Like & Dislikes-Please post a response
The two foods I chose are as follows. The food I like is grilled beef, any cut or style and I prefer a medium rare doneness. The food I dislike is fried catfish or bullhead.
This was actually a hard assignment for me for one reason I was having a hard time coming up with a food I don't like. There are foods that I prefer to eat cooked rather than raw like broccoli, cauliflower and any kind of fish. However, because you said to not focus on the texture of the food, I struggled to come up with a food I disliked purely for taste or smell or appearance. After over an hour of trying to think of one I almost decided to just lie and say I disliked something so I could finish the assignment, but that just didn't seem right. Finally, I decided to go with a food that remembered I actually disliked bullhead or catfish. I have always thought it was because they are bottom feeders. However, I honestly think it is because of how they look on the plate I believe this because I love most other fish cooked in any manner of ways; fried, broiled, baked or grilled even poached although that is my least favorite way. I cannot think of any other fish I dislike I like salmon, halibut, swordfish, haddock, trout, and lake perch, and I LOVE smelt, my personal favorite is sea bass baked or broiled or fried I like most every fish I have tried with the exception of Bullhead and Catfish.
The food that I like as I mentioned is beef that has been grilled and is grilled to a medium rare doneness. The taste is big part of my love of beef but the volatile molecules created by grilling a steak is what gets my mouth watering. I love the flavor as well as the texture of the beef's fat when it has been cooked, for that reason I prefer a well-marbled steak, meaning one with a nice ratio of lean to fat. I find the more fat the more flavor and often the more tender the meat. An exception to that would be a filet, which I believe is tender due to its location on the cow and the lack of muscle which can make a cut of beef sinewy tough to eat regardless of the use of marinades, cooking techniques and doneness.
The interesting thing I found about these two choices at opposite ends of the spectrum is that they both use the maillard reaction to brown and cook the food.
Cooking intensifies the taste of the beef and creates its aroma. The damage done to the muscle fibers of the meat during cooking releases fluids in the meat and meat is most aromatic as it is cooking raw meat has little aroma. As the temperature of the meat increases the meat dries out and that smell of grilled beef is released (McGee, 1984, p. 148)
Maillard is also used to brown the fish. It is done in this case not by grilling but deep-frying. Fresh water fish have a stronger aroma due to their having more fatty-acid fragments and the earthiness from ponds. The cooking smell of these fish can be controlled by enclosing the fish in a covered pan or in the case of bullhead or catfish using a buttermilk dip before frying. This also mutes the volatility of fishy amines and aldehydes and helps to break down the muddy-smelling geosmin that they sometimes accumulate from blue-green algae. (McGee, 1984, pp. 208-209)
All things said I believe I too eat with my nose and eyes first, and It is no different where these two foods are concerned. The smell, and look of a each protein provides great weight as to my desire to lift a fork full of either to my mouth.
McGee, H. (1984). On Food and Cooking. NY, NY, USA: Scribner.