This article comes from the magazine Sciences et Avenir – Les Indispensables n ° 205 dated April / June 2021.
“Milk white and black truffle“. The dish of the three-star chef Michel Trois-gros is disconcerting: an immaculate milky skin, split in the center by the butler, reveals to the eyes of the guests an almost telluric truffle pesto. An achievement which, according to its author. , is inspired by the works of contemporary painter Lucio Fontana. An unmistakably “gourmet” dish. But what, exactly, is gastronomy?
A gastronomic experience mobilizes all the senses
“There is no consensual definition of it, but we can say that it is ‘good food’, with a noticeable degree of culinary creativity”, suggests Jérémie Lafraire, researcher in cognitive sciences at the Paul-Bocuse Institute in Lyon, a school that combines catering, training and research. A gastronomic experience mobilizes all the senses. It begins with a “waiting effect”: knowing that you are going to dine in a renowned establishment, then perceiving the atmosphere – the noises, the colors, the smells, the design of the place and the dishes, the presence. from other customers – influence perception of food.
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“A very difficult phenomenon to measure, because they are small effects sensitive to individual variables”, Jérémie Lafraire, however, warns. When the dish arrives, the sight takes over the other senses. “We taste first with the eyes”, would have already said Apicius, Roman gourmet of the 1st century. And we expect to recognize what is on our plate. Familiarity synonymous with safety, especially when it comes to food. “This is what conditions acceptance in children, explains Jérémie Lafraire. We adults appreciate the unknown … provided the context has prepared us for it. In a gourmet restaurant , there is a form of contract. And an attitude of ‘submission to authority’: we agree to rely on the chef’s culinary expertise. ” The British troublemaker Ben Churchill, with his desserts in the shape of a scraping sponge or ashtray filled with cigarette butts, pushes the terms of this contract very far …
Red foods perceived as high in calories
More commonly, the colors of a dish, gourmet or not, play a major role in its acceptability. Thus, in 2016, a team of neuroscience researchers from the University of Trieste (Italy) submitted images of various foods of red or green color to volunteers, to be classified on an emotional intensity scale. All of them put red foods on the highest step. The latter “awaken” our brain favorably, by activating a region of the brainstem, the reticulate formation. They are perceived to be high in calories. Green, on the other hand, has a negative effect, and the foods presented were considered to be of low energy density. A heritage that comes to us from afar: hunter-gatherers, who have acquired the ability to recognize ripe fruits rich in sugar. Familiarity, color and caloric potential are analyzed extremely quickly by the brain: no more than 200 milliseconds!
After this almost instantaneous reaction, and before bringing the food to the mouth, the sense of smell also comes into play in the perception of a gourmet dish… but less than in the past. “The bell service, under which the aromas are concentrated, and which is only raised at the last moment by the butler, has fallen into disuse” , regrets Jérémie Lafraire. Much more trendy among starred chefs: intermodality, in other words the way in which one direction can influence another. Experiments have shown that the crunchiness of a crisps – which calls on the hearing and the touch – enhances the taste experience. As well as the way to arrange the elements of a dish on the plate. This is the “dressage”. Charles Spence, director of the Intermodality Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford (United Kingdom), carried out an original experiment in 2014. A rather sophisticated salad, made from 31 ingredients by the Franco-Colombian chef Charles Michel, was presented to diners in three ways: loose on the plate; arranged in a neutral manner; and arranged “artistically”, after a painting by the Russian painter Vassili Kandinsky, one of the pioneers of abstract art. Each participant was invited to taste one version of the salad, without knowing the existence of the other two. Result: before tasting, the “artistic” character was recognized by the participants to whom the salad had been presented in this way. They even declared themselves ready to pay more for this dish than the other candidates for the other versions. “But there is more astonishing, emphasizes the researcher. After tasting, the participants gave better taste scores to the ‘artistic’ salad, although its composition was identical to the other two in all respects. “
To enjoy seafood, the sound of the ocean in an MP3
The mechanisms of intermodality are still poorly understood. But “the major brands in the food industry are already carrying out multisensory research with wine, chocolate, etc. The objective is to make the tasting more intense, by associating it with a particular sound environment, in order to strengthen the identity of the brand”, continues the psychologist. On the gastronomic side, the latter carries out numerous experiences with the three-star chef Heston Blumenthal. A seafood dish was thus presented to the guests wearing headphones connected to an MP3 player… hidden in a shell. During the tasting, half of the guests listened to the sound of the sea, the other half to the sounds of farm animals. Result: the former placed the dish higher on a scale of flavor intensity.
Is this form of “enhanced gastronomy” set to develop? One thing is certain: with the vogue of posting food that you are about to taste on Instagram, the “visual” is playing an increasingly important role. Two American marketing researchers, Sean Coary and Morgan Poor (Saint Joseph University, Philadelphia), published work in 2016 which suggests that if the dish has been “Instagrammed” beforehand, the immediate taste experience is more intense, just like the memory that we keep! “It could be a way for the guests to remember a ‘tasting menu’ made up of many dishes, imagine Charles Spence. But at the risk, if the images are shared on the networks, of attenuating the effect of surprise inherent in any gastronomic meal for future customers of the restaurant. “
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