Songs without Words

One of the biggest lessons I learned this summer, cooking with my friends, is how critical particular attributes of food are to people’s enjoyment. Prior, I had been of the assumption that people generally agreed on what tasted good or what tasted bad – at least within my family, we were pretty consistent and there was little argument over whether or not a restaurant was good or not. However, I have found that this is not always the case.

When cooking for large groups, one should go with the “least common denominator” of all people present. That means adding the minimum of attributes, giving the option of adding greater amounts at a later time. When cooking for someone personally – a friend, significant other, etc. – I think the best option is to try to take into account that person’s tastes, which one must realize may be highly different from one’s own.

The three major categories of attributes that people are hypersensitive to are: salt, oil, and spices. Oil includes butter and other ingredients that add “richness” and “weight.” Salt, I think, includes sugar often (those who like salty foods probably like sweet ones, too – this is a hypothesis). Lastly, there is the issue of spices – pepper, garlic, cumin, MSG, basil, mint, oregano, thyme, rosemary, etc. What tastes just right to someone might be completely bland to someone else, and intolerably strong to yet another person.

Here are taste profiles for this summer’s group:

Kenny – low salt, low oil, low spice

Chensi – high salt, high oil, high spice

Joseph – low salt, high oil, low spice

Jenn – low salt, low oil, medium spice

Tejia – medium salt, high oil, high spice

Because of this, we generally cook things with low salt, low oil, and low spice — that’s the only way to make sure no one is offended by the food. People with “high” preferences can tolerate “low” foods – it just tastes boring to them. But people with “low” preferences have a hard time even eating the “high” foods.

My own preferences are high salt, low oil, high spice. This derives from my home’s cooking style, which actually achieves such high concentrations of herbs and salt through the removal of water. We boil away the water in curry, fry our dumplings, and very rarely if ever drink any soup. This means that from “ordinary recipes,” we end up increasing the impact of the final product. However, I also have oil sensitivity – I have had a lot of stomachaches due to food drenched in oil, and even if something is deep-fried, I prefer it to be dabbed a lot to remove most of the excess oil.