SC - Spicing dishes

[Phil Anderson]

Ras writes, quoting me:

> > In such a context, the cook is preparing a dish for the 
> > feasters, not for themselves.
> 
> And I must disagree with this. I prepare all my feast dishes to MY taste.

And in fact, so do I. My tastes are reasonably in line with most of 
the local populace, and I select dishes that I want to eat myself. But I 
am still preparing the feast so that _they_ will enjoy the food.

> [...]
> It is impossible to cook to the feaster's tastes (or to their lack of
> taste, depending on your viewpoint because there are 200 different ideas
> of good taste in the hall.

Yes, but it is possible to be aware of when one's own tastes differ 
from those of most other people. For example, if it were to be the 
case that 90% of the feasters thought that there was, say, too much 
ginger in a dish, then that was a spicing error regardless of whether 
the cook liked lots of ginger. The cook needs to learn to cut back a 
little.

If I'm just cooking for myself, I can do what I like. If I'm cooking for 
others, I must consider them.

>If the cook is a bad cook then ban them from doing feasts.

And how do we tell that they are a bad cook, other than by finding 
that they fail to prepare dishes that accord with the tastes of the 
diners?

Edward Long-hair
Southron Gaard, Caid