What is the difference between 'flavour' and 'flavours'?

[chanmyon]

Test No. incompl/inter-12 "At the Restaurant", question 4

There's something about the ......... of that particular dish that makes it memorable.

(a) flavour
(b) flavoured
(c) flavouring
(d) flavours

Test No. incompl/inter-12 "At the Restaurant", answer 4

There's something about the flavour of that particular dish that makes it memorable.

Correct answer: (a) flavour

Your answer was: incorrect
There's something about the flavours of that particular dish that makes it memorable.
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Dear
why the answer flavour?

[Alan]

The use of the singular flavour here is best because I am talking about the general taste and not the particular taste of separate items on the plate.
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[Zsolt]

why is flavouring a wrong word here? I mean that the taste is nice, the cook is praiseworthy. Gerund(?) Or my way of thinking is too complicated?

[Alan]

Let's go through them:

flavour is the taste in general that you sense when you eat something, which is the correct one here.
favoured could mean that someone has put a particular flavour in the food
flavouring is the process of putting flavour into food
flavours refers to a range of different flavours - not the right one here because the verb is singular
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[Rich7]

Hey there Alan, on a related question....

Do you say, set the dishes or put the dishes when having dinner? I know for a fact that you can set the table but.....
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[Alan]

Hi,

This is probably an American/British English thing but I can only speak for British English and I would put the dishes on the table and also in preparation I would lay the table. But there you go!

Alan
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