Three great tastes...

[owlmoose]

Back in college, one of the ways we used to amuse ourselves in the dining hall was to play a game we called "Three Great Tastes that Taste Like Crap Together." The idea was this: find three different ingredients, each of which tastes just fine with the others in pairs, but if you put them all together, they are inedible. I brought the game with me to California, and it still comes up every so often.

I don't remember who introduced me to the game originally, but it turns out that we aren't the only ones who play it. The page's author calls it "The Incompatible Food Triad" and says it was introduced to him by a philosophy professor in the 1970s. He discusses the difficulty of the problem -- and it is hard, play around with it awhile and you'll see, I've been trying for over a decade and have yet to come up with a satisfactory solution -- and then invites people to submit their ideas. The other possibility he raises, which I have also considered, is that it might be an unsolvable problem. Maybe it's not literally possible to come up with such a combination. Of course, that seems like something you ought to be able to prove, and no one has managed that, either.

Anyway, I'm mostly tickled to learn that this thought experiment that I've been playing casually for so long turns out to have a little bit of a following -- it's even in Wikipedia. Thanks to P for the link.

Comments

[i-iambe.livejournal.com]

I fully support the cucumbers-sugar-yogurt triad. It's truly disgusting.

Now I'LL be thinking about different combinations!

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

My question about that one is this: the cucumbers-sugar duo isn't just dumping sugar on cucumbers and eating them; it's a special preparation. I'm never sure whether that counts. Another trio that always comes up is variations on chocolate-meat-citrus, which again I don't quite accept, because to make that work, the chocolate-meat combination involves mole sauce, another special preparation. And who knows, citrus mole might be tasty... :)

[legateaumechant.livejournal.com]

Haha, that's awesome KJ.

I can't think of anything, except of all the foods I do like, such as deep-fried avocado! :D You just made me so homesick.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Deep fried avocado? *imagines terrifying fat overload* ;)

So, can you think of any food that you'd like fried on its own, or paired with avocado, but you can't imagine eating deep-fried *with* avocado? ;)