It requires intention, focus, and care. Taste is a commitment to a state of attention.
- Taste honors someone’s standards of quality, but also the distinctive way the world bounces off a person. It reflects what they know about how the world works, and also what they’re working with in their inner worlds. When we recognize true taste, we are recognizing that alchemic combination of skill and soul. This is why it is so alluring. “tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are” - brillat-savarin
my winter break diet encompassed a daily ritual of watching culinary class wars with my sister. culinary class wars is a korean spin on the classic cooking shows where two groups of chefs are pitted against each other: “white spoons,” representing the elite, and “black spoons,” the lesser-known chefs from humble backgrounds. spoon coming from the korean term, “born with a silver spoon in your mouth,” to indicate someone with a privileged life. they engage in cooking challenges and their social class distinction is emphasized throughout, highlighting the clash between culinary pedigree and untapped talent.
there’s only two judges - a departure from the typical three - with dramatically different judging styles. paik jong-won represents the working class and favors what is universally delicious and what will evangelize korean food to the masses; anh sung-jae hails from a three-michelin star restaurant and wields an acuity to detail.
to discern is not to distinguish the difference between good and bad. it is to distinguish between good versus great.
frameworks for taste
outside of your instagram, the first thing people ask for in the city is for your beli (and maybe your number if they’re cheeky). there’s an app for everything these days: letterboxd, goodreads. if instagram is a projection of everything you want people to think you are, beli lends credibility to the arbiters of good taste.
therein lies a paradox when it comes to ranking systems - taste is subjective, yet there are some universally accepted rankings on what is considered good or not. with a friend we can banter our favoite thai restaurant and ultimately go in circles comparing khao soi-for-khao-soi before concluding agree to disagree and our taste is subjective.
according to hume, this default response isn’t satisfying. in his writing he views taste as fundamental to the human ability to make moral and aesthetic judgements. there are certain artifacts that are considered timelessly tasteful; classic novels like anna kanareina and paintings like the mona lisa.
arbiters of taste have robut rubrics to judge their craft of choice, whether it’s food or wine or coffee or fine art or (insert someting funny and obscure). in order to refine these rubrics, you should have the following:
- strong sense (presence and attention)
- a delicate sentiment (sensitivity to nuance)
- a sustained practice (dedicated exposure)
- comparison (contextual understanding)
- freedom from prejudice (openness to experience)
to provide an example: a food critic likely has a robust sense of taste & smell, and a sensitivity to nuances across dishes; they regularly go to restaurants and can thus compare across them; and most strikingly, is unprejudiced in their rankings. they free themselves from succumbing to nostalgia or novelty or cheap tricks in pursuit of absolute truth.
over a $8 sushi roll a friend shares his favorite line from *jiro dreams of sushi: “in order to make delicious food, you must eat delicious food. The quality of ingredients is important, but you need to develop a palate capable of discerning good and bad. Without good taste, you can’t make good food. If your sense of taste is lower than that of the customers, how will you impress them?
aka, you are what you eat, aka, garbage-in-garbage-out, aka dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es. consuming things of high value guides your own intuition.
there’s a reason there’s a difference between a nytime food critic and a foodie influencer, a literary critic vs a goodreads author. sure, the former comes off as pretentious, audacious, nitpicky - but they’re backed by a strong fundamental framework for all their decisions.
at the end of the day, i care less about your beli ranking compared to the thinking that got you there. care less about what you like, and more about how you arrived there. im less critical about the outcome, more about the framework w which you review the food. i will not claim to be n expert gastronome but im very interested in the context in which a food is prepared
the fusion fallacy
taste as a point of view
chef anh passes dishes prepared with the finest of seafood ingredients and molecular gastronomy techniques, as well as humble dishes intended for school cafeterias. despite anh’s pretentious background, he still passes humble dishes like bibimbap and school lunches. how does his consistent framework allow any dish to impress him, no matter the input price of its ingredients?
