Dry-aged meat is crazy expensive. But oh man is it delicious. The dean of food science writers, Harold McGee, writes in Lucky Peach Issue 2 about what makes it taste so good—and what makes other things taste, well, not so good.

Proteins, carbohydrates, and fats are the building blocks of living things, but they don't have much flavor in their natural state. They are bland to begin with. That's why we cook them, why we season them, why we transform them — to make them more appealing to us.