When you think of your favorite food, it's probably the flavor that comes to mind — after all, the sense most often associated with food is taste. Taste is a very important part of what makes good food — if the balance of flavors in a dish is off, the whole thing can be ruined.

Flavor is really only half the picture, though. Aside from the salty and sharp cheddar taste you love when you eat Mom's macaroni and cheese, there's also the creamy texture of the sauce and soft noodles. Texture is just as important as taste, and each is necessary to complete a dish.

Texture is important in any food, but it is particularly so in different countries' delicacies, where the importance of texture sometimes outweighs flavor. The tongue senses textures through the way food feels in our mouth, as well as the way it interacts with saliva and other chemicals already in the mouth. This is also referred to as "mouthfeel," encompassing things that might not have a "texture" per se, but that have a distinct feeling in the mouth, like wine.

For Americans, textures associated with European delicacies are probably the most familiar and appealing. Most of them are rooted in fat and the way fat feels on the tongue. There is even some research suggesting that the tongue actually has receptors that can taste fat, not just feel it.

Things like foie gras (fattened goose liver) cheeses with a high fat content, and butter-or oil-laden dishes are all considered delicacies not only for their flavor, but because of the way they feel. Adjectives like silky, smooth, or ethereal are often used to describe these kinds of foods; the pleasure derived from feeling them in your mouth is not so different from feeling a fine fabric on your skin.

This same appreciation of texture is key in sushi, where the texture of raw fish is prized more than its flavor. Some of the most expensive sushi is o-toro, or the belly cut of tuna, which is high in fat, and has a luxurious texture not unlike foie gras.

Although there are some crossover textures between Asian and European delicacies, some Asian delicacies have textures often thought of as turn-offs in European cuisine.

In Chinese cuisine, texture is almost more important than taste, and some of the cuisine's most prized foods have almost no taste at all, but are enjoyed for their unique texture. In addition, Chinese cuisine has the aspect of medicinal value, which plays an important part in food but is largely ignored in European cooking.

Things like sea cucumber, jellyfish and pig's ears are appreciated for their gelatinous and crunchy texture, even though they have almost no flavor themselves. Dried sharks' fin and bird's nest soup, which is made from the saliva-based nest of the cave swift, are both appreciated for their soft, jelly-like texture and purported medicinal value.

In Japanese cuisine, slimy foods are thought of as delicacies. One of the most common, natto, is made from soy beans fermented with a specific kind of bacteria usually found in hay, which is how the dish was originally made. The beans develop spider-web like strands of a mucous-like substance and have a distinct slimy texture. Other things like okra and tororo, a kind of Japanese yam that turns into a slimy paste when grated, are appreciated by the Japanese.