The foods older people love and younger people find strange are explained by two things: the sense of smell fades sharply with age, so stronger flavors are needed to register, and the combos themselves are the comfort foods of a mid-century childhood

It is tempting to file this under older people having strange taste, but that misses what is actually going on. Most of flavor is smell, and smell fadesWhat we casually call taste is mostly smell. And the sense of smell declines steeply with age. The foods people love are heavily shaped by what they ate growing up, and today’s older adults grew up in a different kitchen. The gap at the family table is real, but it is not evidence that one generation has strange taste and the other has good sense.