The great Helmholtz in the kitchen

Back re-reading Helmholtz again (after 15 years!). The topic here is
"synthetic" perception... meaning the perception of tone as a "fused"
element... ie. a sound comprised of a basic tone and all its
accompanying Fourier partials that lend it's timbre as a single
sensation.

From the text, it seems as if the entire concept of a tone with
accompanying harmonic partials that determine its timbre is a "new" idea
at that time.

This was not an "original" idea with Helmholtz, was it?? What is the
history of this concept?? Paul?? Anybody??

In any case, the theory seems new and Helmholtz is looking for examples
to back it up. He unfortunately wanders into the realm of taste... or
is it tastelessness (??)

(Some of this makes our short-lived "Mark C." interchanges maybe not
quite so weird after all!)

Here is the great Helmholtz in the kitchen:

"Let us begin with the comparatively simple perceptions of the sense of
taste. The ingredients of our dishes and the spices with which we
flavour
them, are not so complicated that they could not be readily learned by
any
one.

[NB, JP]:
And yet there are very few people who have not themselves practically
studied cookery, that are able readily and correctly to discover, by the
taste alone, the ingredients of the dishes placed before them.

How much practice, and perhaps also peculiar talent, belongs to wine
tasting for
the purpose of discovering adulterations is known in all wine-growing
countries. Similarly for smell; indeed the sensations of taste and
smell
may unite to form a single whole. Using our tongues constantly, we are
scarcely aware that the peculiar character of many articles of food and
drink, as vinegar or wine, depends on the sensation of smell, their
vapours
entering the back part of the nose through the gullet. It is not till
we
meet with persons in whom the sense of smell is deficient that we learn
how
essential a part it plays in tasting. Such persons are constantly in
fault
when judging of food, as indeed any one can learn from his own
experience,
when he suffers from a heavy cold in the head without having a loaded
tongue..."