in the show, he asserts that dishes should have a point of view. if a dish is prepared as if it were to be served for fine dining, he’ll evaluate the precision of each diced vegetable; if a dish is prepared for weary business workers, he’ll focus on the flavors and warmth. anything a chef creates should assert a point of view - and it’s the consumer’s joy and duty to receive it.
art should have a point of view. to be intentional about what you consume and be strong-willed about what and why makes it have the certain quality you’re attracted to: this is all that taste is.
we contain an interiority that a) is shaped by what we consume and b) shapes the things that we consume. through cultivating taste, i am shaping an inner point of view, developing the means by which i perceive and interpret the world. taste is a reflection of what we pay attention to, and attention is all we need - it’s a proxy for what we dare to care for.
i am a lost black spoon chef, unknown and looking for a way to prove myself. hungry and dropped in a buffet of algorithmic excess, a whirlwind of internet rabbit-holes and fast-flying tweets vying for my attention - how do i trust what to consume?
kyle chayka speaks to how algorithms flatten our culture and breed a monoculture. popular consensus bubbles up as the latest micro-trends in fashion or journalism. when you want to switch up your fashion style, don’t just look at pinterest — look at what people are wearing around you.
the taste we develop via consumption and curation ultimately feeds into the type of art & life-work we produce. the same way a skilled chef can prepare a dish that is uniquely their own - i want to infuse this staunch individualism into my writing, my photos, eventually my actual line of work. technical side projects.
when i try to describe my value proposition to applications, i usually say something cheesy about living life at the intersection of art and technology. a big part of taste is also what you are not interested in. this may be controversial to say but i think our society is also highly open to a fault - when we would go to any restaurant or watch any video for the novelty of it, there’s a dangerously lowering bar for quality for our inputs.
fusion has so much potential as a gastronomic gps - but too often it leads you in the wrong direction.
shortly after yingtao received a michelin star - being the first chinese establishment in nyc to do so - i held high expectations for its french and chinese infusions. at 5, i walked through into its dim interior with a thesis that chinese cuisine is misrepresented on the fine dining scene and that yingtao, perhaps, had potential to break through.
the trap many restaurants fall into is fusion without intention. a young chef on Culinary Class Wars learned this lesson harshly: in an attempt to endear to chef anh’s shared korean-californian backgound, he served a dish of galbi with guacamole. his trick backfired, as anh immediately dismissed it as “fusion for the sake of fusion” - a reflection that the contestant has yet to solidify his identity in the kitchen.
in that moment, i felt the chef’s bile collect in my mouth. my own preference once favored the novelty of fusion food. what more, so much of my own art and thus identity is tied to this idea of fusion - i bill myself as polymath, as generalist, as multidiscipllinary. how many times have i used my internal strife with asian-american identity, as a humanities-driven technologist as fodder for art?
i’m a firm believer of the bastardazation of the iconic quote: you are what you eat.
- people develop taste within a vacuum
- what do they want others to think of them
- what do they personally bring them joy “growing shift toward valuing culinary ingenuity and heart over institutional pedigree, something American audiences can relate to as they witness the rise of chefs who don’t follow the traditional culinary school-to-Michelin path”
This resonates beyond cooking - it’s about the difference between authentic synthesis and superficial combination.
in the second episode a particular exchange between anh and a young chef from la stood out. the chef endears to anh’s korean-american background with galbi garnished with guacamole, waxing poetry on how it reflects his internal identity in the kitchen. instead of a high grade the chef is immediately cut. anh is brutally honest in his assessment: “fusion for the sake of fusion is lazy.” fusion without intention, without coherence, comes out of insecurity.
ouch. in that moment, i felt the chef’s bile in my mouth. how many poems and think pieces have i written unpacking my identity? at the same times, how many times have i been burned by some pork-belly-kimchi, kimchi-taco? i entered yingtao, the first chinese restaurant in nyc to earn a michelin star, with high expectations. i entered the hells kitchen with a thesis that chinese cuisine is misrepresented on the fine dining scene and that yingtao, perhaps, had potential to break through. with a weak french x chinese theme, everything was uninspiring and poorly executed. the sea bass with flowers and goji berries was overcooked.
there’s this greater takeaway here, that when we muddle something we sometimes forget to execute well at this one thing.
taste as a point of view
art should have a point of view. the things we choose to consume should exemplify a point of view. i’m a firm believer of the bastardazation of the iconic quote: you are what you eat.
