My quest was noble: to create a foolproof system for determining how to tell if food is truly good. I envisioned a world where all debates over flavor and quality could be settled with logic and reason, where taste was no longer a matter of chaotic personal preference but of undeniable truth.

However, in the process, I made a horrifying discovery—I have the palate of a raccoon raiding a gas station dumpster. Oops.

As it turns out, nostalgia and personal bias play a massive role in how we judge food, but that doesn’t mean all opinions are equally valid. Some dishes are simply, objectively, superior. And through a meticulous, highly scientific process (which may or may not involve mild arrogance), I’ve developed a framework to determine what makes food truly good. Brace yourself, because we’re about to separate the culinary masterpieces from the guilty pleasures we refuse to admit are bad.

Objectivity VS Subjectivity: A Sliding Scale

Let’s cut to the chase: when people say “taste is subjective,” they’re not wrong, but they’re also using it as a verbal smoke bomb to avoid admitting their favorite food is, in fact, a crime against cooking.

The problem is that people act like food quality is either completely objective (as if there’s a divine pizza decree) or completely subjective (as if all food opinions are equally valid, which they aren’t).

In reality, judging food exists on a sliding scale, where objectivity and subjectivity are featured in varying ratios. Let’s break this down before someone tries to tell me their gas station sushi is “just as good” as something from a world-class sushi chef.

Objective Standards: What Makes Food Good

Some things about food are just true, no matter how much someone wants to argue otherwise. Professional chefs, food scientists, and competition judges all rely on measurable criteria when evaluating food. Let’s use pizza as an example, since it’s something everyone has opinions on (and since we all know at least one person with a deeply misplaced loyalty to a truly terrible pizza chain).

A good NY-style pizza slice, for instance, has objective benchmarks:

• Crust – It should be foldable, not floppy (there’s a difference), crisp on the bottom, and have a properly developed flavor from fermentation, not just from throwing garlic butter on it after the fact.
• Cheese – It needs good pull, a balanced melt without excessive greasiness, and actual flavor (plastic-textured, flavorless cheese will get you banished from Pizza Heaven).
• Sauce – Should have a proper balance of acid, umami, herbiness and sweetness and not be an overcooked paste or a raw tomato abomination. There’s also something to be said about consistency and viscosity.
• Toppings – Should be high quality and properly prepared and cooked.

These factors can be evaluated regardless of personal taste. It doesn’t matter if you like undercooked dough or rubbery cheese—those things are still objectively inferior.

Subjectivity: What Makes Food Enjoyable

Now, once we’ve established objective food quality, we can talk about preference—which is where subjectivity comes in.

For example:

• Domino’s is objectively bad pizza, but some people (myself included) still love it because it’s what we grew up on (and because they’ve marketed their flavored crust super effectively).
• Zachary’s deep-dish is objectively well-made, but some people hate it because they’re used to thinner crusts and don’t like the sauce-on-top style.
• Scarr’s Pizza and Prince Street Pizza are both top-tier NY pizza spots, but one person might prefer Scarr’s for its light and shattering crust and relentless sauciness, while another prefers Prince Street just for its world-famous vodka slice. That’s pure preference.

This is the key distinction: liking something doesn’t make it good. Hating something doesn’t make it bad. You can recognize the quality of a dish while still preferring a worse one, and that’s totally fine. Just don’t argue that your childhood love for 7-Eleven hot dogs makes them culinary masterpieces.

The Four-Tiered System for Judging Food

If you ever find yourself trying to figure out which food from a variety of choices is “the best,” you can use this four-tier system to think about it logically:

1. High Objectivity: Technical Execution – Was it made properly? (e.g., Did the steak get a proper sear? Is the bread proofed correctly?)
2. Moderately High Objectivity: Ingredient Quality – Were the ingredients high quality? (e.g., Is the sauce made from real tomatoes or sugar-laden paste? Were the greens canned or fresh?)
3. Moderate Objectivity: Balance & Craftsmanship – Do the flavors and textures work well together? (e.g., Is the sauce overpowering the rest of the dish?)
4. High Subjectivity: Personal Enjoyment – Do you like it? (e.g., You personally hate mushrooms, but that doesn’t mean a perfectly executed mushroom risotto is bad.)

If the food fails at steps 1-3, it is objectively bad—regardless of step 4. If it nails 1-3 but isn’t to your taste, then it’s good food that just isn’t your thing. Simple.

You can actually have some pretty interesting discussions just based on these questions.

For example, “Does In-N-Out have good fries?”

In-N-Out is my second favorite fast-food burger, and also a childhood love. In-N-Out is awesome, and I’ll die on this hill (though I clearly won’t die alone… In-N-Out is super popular). However, how are their fries? Let’s ask the four questions.

1. Are they made properly? Truthfully, no. In-N-Out has terrible fry quality based on objective standards. They’re notoriously weak and floppy, and they’re mealy and dry. They fail just about every standardized metric of good fries.
2. Are the ingredients high quality? Actually, yes. They’re real potatoes! This is the main argument for people who like them quite a lot: you can tell they’re made from real potatoes instead of the weird mishmash of modified starch, rice flour, and other weird ingredients that go into McDonald’s, Burger King’s, and other common fast-food fries.
3. Do the flavors and textures work? Well, the texture sucks because of the single-fry method In-N-Out uses. Flavor is subjective here. They taste like real potatoes, which I love (and weird people say taste like “cardboard,” which I find concerning). However, they’re frequently undersalted. Their answer to this is the animal style fry, which is the culinary equivalent of covering up a bullet wound with a glowing, neon mermaid bandaid.
4. Do I like them? I enjoy the fries, but mostly just because I love a mustard-fried patty on a double-toasted bun with jalapenos and grilled onions. Regardless, however I might feel about them, In-N-Out’s fries are still as if the restaurant stopped halfway through making good fries and just served them anyway.

Danny, if you’re reading this, I will still fight you to the death on a battlefield of your choosing.

Common Objectivity VS Subjectivity Arguments

Let’s get ahead of the inevitable nonsense:

• “But taste is subjective!” →
  Preference is subjective. Quality is measurable. That’s why professional chefs exist.
• “There’s no right or wrong in food.” →
  There absolutely is when it comes to execution. If your pasta is crunchy when it shouldn’t be, it’s wrong. Period. Feel free to like it, just recognize that it’s subjective.
• “My grandma’s cooking is better than any Michelin-starred restaurant.” →
  Maybe, but is it because she’s actually a technical genius, or is it just the taste of your childhood comfort food talking?
• “I like my steak well done with ketchup.” →
  I can’t stop you from living this way, but you don’t get to argue that it’s good cooking. Also, stay away from my dinner table until you’ve received professional culinary counseling.

The Takeaway

At the end of the day, here’s the truth:

• Food quality can be measured. That’s why professional competitions and culinary schools exist.
• You can like bad food. No one’s stopping you. Just own it instead of pretending it’s something it’s not.
• Next time you wonder about the quality of some sort of food, ask these questions:
  
  1. Was it made with proper/professional technique?
  2. Were the ingredients high-quality?
  3. How was the balance?
  4. What do you personally prefer?

If you can’t answer 1-3 thoroughly, you don’t yet have an objective view of the food you’re looking at. Does that matter? Not usually. Do I care anyway? Yeah, a lot.

I came into this trying to create an objective method for judging food. And while I succeeded, I also had to come to terms with a painful reality: some of my favorite childhood meals are, by every objective standard, terrible. If you need me, I’ll be in the corner, eating a low-quality but highly nostalgic pizza and pretending not to care.

    Matthew Christensen
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2023
    Email the author! matthew@dvo.com