Swedenborg says that our five senses correspond to spiritual affections, or the attraction we feel toward spiritual things. The sense of taste specificallty corresponds to the affection for knowing, or the affection for being wise. This makes sense in a way, because we often immediately know and judge the quality of a thing by its taste. When people taste things in the Bible, then, it means they are seeking wisdom and enlightenment, and when food tastes good it shows the delight they feel in being wise.
Passages from Swedenborg
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8522
8522. ‘And the taste of it was like that of a cake with honey’ means that the good was delightful, like that which began as truth but was made into good by means of delight. This is clear from the meaning of ‘the tastes as that which has reference to delight taken in what is good, since it corresponds to the delight of becoming wise,* dealt with in 3502, 4793; from the meaning of ‘a cake’ as spiritual good, dealt with in 7978; and from the meaning of ‘honey’ as natural delight, dealt with in 5620, 6857. From these meanings it follows that ‘the taste of it was like that of a cake with honey’ means good that was delightful because it was made out of truth by means of delight.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 4404
4404. Each of the five external senses – touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight – has a correspondence with one of the internal senses. But today correspondences are known to scarcely anyone because people are not even aware of the existence of correspondences, let alone of the correspondence of spiritual things with natural ones, or what amounts to the same, of things belonging to the internal man with those belonging to the external. As regards the correspondences of the senses, the sense of touch in general corresponds to the affection for good; the sense of taste to the affection for knowing; the sense of smell to the affection for perceiving; the sense of hearing to the affection for learning, and also to obedience; while the sense of sight corresponds to the affection for being intelligent and wise.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 4792
4792. Because food and nourishment correspond to spiritual food and nourishment, taste consequently corresponds to a perception of and an affection for this food. Spiritual food consists in knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom. These are what quicken and also sustain spirits and angels, who desire them and have an appetite for them as men desire and have an appetite for food when they are very hungry. Therefore appetite corresponds to that desire for them.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 4793
4793. Because taste corresponds to a perception of and affection for knowing, understanding, and becoming wise, and because a person’s life is contained within that affection, no spirit or angel is therefore permitted to enter a person’s taste, for if the spirit or angel did so he would be entering the life present inherently in that person. Yet wandering about there are spirits belonging to the hellish crew who are more lethal than any others. Because during their lifetime these spirits became addicted to entering a person’s affections so as to cause harm, they also retain that desire in the next life. They endeavour in every way to enter a person’s taste, and once they have done so they take control of him interiorly, that is to say, of the life belonging to his thoughts and affections; for as has been stated, these correspond, and things which correspond act as one. Very many people are under their control at the present day, for at the present day interior obsession takes place, but not exterior obsession as in former times.
[2] Interior obsession is the work of this kind of spirit. The nature of it may be seen if people pay attention to their thoughts and affections, above all to their inward intentions which they fear to reveal and which with some are so insane that if they were not kept in check by external restraints – which are position, material gain, reputation, fear for their life and of the law – they would plunge more than the obsessed themselves into murder and pillage. Who these spirits are, and what they are like, who obsess such persons interiorly, see 1983.
[3] To enable me to know all about it, those spirits were allowed to try and enter my own taste, which they strove to do with utmost endeavour. At that time I was told that if they did indeed penetrate my taste they would also take control of me interiorly, because taste is dependent through correspondence on what exists interiorly. But they were allowed to do it solely to enable me to know all about the correspondence of taste; for they were driven away from there in an instant.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 4794
4794. A spirit, or human being after death, has all the sensory powers he had while living in the world, namely sight, hearing, smell, and touch, but not taste. Instead of taste he has something analogous to it, linked to the sense of smell. The reason he does not have taste is so that he can be prevented from entering man’staste, thereby taking control of him interiorly. Another reason is to prevent him from being diverted by this sense from the desire to acquire knowledge and wisdom, and so from spiritual appetite.