Have you ever heard the expression, “You eat with your eyes?” As a serious foodie, I have to 100% agree on its accuracy. I’ve had plenty of experiences with friends at dinner slopping food on plates to serve, and I’ve always found that completely wrong. Many of them disagree that it even matters what the food looks like on the plate, as long as it tastes good and is edible. I think they underestimate how much visually appealing food has a crazy effect on the mind.
Recently I attended a lecture on the Chemistry of Cooking taken by incredible Flavour Chemist David Baines, who has been developing flavours since the 60’s. In this lecture, he spoke about the topic of The Eating Experience. You say to an ordinary person, eating is simple. You make food, put it on a plate, and eat it. When in reality, there are so many other components that make up the eating experience. He highlighted that smell, appearance and environment were some of the most fundamental parts of enjoying food, and when you think about it logically, it’s true.
This can simply be justified even in the simple scenario question:
Would you rather eat a school dinner splatted spaghetti off of a paper plate, sniffing the odour of garbage from three doors down?
Or… a gourmet style bolognese served on a polished white plate at a candle-lit table with a salad garnish?
Imagine both those situations, where the food tastes exactly the same.
Which setting would you choose?
The much more visually attractive one, of course!
So next time you’re piling your food onto a plate, try making it look visually attractive, and just watch how much of a difference it makes!
Sara Assumani
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Image Credit: Russo Sarah via Flickr
