my person, it absolutely does i love them very much, they are one of my favourite spices

... what?

Make a dish twice, once without the bay leaf. There is an obvious difference. It's fine to not like the taste of any particular spice but saying there is none is sort of crazy?

I wasn't sure myself, so i made a "tea" out of bay leaves to check, and i can confirm that they do in fact have a pretty distinct flavor.

Bay leaf does provide a subtle earthy flavour, but it is also an anti fungal. I guess your left overs will stay edible a bit longer.

It also looks exactly the same as a clove leaf. A shop sold me a bag of mis-labelled clove leafs and my Bolognese that evening tasted most strange

Just smell it (not just bay leaves but whatever). If it has a smell, that aroma can be infused into cooking, though you'll want to make sure it's edible before just throwing it into dishes.

And you might need to sauté them for a bit (also called tempering) to infuse that aroma into oil, since it's not all water soluable.

came here to make a silly comment. i can see im not needed here.

This thread is just going to be peppered with puns now.

Vegetarian soups are still delicious though. Soup is just awesome all around

Leaf on top

Wait, they go to a bay and pick up leaves to put in food? Urgh, yuck!
Why can't they just use the aromatic herb from a laurel tree?

We call them Karen

In Brazil's version of the Shark Tank TV show, they sometimes call for guest "sharks" to show up besides the regular hosts. Once, the founder of China in Box, Brazil's largest Chinese fast food chain (and one of the first in general) was there.

So the participant shows up and his pitch was a device he invented for peeling garlic faster at home. It's basically a blender motor, but with attachments to vibrate the garlic against the container rather than cut through it, so the skin peels off and the garlic is ready for usage. After the pitch, of course, they ask the hosts if they want to invest into their company.

So this guy says "oh no, no way I'm investing into that, it's a kitchen appliance - in ten years, nobody will have a kitchen in their homes, they'll use delivery apps for every meal, they won't ever need any cooking apparatus"

And honestly his comments still fill me with rage every single time.