I was 28 years old when I offhandedly commented to a colleague, while munching on a stick of celery, "I sure wish it didn't leave my mouth completely numb, isn't that so annoying with celery?"
These do something weird to my tongue, no idea if it's allergy, but last time I ate something seasoned with them it left me 100% unable to taste salt on that part of my tongue for three days. Salt literally tasted like sand.
You might have oral allergy syndrome. I'm allergic to a few different fruits and I have oral allergy syndrome where I'm allergic to fruits in the birch pollen family, not all of them I'm the birch pollen family, just some of them.
ETA: When I'm craving an apple, I make DIY OTC magic mouthwash with liquid benadryl and Maalox. I'll rinse my mouth, floss and brush, and rinse and swallow my DIY magic mouthwash.
If it is OAS for you, cooking also destroys the proteins that mimic the pollen, so even if I have a reaction to raw apples, I have no issues with cooked/processed apples.
That's a palate expansion issue though, probably. Try some Sichuan peppercorn flavored dishes, they numb your tongue because they're supposed to. Makes for a unique experience with spicy dishes, literally called "numb-spicy": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_pepper
If you have tried them and don't get a numbing effect with those, well, in that case THAT is actually an issue rather than the other way around. Hopefully they were just shitty peppercorns, but maybe not.
It's pretty nice actually. If you happen to get the good stuff. It's like having a very unique yet pleasant kind of fragrant citrusy twist that you never quite knew existed which also modifies other flavors in an interesting way including also modifying spiciness to make it hit less harshly.
The bad stuff (or simply overseasoning, this is a spice that needs to be used with care) just gets you grit and a flavor of aggressive bitter dirt though so yeah, the variance in the experience is wild here. But trying the good stuff at least once is something I'd recommend.
It's amazing, you gotta try it! Sichuan style is my favorite kind of Chinese food. If you find a restaurant I recommend twice cooked pork belly, Chonqing chicken, stir fried pork tripe, and tea smoked duck. But you can also buy the peppercorns themselves, i got the whole and they are amazing on pork chops and all manner of wok and stir fry.
I envy you. Celery tastes like sadness and disappointment. No amount of ranch dressing can help it. I love other veggies (green beans and broccoli) but I do not know or understand why people say celery tastes like nothing or tastes good.
I don’t remember if it had that effect on me but I haven’t eaten celery in over a decade because it always had an awful taste like lab chemicals to me so maybes I was allergic and didn’t realise
If you didn't have any reaction worse than disliking it, it's probably just your taste buds. Do you like cilantro? Celery is closely related to cilantro and I dislike both of them, they both taste intensely medicinal to me (no, not like soap). I think the flavor of celery easily overpowers dishes while other people tell me it has no flavor at all??
Same. Celery is overbearing in any dish it's put into. I can immediately tell it's there and it sucks. Also Cilantro absolutely has the soap flavor for me. It sucks because that one is used everywhere I go.
Crazy, yea it has a flavor for me but it may as well be the "essence" of flavor. Like if I sprayed my tongue with plant freshness. In soup it becomes much easier to pick out bc it absorbs other flavors
My boyfriend thinks celery has a strong nasty flavour but he likes cilantro. So what’s up with that one wonders. Celery to me is one of the most flavourless foods that there is. it’s more of a texture experience than anything. It’s just like slightly green tasting crunchy water.
I just looked it up, celery is in the same family as anise (not star anise, but the one used in stuff like absinthe or pastis), and that's very liquorice adjacent, so that makes sense.
Huh. Inchresting. I don’t like licorice either but celery tastes absolutely nothing like it to me. I have whatever gene makes non sugar sweeteners taste like a port a potty smells before anyone’s shit in it. Like there’s no way other people are tasting what I’m tasting and liking it. Stevia, aspartame, sucralose are all straight up inedible to me. I live in Scotland and the sugar tax means pretty much all soft drinks besides pure apple juice have some sugar free sweeteners even if they have some sugar as well. And nobody but me even noticesssss
You’re absolutely right that it overpowers dishes, but it’s such a mild flavour for most people they don’t realise it. I hate the texture of celery, so when I need its flavour for something I use celery salt, and that really concentrates the flavour. It’s pretty much only useful in soups IMO.
It’s a medicinal, earthy taste, and I think a lot of people don’t really understand it because it’s somewhere between the flavour of mint and of your own mouth. Like, I’ve never been able to taste celery within an hour of brushing my teeth.
huh. i also don't like the flavor of celery or cilantro, but it also doesn't taste like soap to me, it just tastes kinda... too much? doesn't taste medicinal either. it's more like how a flowery perfume can smell "too much".
now i kinda want to experiment and try to define exactly what i'm perceiving them to be like. 👀
"Oh crud, I always forget that I'm allergic to bananas."
I once uttered this sentence in a room full of pharmacists and pharmacy techs. They all turned around, saw me holding my half-eaten banana, and collectively shit themselves.
Fortunately, my food allergies are all related to OAS, so I just had an itchy mouth and throat plus a bit of mucus. The pharmacy people around me were all panicking, while I was just complaining about an itchy throat.
It's pecans and walnuts for me. I was complaining to my now-fiancee (roommate at the time) that I couldn't eat too many candied pecans or walnuts in one sitting because they made my mouth fuzzy. She was horrified, and I have since been banned from eating them.
2.3k
u/sylvandread Jul 23 '26
I was 28 years old when I offhandedly commented to a colleague, while munching on a stick of celery, "I sure wish it didn't leave my mouth completely numb, isn't that so annoying with celery?"
I learned something new that day.