How sensitive is your palate?

[texastweeter]

Mine is pretty sensitive actually. Between cigars, whisky, food, I can pick out any nuances. My nose is crazy. My wife says I can smell a gnat fart in a twister.

[Clark]

I like to experiment with minor changes in rubs or sauces, constantly trying to improve on flavor. My wife has the uncanny ability to know when I make the changes and tells me to stick to the recipes that we both like. She also knows what wood chunks I've used with charcoal or what flavor pellets I am using. I can't tell the difference in smoke or flavor.

[briano52]

OK, so I have a very sensitive and discerning palate. It might be as much of an affliction as a gift. I can sense even very subtle flavors. At a cooking school in France, they gave us an aroma test. They asked us to blind identify 20 aromas of various herb oils and culinary scents. I scored an 18. Among the highest scores they had ever seen. I have been cooking, as a hobby only, for my whole life. While it is interesting to be able to identify flavors, it can also get in the way of just having fun with food and adult libations. I go out of my way to compliment my hosts, whether at friends' homes or at restaurants. I keep the tasting notes to myself unless asked. Whatever your palate skills might be, food should be fun and entertaining without pretense. Just enjoy.

[captainlee]

I can't tell the difference in woods except mesquite but I also have a pellet pooper. Not too bad with foods, pretty good at picking out the different ingredients. As for wines I can't pick up on the individual components, I just know if I like it or not. I attended a wine tasting and sat at a table where a woman was identifying every component of a wine, blew my mind.

[Starsky]

I don't think that my palate is very sensitive. That's probably why I tend to gravitate towards bolder flavors in my liquor, cigars and foods.

[OC Sandy]

I used to have all sorts of fun with a sensitive palate until getting covid in early 2020 took away most of my ability to smell and taste. Being able to discern flavors and aromas made it fairly easy to identify ingredients to replicate a favorite food/meal. Could I do that with coffee? Nope. I only care if it tastes good or not. Same with wine. I wouldn't be able to pick out subtle notes of flavors. I think it was because it just wasn't important to me. I either liked it or I didn't and that was good enough. LOL When it comes to wood/smoke I can definitely smell and taste the difference between wood and usually correctly identify it. Even now I still have that ability which is weird to me. Understanding why my palate works well for some things and no longer well for others is beyond my pay grade.

[Richard Chrz]

While I think I have a pretty good palate, my wife’s palate is better. She can tell between different flours used in bread, (same brand diff being bread or AP), she can also detect small differences in seasoning blends in chicken, on steak, smoke profiles. etc… Although I do not always agree with her palate, she definitely guides a lot of what I shoot for.

[HawkerXP]

I've got a couple of mallets in my toolbox. I've never tasted them.

[RonB]

From this post I'm thinkin' that you might have dropped one of those mallets on your head?

[Draznnl]

Have you been borrowing someone’s PBR?

[Richard Chrz]

Draznnl I think he’s got something burning besides his PBC, PBC, PBC… maybe thc, thc, thc..

[MarkN]

I can tell the difference between different coffees, but I guess the bottom line is that I don't care. Keurig, fresh ground, instant, McDonald's, Starbucks, ..., I just don't care to try to remember the differences and search out that special cup. Unless really bad, a cup of coffee is a cup of coffee to me.

Perhaps two experiences I had in the Army made me indifferent to coffee nuances. One, I worked with a Sergeant who when asked by a Private who offered to make a pot of coffee in the percolator (perhaps some of you know what that is/was) how much coffee to put in the basket, he replied "Until you can't get no more in it". Two, we had a container of coffee brought out to a field training exercise on a cold winter day by a Spec 4 from the mess hall who thought he would do us a favor and go ahead and sweeten it with some sugar. Only he used salt by mistake (THAT was a bad cup of coffee!).

I can detect some differences of woods while they are smoking, but beyond hickory and cherry wood, it doesn't seem to make much difference in the taste of the food.

[Draznnl]

On the rare day when my allergies are not acting up, my palate is sensitive enough to recognize different woods and specific flavors. All bets are off on days when Jade or any other dog is around.

[SheilaAnn]

I’m a beast on both fronts, if I do say so myself.

[RonB]

I suspected as much, but in your line of work, ya need it.

[barelfly]

I pick up differences in certain things, but I can’t be specific about those. For wine and bourbon as an example, I can’t really distinguish the notes on those, perhaps one or two, but my wife….she can list out on the nose and palate. I’ve done some bourbon tastings and used a flavor wheel to help try and distinguish differences….it didn’t help me. If someone tells me, I know it’s influenced, I can start to pick that up, but not by myself really. Coffee, I grind daily and can pick up differences in beans but again, I can’t tell ya what they are. Smoked wood?? I don’t think I can pick that up? But I haven’t tried a side by side.

for food, I guess I can a pick up flavors a little better especially if I’m paying attention when I try new things.

[bbqLuv]

How tell the difference between smoking with different pellets--Read the bag, read the bag.

[acorgihouse]

Well, I can tell parsley from cilantro, but then don't ever ask me about the time I put cilantro in the Italian meatballs. For the local friend's group luncheon. I didn't taste them first. Bad choice. So, anyway, I can tell fruit wood from hickory or mesquite, but can't tell apple from cherry. I can tell bourbon from scotch, but don't drink either enough to go much past that. When you hone in on the "real" tastes, I'm pretty good though. I can pick apart the spices and herbs, fresh or dried sometimes, and God help us all... margarine from butter. Basic home cook.

[Livermoron]

Not very sensitive at all (my wife has a super palate, so I run everything through her). We had K cups at work, but that was too horrible for me, so this princess got his own mocha master for the office. As a USCG radioman raised on "microwave fed and coffee cooled" even I have standards...