Diane Ackerman

The other senses may be enjoyed in all their beauty when one is alone, but taste is largely social

Every culture uses food as a sign of approval or commemoration, and some foods are even credited with supernatural powers, others eaten symbolically, still others eaten ritualistically, with ill fortune befalling dullards or skeptics who forget the recipe or get the order of events wrong

Taste is an intimate sense. We can’t taste things at a distance. And how we taste things, as well as the exact makeup of our saliva, may be as individual as our fingerprints