— Melissa Bryant

So, you know, this is a nuanced, uh, uh, uh, question, um, or, or, or situation, uh, in that it really depends on what you're making. And, um, on one hand, what the, let's say, traditional ways of making that dish are, um, and there's always a range, right? Of how to make a dish. Um, you know, in other words, if, if you, if we're talking about, um, you know, an, an Indian curry of some sort, and you go to your favorite Indian restaurant and you have this dish and you love it, you know, keep in mind that there are many, many, many different ways, flavor wise to make that dish, um, you know, from home to home in, in, uh, in India, um, to chef, to chef, you know, in hotels across India. So, in other words, what is authentic, um, is a slippery slope, but nonetheless, it comes with this range of correct answers. So you need to think about, you know, what that looks like relative to the dish that you're making and or what your own personal preferences are. Um, if you're just experimenting, you know, with something, um, you know, in the kitchen, okay, um, over complication, I think is gonna be, you know, relative to, um, you know, how, how, how you like it. First of all, it could be a first impression. Uh, it could be the way your palate reacts four or five bites into that dish, or five or 10 minutes into the meal. Um, you know, very often if there's just so much activity on a plate or in a dish, uh, we experience what, what we call palate fatigue, uh, where we're just, we're just overloaded, um, with, with strong flavors. And it gets sort of tiring, uh, to eat that given preparation. And, you know, what we need is to just back off, we shift to something very simple to cleanse our palate, and then we might come back to, uh, you know, the, the dish at hand. And, uh, so, you know, think about this, this, this bigger picture that I'm trying to paint here of, um, the cultural context of cooking, uh, as well as our individual reaction to food. Um, sometimes several bites or several minutes into a meal, okay? And I think, uh, you can start to figure out, uh, what is still delightful, uh, to your palate and what is, um, sort of wearing you out. All right? Give that a try and, uh, enjoy the process.