Truffle

To befriend a professional food taster would be a dream come true. Her gigantic mental library of adjectives would elevate each uttered sentence with bursts of sensation and vivid imagery. Her refined ability to describe things with sharp acuity would greatly reduce miscommunication in our friendship. Her appreciation for the most minute details would inspire me to find value in even the most mundane activities.  

I felt an inexplicable joy when I read this exchange between two professional food tasters from New Jersey named Gail Vance Civille* and Judy Heylmun in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink:

Heylmun then started talking about "rework," which is the practice in some food factories of recycling leftover or rejected ingredients from one product batch into another product batch. "Give me some cookies and crackers," she said, "and I can tell you not only what factory they came from but what rework they were using." Civille jumped in. Just the previous night, she said, she had eaten two cookies - and here she named two prominent brands. "I could taste the rework," she said and made another face.

*Conjures images of horseback riding, wealth, and chivalry.