How Good it All Tastes
But then, after I got through with all of that, I started thinking about Angel’s attitude about how 'food tastes awesome!' and how he "..forgot how good it all tastes when you're alive."
Buffy comments that, as a vampire, Angel’s sense of taste would be duller than a human’s.
The sense of taste is mostly just smell. Without scent, taste basically breaks down to the six basics (e.g. sweet, salty, spicy) and that’s it. But vampires are known for having very strong senses of smell.
I mean, earlier in the episode, Angel tracks the Mohra demon through the sewers by the scent of its spilled blood. Spike has followed days old trails all across Sunnydale.
So, how can vampires have poor senses of taste?
And why is Angel the only one who seems to?
While not always a reliable source, Drusilla does talk about eating food. And Spike clearly does so. Harmony consumes large quantities of sugar. So they must have some sense of taste.
I can think of two explanations, but both of them seem kind of like I’m stretching.
The first would be that, because a vampire has such a powerful sense of smell, their ability to taste is completely divorced from scent. Basically meaning they can tell if something is spicy or sweet, but not much else.
This may explain the eating behaviours of both Spike and Harmony. Sugar on sugar, extra spicy, taking things to excess. If they can’t taste the differences in flavour, they may just go all in.
This would also explain why the idea of chocolate and peanut butter wasn’t worth explaining. It would be a very basic sweet plus sweet plus salty.
For me, I don’t think this explanation clarifies why vampires are so picky about the different bloods they drink, however. If salty is salty, then why should it matter if the blood is from someone older, or from a less-than-human source?
The only other idea I’ve come up with so far is that a vampire’s sense of taste actually isn’t duller than a human’s. It’s sharper.
Like, a lot.
As it logically should be, a vampire has a considerably better ability to taste, the same as they have a better sense of smell.
The reason Angel doesn’t find normal human foods appealing is because he can taste. Too a ridiculous extent.
If all vampires are supertasters (probably more like super-supertasters), then they it seems likely that they wouldn’t be that interested in human food. I mean, think of all the different ingredients in a single dish, in a snack. Eating human food could be simply too overwhelming, which would be why very few vampires indulge in it.