Also, beer, olive oil, and cigars, and every other food people argue over and say “No, just try it, you’ll see I’m right, and you’re wrong.”
I mean flavor, not nutritional quality, so yeah, some “cheese” is not actually cheese, but flavor-wise, it’s all fine. It’s designed to taste good, and people buy it by the truckload.
“Oh, you just haven’t had really good coffee.” No, I have had coffee people claim is “really good”, expensive coffee, brewed “just right”, but again, it’s just different to me, not better. And, no again, I don’t put sugar or anything in it.
“You just don’t have a ‘refined pallet’.” Bullshit elitism. Proven when it comes to wine, at least. People can’t tell the difference between expensive wine and box wine.
Different, not better. Yes, of course, it’s subjective, but the way people argue shows that many don’t actually believe that. And, you’ll be dismissed for not agreeing.
Acting like your personal preferences signifies intelligence is the sorriest excuse for a personality.
Looking at you pineapple pizza haters… 😒
I’m kind of picky about wine, don’t like many of them, but some of the ones I like are cheap and others pricey, different wines taste very different from each other. This is a step up from liking none of them, before.
Coffee I tend to think the preparation matters more, but have certainly had bad coffee and good coffee.
Cheese you are just wrong on. There is quality, some cheese is made with xanthan gum and wishes and is not really cheese, or is so rubbery and flavorless it is bad. I do like so many different kinds, am not limited like with wine. But don’t think it’s reasonable to say that processed shreds or slices are “as good as” a real cultured milk cheese.
I do agree it’s not a benefit to develop a palate to the point you loop back to being really picky like someone who just likes white bread and chicken tenders, and that it’s better to enjoy more things.
The worst wines are VERY bad though
I would have agreed with you like 8 years ago about the coffee. For 20 years, I drank the GV brand in the photo but then it started ripping my guts apart for some reason so I switched to Nescafe Classico. Then a few years ago, I thought maybe it was my imagination and bought GV again and after a single day I had to switch back. It wasn’t my imagination. I have no idea what’s going on there, but there is a difference.
Also, expensive cigars are way, way better. The cheaper the cigarette or cigar, the less tobacco they have in them. Special Blend means special blend of 7 herbs and spices with maybe a sprinkling of tobacco, more than likely from the ground up roots and stalk.
Plus, leaves from different parts of the tobacco plant produces a better taste and smell. IIRC, the top leaves are the best and the lower leaves are used in cheap cigars and cigarettes. I bought a sampler nub of a like an $80 cigar once and my god it was amazing. The best tasting tobacco I ever smoked. I left the nub and ashes in the ashtray for a week it smelled so damn good. Made me want to buy some tobacco plants and roll my own cigars.
Unless you buy your food in extreme bulk, I think you mean “palate”.
Upvoted for unpopular opinion. I do think for some things there’s more to consider than just taste. Very cheap foods (or alcohols) might be a taste spectrum or no better or worse with the “good stuff”, but the older I get the more I find that I also care if my body can handle it the same way. Rumble guts and headaches or nausea are not super fun.
Instant coffee, for example, seems to give me instant heart burn. Or at least the kind my grandma drinks does. I sometimes get it from plain old drip, but not unless I really drink a lot.
congratulations this is indeed right and wrong
Life is too short. Like what you like. Gradation is for the pretentious.
I’m glad I can taste things and tell the difference now. Maybe quit smoking, worked for me.
you definitely can taste the difference between cheap coffee and good coffee, and how they are brewed.
OP says the same thing, but that it’s just a different taste, no better, no worse.
People who like acidic coffee though, that coffee is definitely worse.
Looking at what you actually wrote instead of anything else, you’re mostly dead on.
Almost all things food related are subjective, and that extends to all the items you listed.
That being said, some aspects of flavor and scent are going to be damn near universally perceived as better. As an example, while it’s fine to enjoy plain old Hershey’s chocolate bars, trying to claim that they can match a decently crafted chocolate that puts effort into their process is going to be silly because they aren’t really the same thing when it comes right down to it. They just share basic ingredients.
And, it is entirely possible to refine one’s palate. It doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means, and it absolutely doesn’t mean what snobs think it means. Refining your palate is the process of training your senses to pick up even minor differences. That’s it. Nothing else. Your opinion of those differences is still subjective, but you can absolutely develop the ability to not just detect, but describe the differences between two coffees, or two cheeses.
When it comes right down to it though, some things are going to be so universally preferred that it’s accurate to call them “better”. A mass produced cheddar from Wal-Mart is just not going to have the same complexity as a locally produced, well crafted cheese. And complexity in cheddar is what makes a good cheese good rather than just edible. It isn’t that you have to like it because other people like it, but you also can’t invalidate that when enough people prefer something, using the word “better” is acceptable and accurate because of the word itself.
I’m with you. I fucking despise food snobbery. But part of your post here is its own form of snobbery. Yes, it is. You’re saying that your subjective impression of foods is superior to others by virtue of not relying on their set of subjective values. That’s food snobbery.
I’ll also add that sometimes the “better” thing isn’t necessarily the more enjoyable thing, particularly with ingredients. Using a deeply aged, complex cheddar in mac n cheese is very likely to suck, as an example. For something like chocolate, making a dip for apple slices and using some really precisely selected, single origin chocolate is going to make the experience of chocolate sauce dipped apple slices way less enjoyable.
However, if you’re making a fruit and cheese plate, breaking out the right cheeses to pair with each fruit is likely to make the overall experience better because each given bite can be a unique thing, as the compounds in a cheddar that go so well with apples or (sometimes) pears make it a poor choice to go with berries, where something like a brie is going to do more in the mouth. Better would still be subjective to some degree, but exploring the senses in a well organized way can be said to be better than just randomly cramming things into your mouth and seeing what you enjoy the most.
I’ll also say that brewing a cheap, poorly roasted coffee well can make it better than throwing it in a percolator.
Food is like jazz. You get as much out of it as you’re willing to put into it.
So, no but actually yes.
To build on what you’re saying, appreciating the expensive version of an item doesn’t necessarily mean looking down on the cheap version.
Liking fancy cheeses doesn’t mean I won’t seek out box mac and cheese.
Amen! I’ll throw down on stovetop mac n cheese just as happily as a cheese and fruit plate perfectly paired and balanced
False. All coffee is bad
You do you, it’s kind of sad your palette is so fucked.
Yeah, something wrong with your taste buds obviously, or are you just a troll?
I mean, there are extremes of snobbishness that extend into placebo territory. It definitely happens in the world of coffee, with expensive packs people buy for the sticker.
But this is an over generalization. There is a point of “you get what you pay for.”
There is also the ethics of the sourcing to consider.
This extends to all sorts of food and drink. And other hobbies too, like electronics.
