Smell is actually a big component of taste. Everything in france smells like armpits and moldy cheese, and there is dogshit literally everywhere that no one cleans up. So potatos and apples-- even snails-- taste the same to them-- just like a mix of armpits, moldy cheese, and old dogshit.
They are also all very tired and lethargic because their coffees are served in very very small cups, like at a little girls tea party.
Everyone smokes there too, even the children, so everyone also has cigrarette ashy-mouth 24/7.
It also explains why they think their food is the best in the world when its actually just barely passable. They cant taste it. French cuisine is essentially what you would eat if you couldnt taste or smell anything. So you end up eating organ meat that no one else wants, Animal hooves, bugs, rotten food. Roadkill. Old fish. You name it, they will eat it. They will striaght up boil an unprepared calfs head in water fand then take it out and call it a delicacy. (TΓͺte de veau). Its still got hair on it!