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I am studying Japanese grammar and believe that ならでは generally translates to "uniquely applying to" or "special to" the noun that proceeds it. I can translate most example sentences but had difficulty translating the below sentence:
この味はおふくろの手作りならでは出せない味だ。
My tentative translation of this sentence is: "This is not the same taste that is special/unique to my mother's handmade food."
Does this seem like a reasonable way to interpret this sentence?
On my phone so this will be an abbreviated answer, but ならでは has two (related) usages:
１ （多く「ならではの」の形で）ただ…だけ。「日本ならではの習慣だ」. ２ （多く、下に打消しの語を伴って）…でなくては。…以外には。「下町ならでは見ることのできない光景」
You are probably trying to apply meaning 1, but it’s meaning 2 here (as can be seen by the accompanying negative). It is indeed odd that the meanings are almost opposite one another, but I think it can be sort of unified if you think of #1 as ならでは(できない)→以外には(できない)→だけが(できる). I don’t know if that’s the etymology but it seems possible. Perhaps it’s useful to imagine an abbreviated ない or できない after the ならでは.
This makes your sentence mean something like
この味はおふくろの手作りならでは出せない味だ。
“This taste doesn’t exist outside of my mother’s homemade cooking” (loose translation)
