I don't always like different textures, combinations. I don't like ice cream and cake; I'll eat one or the other, usually a little ice cream, but am not a fan of a la mode because of texture and temperature differences. I like raisin bread and perhaps I could tolerate raisins in my oatmeal but it wouldn't be a favorite, really chewy together with the warm and soothing "pablum" feel of the oatmeal. Oatmeal cookies with raisins are okay too for me but not for most people I don't think.

I was thinking about texture last night at dinner. My husband and I went to a place we like down the street, a good seafood restaurant, and I ordered the "Cold Plate" which is three "mounds" of cole slaw, really good shrimp salad, and then potato salad, surrounded by tomato wedges, hard boiled egg halves and sliced cucumbers. I like the cole slaw but not the potoato salad and I was trying to figure out why I didn't like the potato salad (since I love potatoes, they're one of my top 5 favorite foods). I decided the potatoes were overcooked, mushy, and the sauce was not quite sweet enough for my taste and was perhaps too smooth, such that the texture of the mushy potatoes "clashed" too much with it. You had a creamy texture and then "lumpiness" that wasn't the same flavor as the sauce. I guess a bit like lumpy oatmeal is to some people (I have no trouble with lumpy oatmeal, can eat oatmeal "raw").

The whole taste experience, when you think about it, can really be quite interesting.