We often encounter heated disputes about what constitutes good eating or the correct ways to cook particular meals or dishes. These disagreements presuppose that some methods of preparing and appreciating food, as well as the judgments about these activities, are better or worse, or more or less appropriate. This paper offers an exploratory analysis of such culinary disputes, focusing on the underlying reasons for these disagreements and their normative implications. We argue that while these disputes are aesthetic in nature, they (...) are rarely about taste alone. Instead, we propose that they may be addressed by appealing to the internal norms at play within specific culinary aesthetic practices. However, we identify two significant challenges to this approach. First, these internal norms often conflict, and their interdependence complicates attempts to resolve disputes by assigning varying degrees of justification to different norms. Second, many collective behaviors and attitudes within culinary practices may not qualify as full-fledged social norms, thereby weakening their normative force. (shrink)