As the complex aromas of culinary invention wafted through Sours Mansion, the young ultra taster's gastric acids began to squish and churn. The grand staircase at the heart of the house behaved as a flue for the overpowering mix of scents that came from her father's recently installed American kitchen. Yet despite these primordial gastronomical salivations to tantalising forms of sustenance, Persephony Sayers would have been happy to graze on an uncluttered plate of garden carrots tossed in burnt Devon butter and thyme for her lunch.
Persey's cotton pantalons clung to her torso as she waited for the Dover breeze to guide this melange of distracting scents futher up the stairs on that sweltering summer afternoon in 1925. At least it was the coolest place in the house and where a barefooted teen was less likely to be allocated another chore by her busy parents.
A chemical odour began to compete with all those distracting cooking smells. Her nostrils flared involuntarily as puffs of cochineal and musk coated her sensorial receptors. She struggled to balance a heavy tome on her skinny lap while inhaling the dusty plume of the Atlas Of Olfactory and Gustatory Anatomy, an old book she discovered in her grandmother’s sewing room. She examined the borrowers' card slotted inside a tarred woven pocket that had not been adorned since the 17th of June, 1901. It was her deceased grandfather, Cleophas Sayers. Persey wondered if she should add her name, considering, to her irritation, none of the previous borrowers appeared to be women. Some past librarians seemed intent on reminding the borrower of its origin by randomly stamping GOUT- The Guild of Ultra Tasters- Epicureum Library of Gastronomy- England throughout its jaundiced pages.
The chapter on the human tongue’s intricate anatomy came with enlightening detail. Graphic depictions of the mouth cavity and taste receptors sliced and magnified from every angle; it was all so fascinating and slightly macabre. As evidenced by a surfeit of loose handwritten notes slotted throughout chapters, this bible of taste and smell had been heavily referred to. Yet none of those were of use to Persey. Hybrid pagans, Thomas Segas, and Sowerberry – bastard child, Etheldrea Freresbairn- Greensleeves. The Hypocrites. Probably references to her dubious family ancestry, she figured. Hardly helpful in gaining an empirical understanding of this thing she had inherited.
Persephony Sayers was assured that her highly responsive palate would settle with age and become an enjoyable sensorial tool of creativity. “One should think of the Ultra taster as the Tchaikovsky of taste or the Gauguin of gastronomy.” Her father flapped his arms for dramatic effect. As a matured carrier of the Adroit [1], he would hone his extraordinary tasting abilities with regular blind tastings of the family cook’s latest concoctions.
“English lamb, Suffolk variety - south sloping paddock!” Ambrose Sayers could be heard demonstrating his own talent for olfactory and gustatory interpretation. Persey and Basil would collectively roll their eyes at the sighs of wonder and amazement gushing from his culinary brigade. “Barley notes detected- poor creature must have had a tough winter,” the connoisseur of all things indulgent concluded to another round of cheers and admiration. GOUT’s high priest ultra taster’s feverish zest could never be contained as he dashed about the corridors of Sour mansion to update his wife, Blodwen, and mother, Lady Ora, of his kitchen’s culinary triumphs. Today, it was a vol-au-vent of lamb’s brain with caper and mustard velouté. Lady Ora thought her son unnecessarily resembled a Hampton Court trumpet when he became excited about food.
Persey's shoulders ached after studying the atlas for almost an hour. As she stretched, her primogenitors' portraits on the bold crimson walls watched over her solitary inquiry. These were the ultra tasters of the past, each one adorned with the brass fork of the English Guild of Ultra Tasters dangling from their thickened necks- glaring their halfhearted smirks. She studied their eyes, which also seemed in search of an answer- as if they had misplaced their very soul. She examined their blood-engorged lips in all their physical clarity and wondered if intense flavours ever burned their tongues and if the taste and smell of cucumber had ever turned their stomachs. It was unnerving to imagine the lives of these vessels of the sacred Adroit during times when the ultra taster was bred for servitude to their overlords- simply by virtue of their highly receptive taste buds. Persey was told to be thankful that the cruel demand for the ultra-tasters had waned, albeit leaving the world with a dangerously depleted gene pool of vessels of this extraordinary gift. In a unanimous resolve, the Guild of Ultra Tasters of the twentieth century had concluded that the only way to confront this conundrum was through, and by its noble search for a medium of culinary exactitude and bliss- and to have the jolliest time doing so.
