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Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

I hate to push the idea of experience, but you can try that next time.

That is, don't try and take in the taste individually. Look around and experience everything with you and try to imprint some of that into tasting it. Close your eyes and set the idea that it was all a part of it.

Then, later, if you can get back to this specific taste, it can help remind you in very physical ways of being there and having that experience.

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I'd like to extrapolate this further.

Don't make yourself independent from the experience. If you're already enjoying yourself, you will enjoy the taste (of whatever is in debate) even more. You will associate the taste with the story of its creation as well as your personal experience. Aim for the memorable experience with family/friends over consuming "the best" (sometimes it can be the same thing!) and you will enjoy it far more often. It took a long time to convince my ever-optimization-focused brain to choose this path.

And a corollary to this argument is to never look down on someone for enjoying something you don't like - they simply found a way to experience joy where you didn't.

A lovely extrapolation! All of it.

I wish I could not only upvote, but add a massive underline to that last sentence.

You seem to be describing a way to lie to yourself about the taste.

The brain isn't a perfect machine - you can't just isolate the chemical reaction that your tastebuds have and say that anything else is lying to yourself about taste.

Breathing through your nose is lying to yourself about the taste too but if you hold your nose while you eat then you won't taste anything.

I mean, sorta? This would be like claiming that folks that enjoy a long bike ride are finding a way to lie about difficult physical tasks. (Or marathon runners, or any other difficult thing.)

That is, I'm pointing out that you can use unique tastes to imprint experiences. And if you do that, it is not surprising that you can grow to like the taste, as it is no longer an isolated thing, but a physical reminder of other things.

If you work really hard at it, perhaps you can convince yourself of anything. But, notice I used the word work there. Those marathon runners are putting in an active effort to motivate themselves.

No one wants to have to put effort into convincing themselves they're enjoying good wine with their experience.

Maybe. Some people really want to imprint moments in time. Incorporating a distinct taste is a great way to help in that. Really, the more senses you can fire all together and notice, the more I would think you could imprint a moment.

Taste itself is a deception. Studies have shown that if you dye a steak blue, it will taste subjectively worse to the eater than if it were a normal color, even though the taste should be chemically identical. With taste tests of identical foods, where one is mentioned to be a higher price than the other, the person eating it will prefer the "taste" of the more expensive one.

That "taste" as popularly defined is already a multi-sensory experience probably isn't controversial to you. Most would agree that plugging your nose alters your tasting experience of a food. I fail to see why other sensory organs like ears and eyes are not fair game to include in the experience. Weak beer tastes better on a hot patio. Sipping brandy tastes better next to a crackling fire.

I think of it more as paying closer attention to certain facets of the experience, and less to others. It's not a lie- those elements are present, to greater or lesser degrees. Nothing is being spun from whole cloth.

There's no such thing as objective taste. There's only subjective perception of taste.

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