Columnist for BBC Future decided to find out why some people like the food that the other is disgusting.
When I was in Shanghai, I used to ignore single alley that lay in my way to the subway.
There has always been terrifying, just an impossible stench – as if someone had left open a manhole.
To locate the source of the scent I did not succeed, till one day I realized that he took a lively cookery, located at the beginning of the alley.
Speciality of this institution was “rotten tofu” – a fermented soy product, served with a medley of meat, vegetables and sour milk.
Many Westerners, like me, it’s hard to imagine how it is possible to bring such filth to the mouth, without experiencing feelings of nausea.
However, cooking for her has always lined up a huge queue. I know now that many Chinese feel exactly the same disgust at the thought of cheese.
Recently in China were more likely to eat dairy products, but local residents still can’t grasp why need to spoil the milk, and then add salt and any additional bacteria.
Even such a mild cheese, like cheddar, I think they are absolutely inedible. According to them, if you put it on bread and melt, it will be a little better, but still, how to tell my Chinese friends, the delicacy of this product are not reputed.
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Image captionЕсли you are not an Aussie and not a kiwi, the taste of yeast paste “the Vegemite” you might not like it
These are the differences in notions of what is delicious and what is disgusting, are everywhere, as soon as you begin to compare the food culture of different peoples.
For someone yeast paste Vegemite” is a good addition to the morning sandwich, and for someone- salty-bitter mass, which gives the impression of, “if someone was trying to prepare a meal but all ruined,” as described this product is the child of the United States.
Someone giblets shall be submitted by delicacy, which is sold in street stalls and goes best with noodles, some inedible rubber, smacks of a public toilet.
In a sense, these contrasts should not seem surprising: the fact than you can eat, and what to avoid, we learn from others, and these concepts differ from region to region.
But somehow, a reminder that tastes differ, invariably surprises us.
<blockquote>the Cultural differences are how strong that perceptions of delicacies can be the opposite</blockquote>
Trying to describe the main differences between the beliefs of the peoples of tasty and healthy food, nutritionists rely on sets of flavors – spices and condiments that people seem familiar, family.
The combination of tomatoes, garlic, oregano and olive oil inevitably leads to a thought about Italy, but a mixture of dried shrimp, chilli, ginger and palm oil is reminiscent of Brazil.
The Germans have a “homemade taste” is associated with dill, sour cream, mustard, vinegar and black pepper, and the Chinese – soy sauce, rice wine and ginger.
Such a set of flavors defines the products that, from our point of view, you can without a doubt eaten.
So, to a question about his food preferences of Chinese tourists in Australia noted that, with the exception of Chinese dishes, the food often seems tasteless to them.
“I hope every time that in the kitchen there is soy sauce, – said one of the study participants. – Then, even if the food I don’t like, you can add it to the rice”.
If unusual ingredients were cooked in the Chinese style, they tasted delicious.
However, this is only General categories, which show that familiar, and not that edible.
In more extreme cases, cultural differences are how strong that perceptions of delicacies can be the opposite.
In his memoir, “Shark’s fin and Sichuan pepper Fuchsia Dunlop, who writes about Chinese food and cuisine, notes that in the gastronomy of this country there are huge areas, do not attract even the most curious Western palates.
For example, properly cooked goose intestines and sea cucumbers have no taste, and the texture reminiscent of rubber tubing.
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Image captionЖители Western countries love cheese, but many Chinese think it taste nasty
However, sea cucumbers – a delicacy which can cost over a hundred dollars apiece, and at least in part, this is due to the fact that some people they seem really tasty.
Dunlop says one important factor: “the Sea cucumber attracts consumers exclusively for their texture”.
Then she writes about how important texture to Chinese dishes, and how many words exist to denote what we would call just “rubber” or “jelly-like”.
“A Chinese gourmet is able to distinguish between elastic jelly-like texture of sea cucumber from more viscous mucous and jelly-like texture of rehydrated dried squid and hard jelly-like texture of the restored tendons, pork feet,” says the writer.
Surely everyone can learn to get pleasure from this food solely because of its texture, as she learned that Dunlop.
But it’s pointless to deny that these products are unlikely to become a favorite gourmet delicacy from the West.
A matter of taste
Comparison of taste preferences of different Nations may seem like just fun, but it’s not just about entertainment.
He could only imagine how someone enthusiastically eats what you in the mouth and will not take, and a chasm yawns between you.
“The difference between edible and tasty, perhaps most clearly in our attitude to the consumers of the relevant products,” – writes researcher cuisines Lucy long in his book “Culinary tourism”.
“He who eats something inedible, seems strange, maybe even dangerous, and certainly not his own, then as someone who likes something tasteless, just say that tastes differ”.
<blockquote>is it Possible in the future development of more extreme gastronomical tourism?</blockquote>
Probably, this gap can be overcome if we remember that many of our favourite treats is not entirely natural for humans.
For example, it is believed that the bitter receptors evolved to prevent consumption of bitter foods that can be poisonous.
Small children react to the bitter taste of abhorrence – not as sweet.
However, many people are accustomed to drinking coffee, but gourmets prefer dark chocolate.
Charles Zucker, a biologist from Columbia University (USA), which deals with studies of taste buds, believes that our current addiction to bitter foods due to the desire to learn something new and unusual and maybe even dangerous.
Paul Rozin, a psychologist studying the phenomenon, which he calls “benign masochism”, classifies foods with a bitter taste to the same category as hot pepper and sad movies.
They send the body a signal of danger, but the realization that any harm they will cause, it is a special pleasure.
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Image captionМорские cucumbers: for Asians, the main thing – the texture
Many tourists try the local cuisine while traveling. But is it possible to develop in the future more extreme gastronomic tourism?
Seduce whether you trip, during which it is anticipated tasting of the dishes, at first seeming completely inedible?
Perhaps a better option would be this: if you will be once a month, several days in a row, there is a new product that seems odd, it can surprisingly quickly become your familiar, and then delicious.
So, looking at the man, happy to be absorbing something, in your opinion, indigestible, think about it: how did the elastic in humans the organs of taste, if the representatives of the same species is able to eat rotten tofu, Vegemite, sea cucumbers and even disgusting for our Chinese friends cheese.
