Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The unsophisticated palate

So I was thinking about this after sacrificing any ambitions toward dieting for today to make way for chicken pad thai. (So. Good. Totally. Worth. Every. Morsel); I was think about the absence of limes to squirt on my dish, and this morphed into a thought about the fact that I can totally tell the difference between lemon and lime in cooking, but in a blind test, would I really?

(Don't ask why I was having these thoughts - never ask why a woman thinks random thoughts at all times of the day, awake or asleep - they just do.)

Here's the thing. I know from experience that I naturally have a strong sense of taste and likely a great palate, but it's not a TRAINED palate, you know?  I can safely say a wine is jammy, or smokey, or has chocolate notes, but I couldn't tell you if a wine is from the Roija region or the Ribera del Duero region of Spain, or whether it was aged for 2 years or 6 months in American and not French oak, and I CERTAINLY couldn't pick the vintage.

But you know what?  I love wine.  I know what I like. 

So, likely, do you. 

So what is the sophisticated palate good for? Well, I think it's good for helping OTHER people know, via the 'Primo Palateer', whether or not the description sounds like something you'd like before you buy it! 

What do you think?  Do you crave a more sophisticated palate, or are you fine continuing to sip, slurp and even guzzle what you like, without a thought in your head about spitting and then describing what you are tasting?

I'll go halfway and say I want to go ahead and learn to describe, but I still have trouble picturing myself spitting, ya know?

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