Some say cooking is an art. I believe it’s a science. And eating is an art, especially if you are eating something cooked by someone who considers cooking to be a science.
Like all science experiments in school, you prepare for your cooking experiments first with the apparatus – pans, pots and plates in lieu of measuring cylinders, test-tubes and beakers. Then you measure the ingredients in grams, litres or by the more rudimentary ways of measurements - cups and spoons. You deal with fire. You put to use solids that change their form, shape and color. For beginners you always have a handbook to refer to. And did I miss mentioning that like all experiments, cooking always begins with an end in mind, an objective well-defined.
Eating is like appreciating modern art. A connoisseur can appreciate something that seemingly does not exist in the piece of art. Similarly, someone who has the misfortune to be eating food cooked by someone who regards cooking as a science experiment is forced to finds flavors that never exist in the food but are made to exist by the power of imagination and wishful thinking. Eating need not always have an end in mind, it could be to satiate your hunger pangs, it could be out of survival needs, it could be because there is nothing better to kill your time with, it could be because you need it while you watch television, it could be because you just feel like it, or it could be all of it!
You have recipe books. Whoever wrote a book on eating? Anything sans of rules, methods and procedures cannot be anything but art and anything that is full of it is undoubtedly is science. So a poorly cooked dinner is only an experiment that didn’t result into the desired or expected outcome. But a badly eaten dinner only means the subject was a poor art lover who failed to discover the hidden meaning in the work of art like someone searching for the Monalisa in the galleries of Tate Britain.