Even if you have a good sense of smell and taste, your sense of perception could still let you down, according to neuroscientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel (New Scientist, Vol 148, No 2005).

Each hemisphere of the brain has centres for processing taste and smell. Researchers found that destroying the taste and smell regions on the same hemisphere in mice did not impair their perception for specific flavours. However, destruction of functioning taste and smell regions on opposite sides of the brain rendered them incapable of detecting a particular flavour.