We had one very unimportant question. So unimportant—and yet precise—a question, in fact, that we might be the very first people in history ever to have asked it. Does homemade apple tart taste nicer when eaten at 8202 feet?
There was only one way to find out. We started our ascent.
We had a control—of course we did. We’d tried the very same apple tart in question a measly 739 ft above sea level the day before. It had been delicious then. And that was our baseline. Our frame of reference. But would it be the same when munched from up on high?
We reached the mountain’s summit and release the slice of apple tart from its tin foil cocoon.
Neatly sliced segments of apple nestled into their shortcrust pastry foundation in uniform formation. If the apple segments were synchronised swimmers and the shortcrust pastry a pool, Olympic judges would have marvelled at just how uniform a formation the swimmers were in.
But the apple segments weren’t synchronised swimmers. And here, we were the only judges.
We took three deep breaths, flexed our jaw muscles, and dove athletically head/(mouth)first into a pool of blissfully unchlorinated flavour.
The taste came supplemented by additional sensations. The thudding of our hearts and panting of our breath. The mountain vista that stretched out before us seemingly unendingly. A peregrine falcon that flitted overhead. The chimes of cowbells that echoed from grazing fields below us, before being whipped away by the wind, which wafted the sweet odour of glazed apples into our nostrils.
Confounding variables. We tried to account for them in our analysis.
And so to the conclusions. Does homemade apple tart taste nicer when eaten at 8202 ft?
Well, I’ll let you into a little secret. After correcting for the slight staleness of a day-older tart, I can empirically tell you this. It tastes exactly the same.
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