Y = taste. How will I measure it?

Send me the fully and hygienically cooked chicken in a warm, clean, fresh, lightly and consistently seasoned state and I will rate the chicken using a 1 – 7 Likert scale with 1 being very bad and 7 being very good.  
 
I am objective, have eaten chicken for years and enjoy culinary research. 
 
Due to my having a clinical background I can assure a double blinded study as I will be wearing both dark Wayfarer and Aviator style sunglasses while yelling out taste results to my children as they record sample number, rating and dive for scraps.
 Vinny

Taste is subjective.  I’d think that you’d want to establish an assessment criteria, assure the assigned taster understands and can respond to the criteria, have a rating structure (such as a Likert scale) against which to apply the assessment criteria on a taste sample basis, determine your preparation and cooking variables, cook the chicken, taste the chicken and record results.  
It would make a neat fractional factorial DOE as you established and controlled your variables and determined your test ratings.  Double blinding your study might be a bit over the top for what you are doing but it would be important that the taster did not know the variable composite of the sample under taste test in order to avoid the inevitable bias associated with paprika. 
Vinny

I think the “X”s for taste would be the 4 distinct flavors the human tongue can detect: salt, sweet, sour and bitter.  I’d start there.
Quantifying each separately would be the challenge…I’d start with an effectivness study with some talented tasters involved.
Good luck,
Ray

Now wait a minute buddy.  While I like your thoughts regarding taste distinctions – I’m eating – sorry, I mean “tasting” the chicken.   
I have already estalished that I have a clinical background, have eaten chicken for years, enjoy culinary research, and have a couple of hungry kids… 
Deep, don’t listen to him….. except maybe about the taste distinctions.
Your pal,
Vinny

When we were training in France, we had one engineer who refused to do the DOE exercise we had planned. His objection was that it did not apply to what he did.
I opened up my copy of Montgomery (Design and Analysis of Experiments, 4th ed. p. 428) and used the data from a DOE conducted for making Pinot Noir in California (1985 vintage). The results were scored by forced ranking on a scale of 1-16 by five tasters. Bernard, who was a great oenophile and amateur wine maker, took to the data analysis with great enthusiasm.
His analysis showed that the gauge R&R on tasting and rating was too noisy to accurately evaluate the results of the experiment. His other conclusion was that we should all do some more field trials later in the week and attempted to use the SQRT(n) factor to increase the signal/noise ratio.
We don’t expect to complete the testing for years.
BTDT

We were seeing double – multivariate by any other name
;) BTDT

Deep:Tasting and smelling are very difficult to reproduce and control. Perfume companies pay superstar wages to their ‘noses’ – professional odour consultants. It is quite possible to quantify taste, but it has to be done very carefully because the Gauge R&R is so large.
I toured a food research facility and looked at the way they conduct their tests.
– They are administered with a double blind setup.
– Dishes and evaluation forms are passed to evaluaters through small doors.
– Dishes are white.
– Lighting is standardized and may be altered according to the circumstances.
– Ventilation of the tasting area is critical.
– Evaluators are forbidden to discuss results.
– Evaluators are forbidden to smoke.
– Pieces of meat are all the same cut.
– Chewing technique is standardized.
– The order of test and control samples is randomized.
I was discussing the use of comparitive scales rather than absolute scales to identify the fine nuances of taste.
Like most gauge R&R studies, you first have to define the range of results you must be able to distinguish (USL and LSL).
BTDT

Deep,
In addition to the previous poster’s comments on Likert and controlling the environmemt variables, it is important that you block by taster or use a paired t-test to compare differences within taster and exclude taster to taster variability.
Taste test labs also “calibrate” with standard samples. For example a diet cola test would use 3 standards: “low” sweetness, “mid” sweetness and “high” sweetness. ( This may not be feasible in your situation).