[andsoitis]

Some aspects of experience— e.g. raw emotions, sensory perceptions, or deeply personal, ineffable states—often resist full articulation.

The taste of a specific dish, the exact feeling of nostalgia, or the full depth of a traumatic or ecstatic moment can be approximated in words but never fully captured. Language is symbolic and structured, while experience is often fluid, embodied, and multi-sensory. Even the most precise or poetic descriptions rely on shared context and personal interpretation, meaning that some aspects of experience inevitably remain untranslatable.

[im3w1l]

Just because we struggle to verbalize something, doesn't mean that it cannot be verbalized. The taste of a specific dish can be broken down into its components. The basic tastes: how sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory it is. The smell of it: there are are apparently ~400 olfactory receptor types in the nose. So you could describe how strongly each of them is activated. Thermoception, the temperature of the food itself, but also fake temperature sensation produced by capsaicin and menthol. The mechanoceptors play a part, detecting both the shape of the food as well as the texture of it. The texture also contributes to a sound sensation as we hear the cracks and pops when we chew. And that is just the static part of it. Food is actually an interactive experience, where all those impressions change over time and varies over time as the food is chewed.

It is highly complex, but it can all be described.