I’ve definitely tried a hand at some fine dining but honestly it only made me appreciate the simple stir fries, and soups my Chinese parents made me.
I now enjoy a mix of both.
Annecdotal, but I definitely enjoy the simplest foods specifically for their simplicity. Things like a fresh loaf of bread with no sauces, a plain bowl of rice straight out of the rice cooker (I’m Asian), or plain roasted sunflower seeds.
Why does rice smell like Cinema or Popcorn or smth.
I don’t know if its rice specific and neither do I know what rice I used to cook (I’m not Asian).
I can’t say I’ve ever thought rice smells like cinema nor popcorn. I associate the smell with China since I spent my earliest years there. My guess is your brain associated that smell with movies for whatever reason (maybe you always got Chinese food at the mall after the movies or something?)
Pretty sure its totaly wrong. There is no connection.
Chinese food, sushi or Indian Wok, all do not have thr smell, compared to me making a specific rice at home at is entirely unrelated.
Another Person commented with a prpbability of the Mailard Reaction, which sounds like it makes the most sense, but I didn’t broke up yhe topic scientifically to say “yeah, that is exactly it”
I think it depends on the individual, I’ve eaten at fancy places in the past, but that has had no bearing on my enjoyment of the usual slop I make myself
Not that I’ve run across on my own, and not with a quick search just now, no.
But all that means is that nobody has published anything on the matter with relevant keywords.
There are articles out there about how taste works, what can change perception in one’s sense of taste, and related subjects.
Now, I’m not interested enough to do a deep dive, so take this as you will
But what you’d be looking at is more psychological than physiological. It’s perception rather than objective, and it would most likely be related to the various systems of satiety and reward via dopamine and other neurotransmitters.
What we perceive as “good” is mostly subjective, experiential. There’s the basics of acid, salt, sugars, fat, and protein all being something we perceive as food in the first place, and that means we receive signals from our senses telling us that those things are “good to eat”, meaning safe enough and fulfilling basic needs.
But, we don’t all weight the various tastes the same, and we definitely don’t all like the same sources and preparations of them. Protein is protein, but you don’t see many gym rats chugging a cricket smoothie. There are such products, and people do use them, but it isn’t common.
That’s where the subjective comes in. Plenty of people enjoy cricket. It’s nutty, savory in an umami sense, and can provide nice texture. But it’s also possible to utterly reject it as food, even to the point of vomiting, based only on the perception of insects being “bad” in some way. In other words, you’ll run across blind tastings where people enjoy crickets when prepared well, but outright vomit after discovering what it was.
Taste creep is the same thing. As you discover new ways of having the same basic ingredients, your brain takes that information and compares it to previous foods. The ones that trigger the most “good” chemicals get remembered as being “better”.
But going from enjoying one version of something to another, more recently tasted, version is not entirely chemical in the same way. You see, our conscious minds and subconscious also influence things. There’s tests done where someone (damn near anyone) tasting two identical glasses of wine will perceive the one they’re told is more expensive, or older, or other perceived signals of “quality” as the better wine, despite coming from the same container.
So you can’t really point to taste creep as being purely chemical. There’s a social and psychological component to it, imo. I know for a fact that the way food is described influences perception of it. You do some cooking competitions, and just the way you name your cake can make a difference. I’ve had many a person try my collards and beans just by prettying up how they’re told what it is, despite them saying they don’t like either. They then ask what that was and tend to be surprised.
And I’m not talking about fucking with people for fun, it’s that I have an open table policy about dinner. Well, used to. Anybody I liked well enough to let into my house could come for dinner, no problem. But I got some people calling ahead like some kind of asshat asking what I read making, so I started describing my simple, but easy to fix in large amounts, dishes fancy just for the hell of it. They’d here I was making braised field brassica with stewed legumes with a light corn fritter, and assume I was making some kind of French dish. But hungry is as hungry does, so they ate what I had lol.
All of which is a long way of saying that taste creep is part chemistry, our brain and body finding a specific preparation as better nutrition and calories; and part us psyching ourselves out
I can only speak for myself but I’ve eaten at Michelin star restaurants all over the world and enjoy fine dining whenever I have the time and I love it, but sometimes I just want taco bell.
Alcohol, on the other hand; good Scotch and wine has ruined the cheap stuff for me. I can’t drink cheap, or even mediocre, whisky or wine anymore. If it’s not very high quality I’d rather just have something like a gin or vodka cocktail.
There is legitimately good wine at just about every price point… You definitely should not write off a wine just because of the price.
And conversely, there’s lots of BAD wine that’s expensive.
Try everything and keep track of what you like! Your wine drinking experience will improve, and it’ll probably cost you less to boot!
Absolutely, I shouldn’t have used cheap as a synonym for bad, or vice versa, that’s my mistake.
There are a lot of very good wines at low price points, especially from underappreciated regions. A little experimentation will result in finding some great value.
The same goes for the whiskey. There are a lot of distilleries out there with great offerings far below the price of the big names everyone recognizes. Especially when you take fads into account. Many bourbons and Japanese whiskeys that used to be good buys are now ridiculously priced.
My experience as well. For me, good bread and cheese are my “will not compromise” food
Mit Nachos but i might get weak with loaded fries with molten cheese.
However, it ia worth a little work to turn great cheese into perfect molten cheese! With science!
My parents had decent taste and decent money when I was a teen. My first interactions with alcohol were expensive wines they were willing to give me a taste of and some expensive liquors I siphoned out of. I am now broke and all the liquor I can afford sucks. Their desire for bourgeois decadence ruined my college indulgences in cheap liquor.
