Everything we Westerners thought we knew about flavor pairing was recently turned on its ear by a study of the delicious and contradictory jumble of sensation known as Indian cuisine.

But let’s step back a minute and look at how we decide what tastes good. Why do we choose certain flavor combos and refuse to touch others with a ten-foot pole? Why not liver-flavored jellybeans, for example, or fish ice cream? Evolutionarily, regional cuisines are the result of a complex mix of influences – climate, geography, history, and culture – but at rock-bottom, taste is all about chemistry.

Many factors affect how good a given food tastes, among them color, texture, temperature, and even sound. (Think of the off-putting non-crunch of a soggy potato