Testing Taste

The above is the aftermath of today's tasting activity. If you spotted the cotton balls and wonder if I tried to feed them to unsuspecting blindfolded senior citizens, let me assure you it was much more interesting and less devious than that.

I cut up four fruits: apples, oranges, bananas, and my own garden-fresh cucumber and asked everyone to first smell and then taste each. We wrote down observations then tried the four again, only this time with a cotton ball that had been saturated in vanilla extract in front of our noses. The novelty of smelling food before we ate it would have been interesting enough (when is the last time you took time to smell food you're about to eat?) However, the difference between the foods we could smell and the foods that were overpowered by the vanilla scent was quite noticeable.

I went on to say smell is a big part of taste that we might not always be aware of. Then I made the joke that I was a spy from the kitchen, and did this activity just to make sure that no one with smell problems made any complaints about the food. I used the example of losing sense of smell as a side effect of a cold, but really I think loss of smell is a big general issue with older people. If they aren't aware of their deficit, they might be dissatisfied with food unfairly.

Afterwards we lingered around the table and I mentioned that during wine tasting you clink your glass to involve all of your senses: smelling the wine, feeling the glass, watching it swirl, tasting a sip, and hearing the clink. We talked about how it would change the way we ate if we tried to involve more of our senses. One woman mentioned the Korean-style of eating from a variety of dishes with your group which made me think of a sixth element: the social aspect of discussing what you are eating. How much different sitting around in a group, sniffing your food and talking about it would be to scarfing down a meal while driving to work!