For the observer, GOUT seemed more intent on preserving its depleting social life than anything else, which, according to the rosacea-ridden and largest members of the Guild, had also been on a frightfully dangerous slide into irrelevance. Persey’s father, being the ringleader of the English chapter and well-known for his 'vigour without the rigour', was determined that the ancient society embraced the concept of convivial gastronomy as a contribution towards the continuation of arts and culture in a modern society. Persey suddenly remembered why all this culinary experimentation was frantically going on around her. It was only a week until gourmets and gastronomists from as far as India and Japan would converge on Sowerberry Estate for an entire weekend of indulgence, frivolity and symposium.
Basil, one year younger and dashingly well-attired for the weather, contorted on the landing beside his sister, his fingers gracefully skimming along the reed of his clarinet as he held it up to the light. “What’s all the fuss about?” he asked as to the confusing scents wafting up the stairwell.
“Father is extracting tasting notes from some poor sheep’s brain.” Persey sardonically reported.
Shouldn't you be honing your skills with Father? You are the ultra-taster apparent, after all.” Basil’s satirising of his sister’s destiny in life was deliberately unhelpful and annoying. “Vive la gastronomie conviviale and all that?” he teased in his lazy schoolboy French before eyeing his sister's boyish disposition with a sigh of pity. “So, why aren't you interested in gastronomy, Persey?"
Her 14-year-old palate suddenly became parched by the thought that her ambitions to study science would never be permitted by the archaic Guild of Ultra Tasters and, least of all, to those droll-looking ancestors hanging on the walls. She solemnly heaved the atlas shut and turned towards her brother. “I am interested in gastronomy, Basil. I just find the tool more intriguing than the timber.”
“You are a weird girl, Persey." Basil was often repulsed by this sister’s grotesque penchant for human anatomy, "What are you doing with that library book, anyway?”
“Grandma gave me permission.”
Basil never understood this sister’s penchant for human anatomy, yet became intrigued by a parchment with faded English cursive as it flew out and onto the step below the moment she heaved the atlas shut. Basil caught it under his foot as it attempted to float off the stairs like a dying butterfly.
“Be careful, Persey. These old letters might be stolen from the vaulted section of the Epicureum.”
“Grandma says the price has already been paid for the breach,” she assured her brother it was all safe to know their contents. Basil pored over the intriguing mediaeval letter. Fortunately, he had read enough of Shakespeare’s old English to understand the premise of the faded words:
Catherine Freresbairn
On this day, the 15th of February, 1542.
To the Keepers of the GOUT.
My heart shattered with grief when I learned our Adroit-Vessel daughter had been brutally taken from this world whilst under the master-ship of one Thomas Segas, the supposed ultra taster to the Court.
Envious of the king's affection for her and her role as His Majesty’s taster, the Apex taster willingly accepted his responsibility for her murder. And now, to discover that the perpetrator has escaped, my family feels such injustice and humiliation must not continue without consequence.
As an ultimate act of evil, the Segas clan of ultra-tasters have stolen the body of my child for reasons I can only describe as cruel and sinister. I demand that each of his descendants be banished as maladroit traitors in the eye of Halotus. and that under the tradition of such maladroitery- that once captured, his tongue be removed from his mouth.
Guard the Adroit
Catherine Freresbairn
(Widow of William Freresbairn and mother of the late Etheldrea Freresbairn).
Concubine of Benedict Snodgrass, Purveyor of fleshes for the glee of His Majesty the King.
The siblings carefully slotted the letter into the chapter on The Sensorial Stealth of Poisons, concluding that Grandfather Cleophas may have been attempting to resolve the historical pawl which had hung over the Sayers-Segas clan of tasters for centuries. One which involved the murder of one ultra taster by the hand of another, and one which some claim resulted in his own mysterious death.
#
Longing to be at an age where the ceaseless stream of adult mentors would, at the very least, acknowledge her aspirations to pursue a skill beyond cake decorating and needlepoint, Persey decided it was time to declare her plan to her family.
“Father, I believe my path lies elsewhere.”
“Oh, does it now. And what would that path entail?”
“To study anatomy at Greenwich University.”
“What has that to do with gastronomy?”
“I would presume the associations are endless.”
