Criticizing the taste of food

A television show that is an easy way to pass short amounts of time is the long-running cookery competition Beat Bobby Flay (2013). It is entertaining and informative without requiring one to pay attention, perfect for on-demand viewing on red-eye flights in that it is unlikely to keep one overly awake. The participants seem to have fun, the competitive theatrics being generally good-humored. I find the judges' criticisms interesting partly because they are often a quantitative matter of taste. One might need more acidity to balance something else or may simply need to add more salt or whatever. I wondered to what extent these, especially saltiness, have objective optima; goodness knows I find that many American restaurants serve me food that I wish were less salty. Perhaps it is more that there is a range of plausible acceptability, that one should avoid extrema. Other critical foci, like diversity of color or texture, make more sense to me.

I was reminded of the conversation in Educating Rita (1983) where she thinks Frank's poems brilliant but he asserts that they are self-conscious allusion, worthless and pretentious. A clear distinction is made between what the eminent judges look for and what actually has intrinsic merit. Bobby Flay wins more often than not; one hypothesis I should consider is that he may not be the better cook so much as that he has an excellent sense of what the critics are likely to be looking for.