Many people say that you eat with your eyes first. This means that before
you actually taste the food, or in some cases even smell the food, you can see
the food, and your brain uses your sense of sight to determine how the food will
taste. This means that if the food looks nice and is presented appetizingly, you
are more likely to enjoy the taste of it because it looks as if it will taste
good and also because you have already developed a positive attitude toward that
food. This is why restaurants and catering businesses are so big on presentation.
You may only be getting a tiny bit of food, which is especially the case in
gourmet restaurants, but if it looks really nice, you are more likely to be
satisfied with it. You may also notice that on the packages of products, the
picture on the front always looks really nice and appetizing (and rarely ever
looks very much like what you actually get in the package). This is to make the
product seem more visually appealing so you will buy it. Often you may notice
the words, "Enlarged to show texture" in fine print on the front of food
packages. This is again to make the food product look bigger, better, and
essentially tastier. Let's talk about beans. If you simply dump a spoonful of
steamed green beans on a plate in a pile, they don't really look that
appetizing. Sure, they are perfectly edible, and probably many people would like
them, but they are not very visually appealing. Now, if you meticulously
arranged several green beans in a strategic pattern on the plate, placed a sprig
of parsley on the side, sprinkled some toasted, slivered almonds on top, and
decorated the rest of the plate artfully with a little salad dressing, the beans
will look a lot prettier, and you will probably feel more compelled to eat them.
It's as simple as that. Even food that we already know are tasty, such as
chocolate pudding, really benefit from nice presentation. If you place some
pudding in a small white bowl, then it looks like, well, a blob of chocolate pudding. However, if you place the pudding in a fancy goblet, add a mint leave
or a chocolate filigree figure on the side, and top it with a swirl of whipped
cream and a few berries, then it will look fancier, prettier, and tastier (even
if you actually get less pudding in the end).
Smell is another important sense when it comes to cooking, baking, and
eating. It is said that half of what you eat is actually what you smell. Your
sense of smell greatly contributes to your sense of taste. Without your nose,
you would not be able to taste half as much as you do. Often the aromas of food
cooking reaches our noses before our eyes, and always before it reaches our
mouths. We smell food before we eat it, and if it smells good it is likely to
taste good. Sometimes even if food does not look so appealing, it will still
taste good. And you could be blindfolded and still thoroughly enjoy the taste of
a food. However, this is rarely the case with smell. If a food does not smell
good, it is not likely to taste good because smell is directly related to
taste.
There are two more senses, of course: hearing and touch. We don't really
hear food, we may hear it being prepared, which may affect what we think of the
taste of it a bit. We may hear the whir of a blender, and the sound of an
electric mixer, but these sounds could be associated with a variety of different
foods, and therefore do not really affect our taste. However, the sounds of a
slaughterhouse may turn off our taste for meat. Touch does affect our sense of
taste somewhat, particularly feel. We touch some foods before we eat them, but
many we eat with a fork and knife or a spoon, and don't directly touch them. The
feel of foods on our tongues definitely affects what we think of the foods.
Foods must have a pleasant texture and mouth-feel, they can't be slimy or
mushy. For example, cakes should be fairly light and fluffy with a soft texture.
A heavy, leaden cake may taste fine, but it isn't very pleasant to eat. We all
know that an apple that feels firm and crisp will likely taste much better than
an apple that is soft and mushy.
In conclusion, all of our five senses do have an effect on the taste of
foods and how much we like them.
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