The Perfect Meal - Environment affecting taste?

[johnmitsch]

Many chefs and food lovers talk about the perfect meal. The infamous "death row" question is tossed around a lot, what would your last meal before you die be? On a couple recent trips to some fine dining restaurants i was anticipating a perfect meal, and the meal came up a little short. Don't get me wrong i had an excellent meal and everything was perfectly prepared. I think that the search for a perfect meal will leave you disappointed and you will come up short every time. A perfect meal is stumbled upon and unexpected. I also believe is also the company you are with and the environment you are eating in. An overcooked turkey with family and friends can be one of the most memorable meals one has. Food has always seemed to me to be much more than just about taste, and i think that is one thing that some professionals forget.

My focus is this: We all know that we "eat with our eyes" and presentation is important, but does environment and the company we have affect how food tastes? or does it just affect the memory of that meal? Has anyone done any reading on this or can offer a more professional insight?

[kitchenhacker]

Of course food is about more than just taste (even given a loose definition of taste). I'd clarify the question to be whether the quality of a meal is reduceable to the quality of the food served in the meal.

To most people, the answer is clearly that a meal is more than just the food served with it. It is the overall experience. Meals in which the food is identical can vary in terms of desirability.

Presentation is certainly part of it, but people would rather eat a meal in a pleasant environment than an unpleasant one. That's obvious. The trick is finding out what people consider pleasant and unpleasant.

Still, cooking is a skill that can be improved. People enjoy food. All other things being equal, people would prefer to eat good food over bad food. (Yes, there is some disagreement about what constitutes good and bad food.)

I've had bad holiday turkeys. Some of those meals were memorable, but they were memorable in spite of the turkey - not because of it. I've also had memorable holiday meals with good turkeys (mostly since I stopped letting my mother cook them). In these, the turkeys contributed to the memories.