“My dear, people like us rarely get to choose our path; the Guild does all that.” Her father put down a pine box of champagne, realising his bookish daughter had achieved her goal of acquiring his undivided attention.
“Why can’t I study as well?”
“Persey, you are an ultra taster. Life is all laid out for you, don’t you realise? You mustn't burden yourself with all that study when you and Basil have all this luxury to enjoy. Why not simply accept life’s pleasures and indulgences?”
Persey tailed behind her father as he dashed to the kitchen to speak to the cook. “What’s the purpose of GOUT if education has no role?” She was determined to challenge his intellect.
“I didn’t say that. I merely point out that academic pursuits would be a waste of time for a High Priestess. Especially a girl with your talent.”
“So, GOUT’s claim to guard the Adroit means to oppress the Adroit? Until we are expected to save some noble from dying of poison - in which case it becomes sacrifice the Adroit?”
“Times have changed, Persey. We aren’t cannon fodder to wicked overlords these days,”
“Unless, of course, one is a simple female ultra-taster who aspires to pursue her own goals instead of being confined by fear that she might gain her independence - or worse, slip on the pavement and ladder her stockings?”
“It’s reasonable for the ultra tasters’ role to be different for a woman, Persephony. Women give birth to future ultra-tasters.”
“Is that all that GOUT care about, protecting their breeding stock? Is this what you learned from chewing that sheep brain, Father? I also have receptors, you know.”
“Seriously, Persey, you reach for the most profound paradoxes. In all the wrong places, I might add. Try being mad and outrageous like me. It helps, let me assure you.”
“Grandma says I must be ready to pay the price so that important people don’t die from poisoning. Is this true?”
“Well, your grandma would say that, wouldn’t she? Your grandfather was a loyal taster to the King, but you mustn’t concern yourself these days, my dear child. We’ve surpassed the point of being sacrificial martyrs. We can use all our talents for pleasure.”
“Unless you are a woman.”
“Please place the gramophone and recordings on the sideboard,” Lord Ambrose instructed the Butler. “Persey. Things can shift rapidly in our world. We Sayers must always be vigilant of our vulnerability in the Guild. So, try to focus on your tongue test this weekend.” Ambrose added one more point to his lecture. “We tasters do come from the peasantry. We are just the help when one thinks about it.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Father,” she noted the irony of his wisdom as he directed a trolley of Cristal Vinothèque 1914 towards the conservatory.
“By the way. We found a letter in Grandfather’s old tongue book.” Persey added. “Basil thinks he was researching the Tudor Freebody taster murder.”
Ambrose’s face furrowed with alarm. “Bring it all to my office, and don’t look at it again.”
“But I’m studying the palate, father.”
“Persephony Sayers. You must stop this scientific silliness and bring that book to my study immediately. Do you understand?”
It was finally confirmed in her mind. Persey Sayers was destined to sit idle, unlearned, and unfulfilled, all while being mollycoddled by a Cabal obsessed with archaic rules and superstitions. “Yes, Father,” she shrugged at his demand.
Among the many perplexing laws that GOUT enshrined, the one that bewildered her most was why, in this modern age, the heavily protected archival vault concealed within the gastronomical library on the other side of the estate forbids ultra tasters from accessing its vast manuscripts. Children were deliberately haunted by stories of tongue removal and boiling people alive until their flesh peeled off like baked bell pepper. Lady Ora was the primary source of these frightening tales, spinning stories of those who had perished in their quest to learn the parallel history that the vault contained. She seemed to take pleasure in filling the minds of children and GOUT members alike with fear and dread. The Vault’s enigma beckoned like a forbidden fruit; its allure was heightened by the ominous tales of those who had dared to tamper with its contents.
From the beginning of her short life, Persey felt trapped somewhere between her yearning for erudition, for scientific explanations of this sensorial ability they call the Adroit and her parents’ obsession with pleasure principles of life through a convivial branch of gastronomy. She found herself remote and resentful of her obligation to confirm her clan’s ultra-taster forte at the upcoming platinum vivum[2]. The symbol of servitude, the venerated apron, and its accoutrements laden with expectation and protocol seemed to smother her dreams like a damp blanket upon a flame. The realisation took root within her. She would be paraded among ostentatious onlookers this weekend for everybody’s pleasure but her own.
