"Flaky pastry smothered in butter, a pile of raspberry jam smeared over the top and a soft, giving bite as you sink in your teeth; there’s nothing not to love about this fatty, sweet breakfast food that must be married to a cup of strong coffee."
Lines like these are normally heard in television commercials, or found in dessert menus in cafes all over the world. Nothing beats learning about a dessert's texture or taste from the on the qualities of the food that they ate based on the first bite. They would usually talk about the ingredients used, the method of preparation, and the presentation that the chef thought of. On the other end, the viewers would have their mouths watering, or would feel their stomachs growl as they watch other people on screen taste the food that the chefs meticulously prepared.
However, these arrangements and color combinations that the chefs create sometimes show us only the exterior qualities of the food-- our minds are tricked into thinking that food that looks good also end up tasting the same. The truth is that what we see is not necessarily what we taste! I'm sure that most of us have experienced this sad truth in one way or another as we order something that looks delicious on the menu, but actually looks flimsy in reality.
Looks and presentation do not define and predict taste. We should know that, but why do we somehow still fall prey to these false advertisements?
As the infamous chef Heston Blumenthal stated, a multisensory approach to eating is possible so that the sense of taste is altered by manipulating sound, smell, touch, and sight (2006). Scientists, gastronomists, and psychologists have all attempted to explore these relationships, and have reached conclusions such that changing the color of food changes the person's expectations of its taste, or that adding a strawberry or vanilla scent increases the perception of sweetness of the dish (Dematte, 2006; Spence et al. 2014). Sometimes, even the label and the name of the food affects our perception of its deliciousness. Meiselman and Waterman (1978) even went to the trouble of listing down the labels of food that were more favored than those that were more disliked. A food’s visual features not only affect the perception of the food itself but also play a crucial role in driving our food-related expectations and guiding our food choices. The presentation of food and how it appears to us may decide the very important factors for eating: is the food that we are about to eat edible or not, and will consuming it kill us?
Visual cues become reliable indicators of the actual flavor and quality of the food, both in terms of the overall recognition of the nature of the food and also whether the food is in an appropriate state to be ingested (Yeomans et al. 2008). However, when there is a lack of congruence between the expected and actual sensory quality of a food, this may lead to perceptual confusion and so alter the sensory experience itself. When this occurs, the contrast between the expected and the actual sensory qualities of the food will result in a strong, negative affective response, and an enhancement of the unexpected sensory qualities. Simply put, when the expected taste is not met, the individual will end up disliking the food.
This incongruence that exists needs to be examined further, as there are a lot more factors that can be placed into consideration, such as the presence or absence of visual cues ("restaurants-in-the-dark" seem to make full use of this), the orderliness and arrangement of the dish, the ethics that lie behind food preparation (the boundaries of which are fully explored in shows like "Heston's Feast"), and the effect of etiquette and table manners to the taste of the food itself.
We should take note that looks can be deceiving, especially when it comes to the food we eat. As Heston Blumenthal's customers would say, there exists a very fine line between gourmet and poison.
References:
Michel, C., Velasco, C., Gatti, E., & Spence, C. (2014). A taste of Kandinsky: assessing the influence of the artistic visual presentation of food on the dining experience. Flavour Journal (1), 1.
(c) The Kitchen Whisperer 2016
Lines like these are normally heard in television commercials, or found in dessert menus in cafes all over the world. Nothing beats learning about a dessert's texture or taste from the on the qualities of the food that they ate based on the first bite. They would usually talk about the ingredients used, the method of preparation, and the presentation that the chef thought of. On the other end, the viewers would have their mouths watering, or would feel their stomachs growl as they watch other people on screen taste the food that the chefs meticulously prepared.
However, these arrangements and color combinations that the chefs create sometimes show us only the exterior qualities of the food-- our minds are tricked into thinking that food that looks good also end up tasting the same. The truth is that what we see is not necessarily what we taste! I'm sure that most of us have experienced this sad truth in one way or another as we order something that looks delicious on the menu, but actually looks flimsy in reality.
 |
| (c) Roosevelt's Burgers |
As the infamous chef Heston Blumenthal stated, a multisensory approach to eating is possible so that the sense of taste is altered by manipulating sound, smell, touch, and sight (2006). Scientists, gastronomists, and psychologists have all attempted to explore these relationships, and have reached conclusions such that changing the color of food changes the person's expectations of its taste, or that adding a strawberry or vanilla scent increases the perception of sweetness of the dish (Dematte, 2006; Spence et al. 2014). Sometimes, even the label and the name of the food affects our perception of its deliciousness. Meiselman and Waterman (1978) even went to the trouble of listing down the labels of food that were more favored than those that were more disliked. A food’s visual features not only affect the perception of the food itself but also play a crucial role in driving our food-related expectations and guiding our food choices. The presentation of food and how it appears to us may decide the very important factors for eating: is the food that we are about to eat edible or not, and will consuming it kill us?
 |
(c) Disney's Snow WhiteIn reality, it's not like we know what a poisoned apple looks like. Sometimes, our choice of the right food to eat goes beyond our senses' abilities. |
This incongruence that exists needs to be examined further, as there are a lot more factors that can be placed into consideration, such as the presence or absence of visual cues ("restaurants-in-the-dark" seem to make full use of this), the orderliness and arrangement of the dish, the ethics that lie behind food preparation (the boundaries of which are fully explored in shows like "Heston's Feast"), and the effect of etiquette and table manners to the taste of the food itself.
We should take note that looks can be deceiving, especially when it comes to the food we eat. As Heston Blumenthal's customers would say, there exists a very fine line between gourmet and poison.
(c) SBS Heston's Feast Christmas Special 2015
References:
Michel, C., Velasco, C., Gatti, E., & Spence, C. (2014). A taste of Kandinsky: assessing the influence of the artistic visual presentation of food on the dining experience. Flavour Journal (1), 1.
Spence, C., & Piqueras-Fiszman, B. (2014).The perfect meal: the multisensory science of food and dining. John Wiley & Sons.
Yeomans, M. R., Chambers, L., Blumenthal, H., & Blake, A. (2008). The role of expectancy in sensory and hedonic evaluation: The case of smoked salmon ice-cream. Food quality and preference, 19 (6), 565-573.
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