This article (link) is a good one from Salon titled, “How to be a Food Snob.”
There’s even a slide show you can learn from.
You may have learned about this like I did. There was a trick a lot of teachers did in science classes in which they blindfolded and pinch the nose of a volunteer and had them try to distinguish foods without the sense of smell and sight.
It’s virtually impossible to taste without smell. The article is all about how to train the taste parts of the brain without spending $60,000 on a culinary degree.
One of the best pieces of advice in the article:
Keep a food diary not of what you eat but what you experience. She says, “There’s a pretty big difference between eating and tasting.”
What she means is considering and taking note of the entire experience of tasting: The way the food feels in your mouth, what your beer smells like cold and if it’s different when it’s lukewarm, what you notice with the first piping-hot bite of sauce compared with the last chilled streaks you scrape up before the server takes the plate. Do you feel one sensation more than others as you chew, a citrusy tingle at first, followed by rush of sweet?
Go check out the article and let me know what you think.
I mean, this is Le Café Witteveen. We don’t just talk about events … we like to dig into a good meal once in a while too.
Bon Appétit.
