On a recent episode of Top Chef,  one of the contestants said while the judges were deciding who would be eliminated, "Things are so close, it's subjectivity at this point." One of the judges admitted that all of the dishes were good, and so they were "splitting hairs." In this case it is literally a question of taste, but is it merely subjective? We could say that judgment is subjective, but the object of the knowledge -- is that the same for all? But what is being judged -- how appealing the dish is to an individual, not whether it has certain flavors, textures, and so on. The ordering of flavors and other sensory data, and how the various criteria combine and integrate into an overall impression, leading to some feeling of like or dislike -- this is up to the individual judge.

Is it possible for someone to go beyond simple like and dislike and over-analyze a dish? Is a judge merely reporting their reactions and preferences (like Anthony Bourdain), or is his judgment affected by the analysis that he applies to the food (as it seems to be the case with some of the other judges).