Perth mum can taste words when she says them!

Anne Williams has an unusual ability…Astha Gupta meets the mum for whom words have a flavour all their own.

Having a conversation with Perth mum Anne Williams is a mouth-watering experience – at least for her. When most of us hear a word, we’re listening to the sound, but for Anne it conjures up a taste. “After I hear a word, I experience a very specific flavour and texture at the back of my mouth,” 31-year-old Anne explains. “Out of any sentence, some word will jump at me, and for a few seonds I will experience a taste created by that word. If someone keeps repeating that word, I’ll keep tasting it.”

Anne has an unusual condition called gustatory auditory – or sound-taste – synaesthesia, often described as the crossing of the senses, or joined senses. She remembers that, as a 12-year-old girl, she constantly craved salt and vinegar chips. Sometimes she wanted ice-cream waffle cones. For many years, those cravings remained a mystery. Later she realised it was because her dad’s name (Dave), evoked the taste of chips, while her mum’s name (Kay) gave her a taste of waffle cones.

It took her many years to even talk about this, and her friend Olivia became her confidante. “Olivia had a unique way of pronouncing words. Whenever she used certain words, I’d think about some food totally unrelated to what we were talking about.” Olivia’s favourite words were “like”, which made Anne taste chocolate YoGo, and “England”, which tasted like oatmeal biscuits.

“When I told Olivia, she laughed and said, ‘You are weird.’” But Anne couldn’t stop. Once she’d realised her “secret gift”, she had fun spinning out names and food. Choosing a life partner is tricky for anyone, but it was worse for Anne. She not only had to like the person, but also like the taste of their name. “It was a huge relief falling in love with Steve,” she says. “His name also had a salt and vinegar chips taste, like my dad’s.” And when it came to naming their children, Steve, 41, let Anne take the reins.