Will you eat any pasta and enjoy it just the same, or is the specific shape and outer texture important
for the eating experience?

Do you enjoy your oats in part because of the pieces?..could you put your oatmeal dish through a blender
and enjoy just the same?

Fillet steak in strips , diced or one slab...does shape effect affect how much you enjoy it?

Outside the basic need for nutrition- How much of it is just psychological?..ie; humans just trying to break the monotony?

a little of both, deep fried shrimp heads and raw tails sushied up for dinner


sweet, crunchy and delish

It all looks like chit, when I'm done with it.....

Shape and texture are important but nothing trumps taste. JMHO

Like this, for example:

Texture and presentation are very important.
Think fresh french or Italian bread versus Wonderbread.
Proper carbonation and temperature are important in beverages.

No.

You can roast a chicken with the head and feet on just as well as with them off. The presentation might degrade slightly, though.

lol

Presentation can make some rather nasty stuff appear tasteful.

I like going to chinatown and seeing all the different birds cooked whole and hanging up, but its more for observing their old tradition,
I dont eat all the bits the chinese do.

I like shrimp and lobsters

tripas don't look so good but they sure taste good wrapped in a tortilla with a cold beer.

we taste first with our eyes. I spent far to many years in the restaurant business, to not appreciate the eye appeal of my food.
Mouth feel, or texture, is another issue, but yeah, that has to be correct as well. Expectations influence satisfaction.
We all know what a certain food should feel like when we chew, if the dish does not meet that expectation, then we are abruptly aware of it. Apples should not be mush, pasta should not be half cooked and hard.

On the other hand I am perfectly happy with food prepared by a cook and do not require or want a magnificent repast conjured by the twinkle-toed culinary artiste of the year.

Good cooks know this well.

Hot fudge sundays teach that temperature differences are also important.

Crunchy vs Mushy (anything fried with a soft inside)
Hot vs. cold
Spiced vs. soothing ( Jalpeno's & Cheese)
Sweet vs Tangy
Creamy vs. Crisp - salad dressing vs. salad

I could keep going, but you get the idea, each of these are a pallet to paint with ...

So taste, heat, spicey ness, acid vs. alkaline, texture, even smell can play in.

Every now and then I really crave something casserole like with lots of gooey cheese and a crust on top. Could be lasagne, or the old recipe my father used for baked macaroni and cheese. That recipe involved macaroni, sharp cheddar, butter, condensed milk or cream, and that it be topped with shredded cheddar cheese, Italian bred crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese in layers. When baked, the crust was toasted to a crunchy brown, with flavors that revealed themselves as one ate. Everyone preferred the crust to the rest of the dish, and would soon visit the leftovers to pick at the crust. I still need to figure out how to make the crust without the rest, but it seems impossible. Texture and flavor seem very important, as does aroma, but then I'm a peasant that considers sliced dry Italian salami and mini-pretzel sandwiches a meal. I mean really, those tidbits have several food qualities covered: fat and cholesterol, salt, carbs, calories and crunch.

There are no foods I don't like, but I enjoy some more than others. And I enjoy them most when they are prepared and presented correctly.

Texture seems to be more important to me as a I age. Presentation per se doesn't matter to me, but it is an indication that the cook or chef took care with what they are doing rather than just slopping it on a plate.

If you think texture doesn't matter, than you don't care whether your steak is prepared rare, med/rare, med, well done of however you like it.

I agree 100% with you,.458. For example, when I was a kid gooey cheese stuff seemed great. Now, I find a large wad of molten cheese repulsive.

I do care how my steak is done. rare. But beyond that I could care less the texture as in noodles. Or the presentation or shape.

Taste governs that, more than rare doesn't have the same taste IMHO.

Tastes good it goes down. Its after all food, nothing to waste time over really, eat and get on with life.

I like fried chicken and watermelon!!

I think people confuse taste and what they think of a change in taste is really a change in texture.

Think of a freshly caught salmon that is cooked until the flesh just firms up. Compare that one that has been frozen for a year and is over cooked.

Both salmon taste the same, but due to the texture that eating experience is totally different.

If you enjoy sushi and have had good sushi, you'll understand why a master sushi chef spends 8 years learning how to make rice. Getting the texture of the rice just right is essential to making good sushi. Mushy rice, or dried out rice, no good sushi. Perfectly prepared rice, good sushi.

Let's look at another dish that seems so simple, biscuits and gravy. Light, flaky biscuits and gravy of just the right consistency is a wonderful breakfast. Now you can use the same ingredients, have the same taste but brick hard biscuits and gravy with the consistency of paste is un-edible, even though both dishes taste the same.

50% taste 25% texture 25% appearance

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This
So long as the steak is cooked right.

+1, good one.

Taste, then texture, and hopefully it looks "good"

I'm a pretty decent cook. Folks generally like my stuff, but I have one big shortcoming, and that's presentation.

Three of my signature dishes are:

1) Orange Slime: This is a mix of Velveeta, cream cheese, Cincinnati Chilli and Salsa, microwaved on High for a good long time and stirred until fully blended. It is a rippingly good dip, but it is a tan/brown mass with red inclusions that looks horrible. Once you get past that, it's awesome dip. A hillbilly girlfriend introduced it to me years ago

2) Barf: It's real name is Mujadara (SP?) and I learned to eat it in college. It was cheap and filled your belly and a plate of it would keep you running for a day. It's lentils, rice, onion and a bunch of Middle Eastern Spices.
It is served with fried onion garnish and a bottle of hot oil. However, my 3 sons took one look at this stuff in the crock pot and named it.

3) Green Slime: It's another college-era creation. It is a thick vegetable soup looks like it was eaten and lost. It is the most unappetizing look of the bunch, but I used to feed hordes with it back in the day,


If you're really into this sort of thing, the absolute masters of this are the Ethiopians. If you ever find an Ethiopian restaurant, go there and try everything on the menu. Everything is served as an unappetizing glops on a big tray and you eat it with something like Pita bread. The globs are incredibly good, they just look bad. Don't delay getting there. I've never seen an Ethiopian restaurant stay open for more than 6 months, and I suspect it is the presentation that does them in.

I'm known as a picky eater, I'm picky about textures more than anything. Also heat and cold.

I can eat corn flakes and I can eat raisins, but I can't stand raisin bran. crunchy bite with the occasional gooey squirt. If I can't finish my cereal before it gets soggy I throw it out, no corn kernels in my rice or mashed potatoes, my sides need to be hot so I eat them first and singularly, meat can be warm or cooling. No grit or chunky grains in bread. Plain ice cream and any melted gets tossed. No fruit in my jello.

Kent

Given some of the places I've had to hole up, picky eating did not become a habit.

A well cooked visual appealing meal is greatly appreciated, and I'll let the chef know it.

But very rarely am I not a member of the clean plate club, regardless of fare.