#
Ambrose Sayers took a long snuff of cocaine powder, scanned the guest list for the umpteenth time, and waited by the window for his shrapnel pain to ease. It proves nothing. He told himself as he contemplated the turrets of the Epicureum jutting over the vast landscape like mediaeval jousting victories. His otherwise busy morning was now distracted by the sight of that old tongue atlas on his desk. The dog-eared papers weaved between its pages, its leather-bound resembling the skin of a dead ox; he had to presume all those anecdotes were safe to read. After all, the price of the original indiscretion had been paid - most notably by his own father. Yet, despite its collective ambiguity, it was that one letter, written by a person related to the victim, that would no doubt unearth another jousting between the Sayers and Freebody clans should it become known to them. A situation he would rather avoid on this weekend of celebration.
At last, a smile returned to his handsome visage. He spotted Blodwen, working in the garden right below his window, her gloved fingers giving directions from under her favourite, but worse for wear, sombrero. He blew her a kiss, but she was too busy to notice. Ambrose relished his wife's jovial nature, bantering away with the gardeners while orchestrating various tasks for the upcoming party. She even had her prize-winning Plymouth rock hens washed, groomed, and running recklessly on the lawns.
Suddenly captured by an inspirational thought, the revered high priest of the Guild of Ultra Tasters enthusiastically imitated a jog back to his desk. Gastronomy is Art emblazoned across his stationery and a carbon pencil in his left hand. He began his welcome speech for the weekend’s event:
Food pleasures by being pleasured... He paused, then crumpled the page into a ball. On a new page, he scrawled, underlined and omitted until satisfied that he had hit the right chord for the weekend:
Salutations to all Tasters, Ultras, Keepers, and Kindreds of GOUT.
My family and I are delighted to welcome you to Sowerberry Estate for this splendid summer symposium 1925.
The English chapter of GOUT welcomes Monsieur Auguste Esquisier and Doctor Kikunae Ikoda as our esteemed guests this year. These eminent gentlemen of the gastronome are pioneers in mapping the intricacies of palate receptors and for their exceptional work in expanding the boundaries of the flavour spectrum.
Such extraordinary contributions to the culinary world exemplify my vision for the NEW era of GOUT. Therefore, I propose that their dissertations be collated alongside the timeless treasures that have shaped our heritage by granting their manuscripts a safe home in our new wing of the Epicureum – The Archive of Modern Gastronomy.
Guard the Adroit ...etc.
Ambrose paused to reflect on the earlier conversation he had with his daughter. It did seem cruel that Persey could not pursue her dreams because of how she was born and her gender; whilst men of the ultra-tasters were free to follow any eminent path, they damn well pleased. Ambrose was not ignorant of the will of the suffragettes, as his own parents were ardent activists. He had always supported his mother in protest- yet he had no answers for his daughter. At least none that would please her. GOUT was full of contradictions, and yet few ever seemed to question its protocols, least of all its quirky laws - until Persey came along, who seemed to question many things lately. That thought reminded him to fully utilise his weekend speech to appease the brethren from his own habit of straying from convention:
My dear brethren of GOUT. As you know, I strive to bring the Guild out of the dark ages. This year focuses on the evolving design of the modern domestic kitchen. Having never understood the logic of these old Victorian mansions, confining the most exciting place in the house to a damp, dark basement, I have moved the whole operation up to the main living level where it can now shine as the centrepiece of family life. Voilà, the culinary heart now beats where it belongs.
My cook, my wife and I cannot wait to give it a test run at this year’s dinner for the Inners, which, by another break in tradition, will be held up here in the Sours. So do not wander down to the Epicureum in search of food this year.
Guard the Adroit, etc...
“That should do it.” He shuffled the pages across his desk and scurried off to check the progress of Mrs Ormiston setting the dining room for the Dinner of the Inners closing event on Sunday evening.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]. . THE ADROIT - the unique gift that resides solely within the Ultra Tasters. These rare humans possess exceptional gustatory and olfactory sensory anatomy, which allows them to identify, navigate, describe, and detect poisons before they reach their master. The Ultra Tasters were historically highly sought-after by the nobility owing to their remarkable ability to detect tainted food down to microbial levels, preventing stealth acts of slow-dose poisoning.
[2]. PALATUM VIVUM - A sensorial taste test conducted by GOUT using complex flavour concoctions to identify the existence and vitality of the Vessels’ Adroit and ensure the continuance of the Ultra Taster bloodline.
