Quote:
Originally Posted by Matata
Here's Penn & Teller making a bunch of food snobs look stupid for 10 minutes (language)
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Meh I say.
The look of the food is a big part of what you pay for in a restaurant. Things like the look, the way it's served, the way it's connected with other courses and wine, the texture, that's the stuff that most often sets the good apart from the average. The taste itself I can more often than not produce at home just from analyzing what I just ate. (I am a pretty good cook.)
Besides, most people are polite, and are not going to spoil a nice mood by saying that "your bruschetta tastes like stale toast", especially if they have company and the restaurant did put out the effort to at least make it look delicious.
As to the wine tasting, this is pretty much what I'd expect.
a) people like different things. This explains a ton of the variety
b) people actually smell and taste different things. This explains yet more of the variety
c) if you really believe that "price" equals "quality" you have simply misunderstood what you're paying for in a wine (and are propably paying too much for a lot of stuff in your life)
d) that a bunch of random people at a
science festival can't tell apart wines is about as informative as a lot of people at a wine festival not being able to tell apart Isaac Newton from Isaac Asimov. In other words, what's the point? It's not like every average Joe goes around buying $50 bottles of wine in the belief that they can tell the difference.
Just because 95% of snobbery is BS doesn't mean that it all is.
I've been double blind tested (science geekery for the win!) on common Finnish lagers and I could tell apart the brands I hated and the ones I liked. I've also noticed by taste that something has changed, only to learn that I'm drinking from a bottle that's actually from a different brewery than I thought it was, despite the same brand. (For Finns, this was when Karhu was bought by Koff and moved from Pori to Kerava.) I've often noticed when a cider I buy is from a new batch (I drink a lot of unfiltered ciders, which have huge varieties in taste).
Also, very typically what you pay for in drinks is quality control. With cheap beers you never know what you'll get, and yeah, sometimes it can actually be pretty good. However I like to pay for the stuff that's on average better, most especially because I really hate getting a glass of coloured water or undrinkable swill. (Propably drinking cheap beer and just tossing the bad ones would be cheaper in the long run, but I don't drink enough to care.)