Third edit: Why food ratings do injustice to taste

Foods have been intrinsic to cultural exchange between people since the days of hunter-gatherers. And long-distance trade in foodstuffs goes back at least to the times when ships carried Indian pepper to the Roman Empire—perhaps even earlier, when water buffaloes were traded between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamian civilizations. From Ptolemy to Marco Polo to Ibn Battuta, and from Babur, the first Mughal emperor, Western colonizers made judgments about the culinary habits of people they encountered far from their homes. The compilation of food atlases or guides to “best” restaurants, however, is a distinctly contemporary enterprise, based on the understanding that geography need not limit the culinary experience. The smorgasbord has never been so diverse and today the table is set for a range of snacks — not just gourds. This may sound like a democratic system, but it also gives a flavor of uniformity.

Get the latest version of the Taste Atlas Awards. It is a rich platter containing cuisines from 100 countries. But, instead of making introductions and letting the foodie taste buds indulge, Atlas dons the mantle of snob. Italian, Greek, Indian, Ethiopian and over 90 other cuisines have been compared in order of excellence and don’t even pay lip service to the vastly different cultural and agricultural contexts in which they were produced. Taste Atlas claims that the rankings draw on the “preferences” of people around the world. But isn’t that a violation of the fundamental principle that underpins culinary culture – taste defies formula? Salt, fat, acid and heat also come together in numerous and protean ways.