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Eating starts with the senses. Your eyes, your nose, your fingers and tongue - and especially your imagination - all play a part in when, where, how, with whom and why you're selecting, preparing, serving and eating the food you like. Just pay attention to your senses next time you eat an apple: What color apple do you like? What crunch do you expect when taking the first bite? What does the apple taste like? What do you feel inside your mouth, nose, stomach and brain?
Here is an interesting fact: the mouth, containing millions of little taste buds (nerve receptors), only differentiates between five unique tastes: salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami. (The latter word is derived from the Japanese language, means "meaty, hearty, well tasting," and essentially describes the unique taste of protein-rich meat). Differentiating foods by taste enabled early humans to avoid poisonous plants or rotten meat and helped them choose nutritious food instead. Other sensations of the mouth include degrees of spiciness (when you eat hot chili peppers, for example), the temperature of the dish, or when food has a metallic or greasy aftertaste.
The true flavor experience, however, begins with the nose. Prior to eating the nose takes in the aroma, or smell of foods and beverages. Once the food is in your mouth, this sensory organ enables us to differentiate between hundreds of different flavors which, in turn, guide our preferences of what we like and don't like to eat. Try an experiment and hold your nose when eating. You will experience almost no flavor. Then inhale again through the nose and experience all the flavors again. This is why "gourmets, connoisseurs or aficionados" (those who know a lot about food) use primarily the nose to truly appreciate and enjoy the aroma and flavor of good food.
So, next time you eat or drink, be mindful of all your senses and all the different dimensions of the food you eat: the color, aroma, flavor, and "mouth feel." What flavors can you differentiate? How do different flavors make you feel? What flavors and aromas do you like most, or least? Why?
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