Page 64 - South Mississippi Living - May, 2018

DININGGUIDE
Sight, Smell and Taste Contribute to Enjoyment of Food
o we consume food with more than our taste buds, using the
senses of sight and smell along with the sense of
taste? Two well-known Coast foodies say the way food looks
and smells is definitely important. Alex Perry, chef/owner of Vestige
restaurant in Ocean Springs, said, “Sight plays a huge role in our perception of flavor. Food that is visually appealing primes us with positive emotion and makes us more likely to think something will be delicious. The brain manages all five of our sensory organs and compiles those into specific flavor memories.”
These memories are highly subjective and can produce counter intuitive examples of what ‘pretty’ food is or isn’t. “Take something like chili...a rather unattractive food as it’s just
an expanse of brown. But since we have memories of what chili looks
story by Lynn Lofton like, every time we see it, we react
positively as it looks like what we expect it to, and only when it doesn’t, do we question what we are about to eat.” Perry said.
Food writer/historian/blogger
Julian Brunt says food’s appearance
is extremely important, possibly accounting for as much as 50 percent of the enjoyment of a meal. “There have been many experiments to measure
this phenomenon, even to the point
of dyeing white wine red, and giving
it to experts (they did not guess what had been done).” he said. “Also, many times people have been blindfolded, and given something they said they
do not like, only to report that they enjoyed it.”
Furthermore, Brunt says the visual appeal is why restaurants garnish food. “It takes a sense of composition to plate food properly and sometimes help is needed to give balance and contrast in color,” he said. “A bright
green or red garnish can be a big help, as can a swirl of sauce, usually applied with a spoon. A plate needs to be visually attractive and exciting.”
Perry, who’s been a chef for 12 years, believes that customers are constantly engaging the sense of smell during a dining experience. “One of the reasons we like food to go out hot is because the aroma particles are more active at higher temperatures. This inevitably means more reach our olfactory senses, which play a massive role in our perception of taste,” he said. “It’s the reason food tastes weaker when we have a cold because it takes both an olfactory signal and a taste signal for our brain to interpret flavor.”
He adds that repeatedly eating foods with the same consistency can lead
to palate fatigue. “This is essentially your brain being sent the same sensory signals over and over again, which can manifest in the food becoming boring.”
64 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • May 2018
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