Can you "taste" a recipe?

[larry_stewart]

I can "taste" things I have previously made, but can only anticipate what a new recipe will actually taste like based on having made similar dishes. The use of familiar herbs and spices in a new recipe can provide an expectation of the taste, but sometimes I am surprised!

I love that surprise.
Sometimes just the slightly different use or cooking techniques with the same ingredients can cause quite a good surprise.

 

[taxlady]

I don't know if Stirling can "taste" the recipe, but he is pretty good at guessing whether or not he will like it, just from reading the recipe. Well, we might both be wrong about some of the recipes that don't look appealing, 'cause we don't make those.

 

[lyndalou]

I go by smell...odd, I know.

 

[outRIAAge]

I seriously need to "imagine" recipes. I completely lost taste and smell for a few years (except for cat piss: God will have His little jokes). I adjusted by teaching myself Thai cooking, cranking the heat up to eleven so that I'd have SOME oral stimulation.

I became a really good cook, purely imagining what things would taste like. (Luckily ,my dinner guests always told me I have a good imagination.)

Smell and taste still comes and goes, but I'm such a cooking fool that I happily soldier on regardless. Once consequence is that the only time I taste what I'm cooking is for final seasoning.

 

[LizStreithorst]

I can taste as I read but I'm not so good as to be able to substitute ingredients out of my own head. I'm working on it and getting better bit by bit.

 

[CraigC]

I seriously need to "imagine" recipes. I completely lost taste and smell for a few years (except for cat piss: God will have His little jokes). I adjusted by teaching myself Thai cooking, cranking the heat up to eleven so that I'd have SOME oral stimulation.

I became a really good cook, purely imagining what things would taste like. (Luckily ,my dinner guests always told me I have a good imagination.)

Smell and taste still comes and goes, but I'm such a cooking fool that I happily soldier on regardless. Once consequence is that the only time I taste what I'm cooking is for final seasoning.

Thai curry pastes are not inherently "eleven"! You adjust the heat level by allowing your diners to make it to their taste with condiments.