1771 Pasty Reflection

Not long ago we were at the Olympic Flight Museum's annual airshow and a friend was describing this jet-powered car that had just performed. He said it had 10,000 horses.
I said, "Wow could you imagine having to harness together 10,000 horses?"
"Lots of tack," he replied.
And I must say, he did so with tact.
That got us on the subject of horses. A bystander mentioned her horse was 18 hands.
"Wow," I said, "Must come in handy if you need applause."
That got us on the subject of hands versus hooves. That inevitably led us to the subject of glue. From which emerged a refection I had about the paste we once used in elementary school.
Today's WiFi-enabled computer lab schoolchildren probably never encountered it, but in my day, even things like Elmer's glue-all were considered expensive. But since we still had creative projects we needed to render involving paper we required some sort of adhesive.
What they gave us to use was this paste. You would apply it with a little spatula or Popsicle stick and spread it thin. Then you would stick your cut out letters, or pictures you had cut from a magazine, to your project paper.
This action lingers in the computer phrase "cut and paste."
But for some reason the paste was always peppermint-flavored. And that's what I now find odd. At the time I was cool with it because I liked eating peppermint, however pasty. And being poor I was, you know, hungry.
But then they told us not to eat it. So if they didn't want us to eat it, why flavor it peppermint?
Why not liver-flavored paste?
Maybe that wouldn't cover the taste of horse hoof as well.
America, ya gotta love it.