Stay with me here, I think I have something that could be something. If it has been discussed before, sorry.
A story, followed by an example, followed by my thoughts. If you TL;DR, no worries.
So, I saw an episode of Food: Fact or Fiction, and one segment dealt with how the mind perceives flavor. Not the physical process, the psychological part. Basically, it was this: Researchers were trying to determine bias. Specifically, they took a subject blindfolded and asked her to taste four different cake slices. Each were identical except for the icing color. All four were from the same cake batter but with different COLORED icing (same flavor, vanilla). Each time, the blindfolded subject identified the right profile, and each time she said it tasted like the previous one.
Then, they removed the blindfold and asked her to try again. This time, she was able to see the slice prior to tasting. And each time, she identified a different flavor. Pink was strawberry, brown was chocolate, green was lime, and blue was birthday cakey tasting.
Remember, all four were the same one from the blind test, and all four were identical except for the icing color. Yet she tasted them differently when she could see them.
OK, now my own real world example, my wife. And vape juice.
She hates Egg Nog, the real thing. So I handed her my vape filled with TFA Egg Nog, and she did not like it. Said it was nasty.
Later, I handed her the SAME thing, but didn’t tell her what it is. She said it was OK, kind of sweet and creamy. She said she’d vape that one once in a while. She did not believe me when I told her it was the very same Egg Nog she tried and hated earlier.
OK, now on to my idea.
How about maybe we think of a brand new way to craft a recipe? How about you have someone you trust put SF samples into unlabeled (like only numbers, not the actual flavor name) bottles and you do a blind test. You make notes about what you think, you never get told what each one is. Then, you craft a recipe based on your notes, what you think would pair well, etc.
Removing the bias and mixing flavors your palate tells you rather than your bias may open the door to some incredible recipes that would otherwise never be created.
Thoughts?
