These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 4: Cuisine – Feeling Good.

Week 58: Learning to Taste

• There are no hard rules regarding gastronomical experiences. As long as you are open to new experiences, your gastronomical skills will be continuously developed and enriched.

• Try to avoid preconceptions before each gastronomic experience. Give your senses the chance to go through the experience as neutrally and impartially as possible and then decide accordingly.

• In gastronomy too, the law of everything or nothing does not apply. Do not let an ingredient you do not like spoil the pleasure you derive from the rest of the ingredients of a delicious dish.

• Always remember that taste experiences are not limited to the words good and bad. What you consider bad today may become good tomorrow and vice versa.

• Taste is not fixed; it changes with age and experience. Every experience will open new horizons for gastronomy.

• Tasting does not mean devouring. When embarking on a new taste experience, take a small piece, not with caution, but with eagerness to discover. You will not lose anything. If you like the taste, a new window has opened in front of you. If you do not like the taste, it may inspire a new idea or an amendment to an existing dish. In the worst case, you can completely forget the experience.

• Expanding your taste is not just about trying new dishes or those prepared by a chef you are not used to. Taste is a passion that should be constant with every bite you eat, even if you are eating a dish you prepare yourself every day for breakfast.

• The difference in tastes is self-evident, but this should not prevent you from listening to others’ opinion or how they express their admiration for a taste you did not like. Their descriptions could make you change your mind or become less intense about a taste you did not like.

• Connoisseurs taste food with all their senses, even if they are asked to do so while they are full.

• If you don’t find the taste you would expect in a dish you used to like, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the ingredients or preparation methods have changed. You might have forgotten your memory of the taste, or the taste might have changed because of your mood. In any case, there is no problem. Taste is a world without limits. Be careful not to set restrictions that hold you back in this vast and enjoyable world.

• If you missed your chance to become a professional chef, don’t miss the opportunity to be a zestful gourmet.

• Feel free to take advantage of every opinion on gastronomic experiences, but remember that your own opinion matters most. In the end, cooking is a matter of taste and does not have decisive laws of right and wrong.