1. The Hot Potato Recipe Book.
A lovely small intervention in
the on-going debate about asylum seekers in Australia. Can’t wait for the food
cart to get to Sydney J
http://thehotpotato.com.au/assets/pdf/HotPotato_RecipeBook.pdf
2. Le diner des sons
“Transformer de l'electro en
plats haute gastronomie, c'est possible. A Oslo, le producteur norvégien
Lindstrøm et un chef étoilé l'ont fait.
Quel rôle joue la musique en cuisine?
En général, celui de fond sonore pendant la préparation, parfois aussi au
moment de la dégustation. Et pourquoi ne pas la mettre au milieu de
l’assiette?”
My French is worse than useless
but I got the gist of this, particularly looking at the images and listening to
the tracks. Old fogies warning: The music is heavily electronic and beat
driven. Can’t see any reference to the Futurists in the story and it’s a whole
lot tamer and less humorous than the wonderful meals described in said group’s
cookbook.
http://next.liberation.fr/musique/2013/08/14/le-diner-de-sons_924574
3. Fast food scans
Compelling and repellant in about
equal measure.
http://bit.ly/1eYXDSP
4. Op shop cookbook recipes serve up
lashings of 70s nostalgia
“It's an alien style of cooking.
We've become more conscious about what we eat and how we cook over the years,
but it's also clear that we are much heavier on flavour. The growth of
immigration, foreign travel and the fusion of Asian and European tastes have
made us expect that added kick to almost everything we eat.”
I am always grateful that by the
70s I was living away from home in student houses where eating ethnic was both
a cheap option and some kind of commitment to being multicultural. Many of my
student friends were first generation Australians and we would take it in turns
to cook from our home cuisine. I was regularly called on to make curries.
Similarly, when we went out it was ethnic restaurants that were popping up all
over the place; again because they were cheap and certainly because they were
full on hits of flavour that many of us did not get when we went back home to
do our washing once a week or receive our allowance. I was lucky that dad used
my visits as an excuse to cook his curries which I would then adapt back in the
group households. When we made things like curried egg or French onion dip it
was for those parties where everyone drank out of casks and smoked rollies
topped with mj and these creamy mayo heavy dishes that could be scooped up with
Jatz or water crackers (corn chips were yet to appear) were the perfect
accompaniment – easy to handle, rich and absolutely munchies satisfying.
5. Assessing
the influence of the colour of the plate on the perception of a complex food in
a restaurant setting
Flavour 2013,
2:24
No link for this one but I know
you want to know the results of this research.
“The study reported here was
conducted in a real restaurant
(and eating situation) with three different desserts (made from various
elements of different colors, flavors and textures) in order to assess the
extent to which the crossmodal perceptual effects found in laboratory settings
can be generalized to naturalistic testing conditions. Specifically, our
research questions were: Which color of plate will make each dessert seem more
appetizing? Which color of plate will the color intensity of the desserts
appear enhanced? Will the perception of certain sensory attributes (for
example, flavour intensity) be affected by the visual perception (for example,
color intensity)? Will flavor liking ratings be affected by the
appearance-liking ratings? Additionally, will there be a consistent pattern of
results between the different color of plates used, and between the visual and
taste-related attributes assessed?”
Dessert A was
a fraisier (main colors: yellow, white and red), Dessert B was a fraicheur of
raspberry and vanilla (main colors: light brown, white and red), and Dessert C
consisted of a vacherin glacé with vanilla, raspberry and basil
(main colors light pink, white and cream).
The plates
were either white or black.
Conclusion:
‘The present study showed that the color of the plate affected consumers’
perception mainly for the attributes based on visual appraisal (liking the
presentation of the dish, how appetizing the dessert looked and the color
intensity of the dessert). The attributes of the desserts, such as the flavor
and sweetness intensity, were affected mainly by the type of dessert served,
but the extent to which these attributes were affected depended on the plate
(background color) as well. Some of the results can be explained in terms of
color contrast; however, the associations that consumers can hold for certain
colors and flavors (regarding the intensity dimension) can play an important
role too. Therefore, these findings contribute to the emerging literature on
how extrinsic variables can influence food perception, highlighting that the
impact is dependent on the specific food evaluated and that results in real
life conditions can be slightly diminished as compared to laboratory
conditions. Certainly, more research is needed to confirm the validity and
robustness of such results. Nevertheless, chefs can capitalize on these
findings and further exploit the characteristics of the plates in order to
discover potential new ways to systematically enhance expectations, perception
and experience of food, apart from modifying the ingredients and decoration of
the food, and mostly in situations where the plated food is showcased in
advance prior to consumption.’
So there you
have it. I think what was concluded was that the flavour of what you put on the
table will be affected by...er...the flavour.
And there was I hoping that the article would tell me whether or not to ditch my green plates.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the 70s. We too were eating curries and also exploring the Chinatown groceries for unusual flavours - although it turned out to be mostly unusual textures, like cloud fungus and tiger lily buds. Am I remembering that last one right? I think there's still a lot of bland food around though. Ot maybe my tastebuds have been destroyed by too much chilli.