coming on the show. Passing taste and smell test will definitely attract my attention and gets me riveted to the set.
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