- people develop taste within a vacuum
- what do they want others to think of them
- what do they personally bring them joy “growing shift toward valuing culinary ingenuity and heart over institutional pedigree, something American audiences can relate to as they witness the rise of chefs who don’t follow the traditional culinary school-to-Michelin path”
consume to aspire
oily strands of chapagetti adorned with thick cuts of buttery rib eye steak. a statement of class from parasite. in the end, all korean films go back to class. food is such a reflection of class desires - the lower class idolizes that of the upper class and aims to imitate. anh enthralls dishes that honor the humble roots of korean cuisine, like fermented kimchi and [ ], there’s even a scene when they raid a convenience store and make fancy dishes out of poor man’s food. we must leapfrog the current trends as by the time you get to replicate it, it’s become out of vogue. piere bourdieu calls it out in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste” (1979), argues that taste is not natural or innocent - it’s a form of social power and class distinction. dominant classes maintain their position from economic capital as well as defining the standards for “good taste.” this is why refined taste involves appreciating things that are difficult to understand without culturla capital - natural wine, tasting menus, molecular gastronomy.
by the time a trend democratizes, the upper class has already moved onto fetishizing something else. tampopo also has this great scene where the people are eatnig out of the bowl
i argue that to become who you are, develop your taste within a vacuum. tell me what you taste and why you taste. i will never be critical of someone’s taste palette - but over-critical if there’s a lack of intention. as anh say, as chefs cook they have to put out a point of view. developing our own taste is a marker of perspective, and to defend and evolve it is akin to our own identity.
conscious engagement with how we develop our preferences. develop a framework for evaluation that appreciates quality acros class boundaries.
call for metacognition about taste - being conscious of how our preferences are shaped by social forces while still developing a genuine point of view. It’s not about ignoring social context, but rather engaging with it intentionally rather than passively.
digital diet
if we consume shit we produce shit.
Frameworks Over Outcomes
Let’s start with a controversial statement: I care less about what you like, and more about how you arrived there. The modern discourse around taste often devolves into two extremes: rigid hierarchies of “good taste” or complete relativism (“it’s all subjective”). Neither serves us well.
What Hume got right in his framework for taste:
- Strong sense (presence and attention)
- Delicate sentiment (sensitivity to nuance)
- Practice (dedicated exposure)
- Comparison (contextual understanding)
- Freedom from prejudice (openness to experience)
The Fusion Fallacy
The trap many fall into - whether in food, art, or identity - is fusion without intention. A young chef on Culinary Class Wars learned this lesson harshly when serving galbi with guacamole to chef Anh, who dismissed it as “fusion for the sake of fusion.” This resonates beyond cooking - it’s about the difference between authentic synthesis and superficial combination.
The Class Dynamics of Taste
Developing Authentic Taste: A Framework
-
Intentional Consumption
- Develop taste within your own context
- Question why you like what you like
- Focus on what brings genuine joy, not just status
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Critical Framework
- Move beyond “good vs. bad” to “good vs. great”
- Understand rules before breaking them
- Appreciate craft across class boundaries
-
Point of View
- Cultivate a clear perspective
- Be able to defend your preferences
- Allow your taste to evolve authentically
Digital Diet and Taste Formation
In an age of algorithmic recommendations and infinite content, developing authentic taste becomes both more crucial and more challenging. The parallel between “you are what you eat” and “you are what you consume” has never been more relevant.
Conclusion: Taste as Identity
Authentic taste isn’t about having the “right” preferences - it’s about having intentional ones. It’s about developing a point of view that reflects who you are, not who others think you should be.