Candy comes in a number of different flavors. So does chewing gum. So do ice cream and puddings and many other kinds of desserts.
The most popular flavoring for ice cream and cake is vanilla. A great deal of soft candy has vanilla in it, too. Vanilla comes from the seed pods of an orchid. No one in the Old World had ever heard of vanilla until the Spaniards conquered México about 400 years ago. The Spaniards learned how to make it from the Indians.
These Indians were also using chocolate. Chocolate is now a very popular flavoring.
Peppermint, spearmint, and winter-green are made from the leaves of mint and wintergreen plants. They are the best-liked flavorings for chewing gum.
Peppermint and wintergreen are also used in hard candies. Many fruit flavorings are used in these candies, too. Lemon and orange flavorings are made from the rinds of lemons and oranges. Most fruit flavorings are made from fruit juices.
Actually the good taste flavorings give the things we eat is mostly a good smell. There are really only four tastes—bitter, sour, sweet, and salty. The rest of the taste of anything is its smell. Smell is a stronger sense than taste. If someone held a pear under your nose while you were eating an apple, the apple would taste like a pear.
At first all flavorings were made from plants. Now scientists have learned other ways. Artificial vanilla, for instance, can now be made from coal tar!
