There's this spice I can't stand. And whenever I come across it, I drop the food immediately. But there's another problem. I have no idea what this spice is called. I find it in pizza, fried chicken, sauces. So a while ago I bit into some saucy chicken and the spice hits me. I tell my dad, Here, bite into this! The spice I'm talking about hits you as soon as you take a bite! So he tried the chicken. Nothing.
This makes me think, how do you describe food? What one person finds delicious, another finds disgusting. The flavors one can taste mean nothing to others. Is that what's going on? The first thing that came to my mind was in Ratatouille, when Remy told Emile to taste the flavor. Not just gulp it up. But Emile couldn't. So is it just Emile that can't taste food in that way?
 |
| Emile can barley taste the specific flavors |
But can you label people like that? Some that can feel that spice and some who for them, the spice blends into the meal?
 |
| Remy feels the flavors and understands them. |
Think about it. Food is a very.... personal thing. A lot like religion. We all have the same taste buds, do we just understand food on certain levels? Is food the same for anyone? Maybe it changes for every person. You can never feel what another person is feeling, only what you are.
You will never see with the eyes of someone else, only yours. You won't ever know EXACTLY the taste that someone else understands. Food is a very complicated thing.
In some ways, it's like poetry. There are no rules. In school, you are told how to write poems, and then you are criticized and graded on them, after you are told there are no rules to poetry.
Is food a lot like this?
For some people, food is just something to get them through life. For others it's a reward, to cook and get amazing food. Others think of it as a way of life. Something we take for granted, can be so deep, so specific, so general.
Nobody will ever taste food the way you taste it. And you won't understand the flavors going on through another's body. It's just something to think about, if you'd like to.
