Smells and Bells

As an amateur cook, I have learned one thing, sight is what matters more than anything else, now don't get me wrong, taste matters, it matters a whole heck of a lot. But dear reader, would you eat something that looked like putrid vomit or would you eat something that looked fresh, beautiful, and overall appetizing. When I was in a culinary program I was taught one simple thing, we eat without eyes, if the food does not look good than the food in return will not be good. Jumping furthering into my point, think about the last time you went to a nice restaurant and think about the colors, the arrangement of the food and even the plating. Everything matters. For example, you go to a cheap off the highway dive and you order chicken and french fries, it comes out in a red basket with brown paper under a bed of golden french fries and even more golden brown chicken fingers. When looking at the meal your first thought could be "wow, fried, fresh and delicious", at least that i...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Kurutob_eating_with_hands.jpg The presentation from the touch group today made me think about an element of my study abroad that I really enjoyed. In both Tanzania and India, a lot of the food that we ate we ate without utensils, just using our fingers. In Tanzania it was rice, ugali, beans, cooked cabbage, and some other food. And in India it was many of the traditional, well-known Indian dishes like dal, curry and masala. We ate these by just grabbing the food we wanted with our fingers, mixing it around if desired, and picking it up and eating it. Many Indian dishes are served with a tortilla that can be used to pick up food. It was a practice that took some time to get used to, but once I did I found that I really enjoyed it. For one, it was a good way to tell if the food was too hot to eat. But it also meant that we really were connecting with our food on a bit of a deeper level than the disconnect of using a fork or spoon....

The readings for this week about food metaphors and how taste influences religion and vice versa got me thinking about how much our culture uses different phrases to enhance this relationship.  "Those brownies were heavenly." "That meal was divine." "I love soul food" All of these phrases are used both by the religious and the secular yet it is clear where the roots of these sayings are.  Taste has long been involved in religious traditions and the argument can be made that these traditions even enhance the tastes of certain foods.  Although I am not particularly religious, I imagine it feels similar to how egg nog is a highlight of Christmas-time, and turkey seems like a delicacy at Thanksgiving. I believe religious traditions make certain "average" foods (like bread at communion) seem special.  While the definition of taste is "the sensation perceived in the mouth on contact with a substance" I think the taste...