3 hours ago, Yiannos said:@paulraphael how much of this do you think is subjective? For example, I used to have maybe a can or two of soda in any given week, but as I grew older for whatever reason it lost it's appeal and now I rarely drink any soda at all. BUT, when I do happen to have the odd Coke, it now tastes almost unbearably sweet to me having not had it on my palate for a long period of time. I wonder if our diets in general skew sweet, there is sugar in everything it seems any more, and the ice cream and dessert recipes of our time reflect that. While I have never been a fan of sickly sweet anything, I have not found much of say Lebovitz's ice cream to be too bad, and I wonder if we are able to tolerate different levels depending on what kind of sweetness is included in our normal eating patterns.
I'm sure some of it's subjective.
For me part of the complaint is "this is too sweet!" which is surely subjective. The other part is that I find other flavors getting masked. I think this is a phenomenon more akin to how the right amount of salt makes other flavors pop into focus. Too little salt leaves those flavors feeling flat. I think something similar goes on with sugar in desserts (but in this case with too much), especially with more complex or delicate flavors.