Which of the 5 senses is most important in eating?

[Gifted Gourmet]

The restaurant’s name is fitting, because an Aprile-orchestrated dinner exercises all five senses. To begin with the sense of taste is to state the obvious ... His prawn seviche, for example, dances on the tongue with a freshness enhanced by ... Moving on to sight could lead to a multichapter discourse, but consider the soup selection: A simple, lidded white bowl arrives ... The sense of touch is fully engaged by the silkiest foie gras appetizer that melts between tongue and palate before it is followed by a chewy chaser of ...refresher of yuzu-spiced water and cranberry slush presents the case for smell, for it comes with a side of hot stone sprinkled with cinnamon ... Finally, hearing comes into play...

Senses Restaurant Toronto, Canada

Robb Report review

Which, if you could select one for your personal dining preference, is the sense which you most value?

I personally would choose sight because the way a dish looks is particularly important to me ... they say a person eats with the eyes first.... when a dish arrives, the harmony of colors, flavors, herbs, the sauce, the whole presentation, when done properly, lets me know that I am in for a treat!

How about you?

[Chris Amirault]

The avantgardiste Futurists, led by Marinetti through the 1920s and 1930s, had meals devoted solely to the sensation of touch.

[jamiemaw]

Without question, smell. Deprived of the sense of smell, our perception of food holds no context whatsoever. Breathing in the aromatics, however, can invoke love at first bite, or just before--and can also flood our memories; smell is the most (sometimes hauntingly) mnemonic of our senses.

While visual appeal might be important, without smell an attractively presented plate is only a pretty girl who knows it. Remember, a decade or more ago when she went through a Brittany-esque 'growth spurt' and started poking us in the eye with teetering faux-Napoleons, vertigo-inducing stacks and rosemary spears? Thank goodness Brittany relaxed, on the plate as well. Now modern presentations look 'landscaped' and we can all exhale.

Interestingly though, smell may not be the most important sense for oenophiles. You might recall that study last year, in which some experienced tasters were unable to distinguish between red and white wines.

Claudio Aprile (the chef at Sen5es--as they logo it) not incidentally, is a very good cook.

Edited July 29, 2005 by jamiemaw (log)

[Chris Amirault]

Without question, smell. Deprived of the sense of smell, our perception of food holds no context whatsoever. Breathing in the aromatics, however, can invoke love at first bite, or just before--and can also flood our memories because its the most mnemonic of our senses.

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A friend just lost her sense of smell because of a brain tumor (she's not in danger of dying, I will add), and there are things that she cannot taste at all, some that are lessened, and others that have not changed a whit. Wine is apparently impossible to drink, as she gets merely the alcohol; citrus fruits explode in her mouth without the forenose of aroma.

[edited to add:] As for sound, while I'm not sure about the role of sound in eating (though I wonder how certain textural components, notably crunch, are affected by our hearing...), I'm very sure that sound in cooking is vastly underrated. For example, all deep frying requires are careful ear much more than a careful eye.

Edited July 29, 2005 by chrisamirault (log)

[jamiemaw]

Without question, smell. Deprived of the sense of smell, our perception of food holds no context whatsoever. Breathing in the aromatics, however, can invoke love at first bite, or just before--and can also flood our memories because its the most mnemonic of our senses.

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[edited to add:] As for sound, while I'm not sure about the role of sound in eating (though I wonder how certain textural components, notably crunch, are affected by our hearing...), I'm very sure that sound in cooking is vastly underrated. For example, all deep frying requires are careful ear much more than a careful eye.

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My fiancée, who is both blessed and cursed with the hearing of a deer, refuses to be in the same room with me when I eat a bag of Hawkins brand cheezies. She says the big ones sound like a rock slide, and the detritus from the bottom of the bag like knitting needles.

[Gifted Gourmet]

the big ones sound like a rock slide, and the detritus from the bottom of the bag like knitting needles.

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So, in this particular case, the sense of sound is a negative? And the sighs of (your) pleasure don't add to her joy as you consume them (the cheezies) with apparent glee? Do the forthcoming marriage vows include the words "until cheezies do us part"?

[jamiemaw]

the big ones sound like a rock slide, and the detritus from the bottom of the bag like knitting needles.

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So, in this particular case, the sense of sound is a negative? And the sighs of (your) pleasure don't add to her joy as you consume them (the cheezies) with apparent glee? Do the forthcoming marriage vows include the words "until cheezies do us part"?

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Totally. The equivalent of 'lipstick on the collar' in our household are smudges of orange cheezie dust around my cakehole.

[Gifted Gourmet]

The equivalent of 'lipstick on the collar' in our household are smudges of orange cheezie dust around my cakehole.

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That is great, Jamie! You might even want to add it to the pre-nup ... one cannot be too specific these days with the cost of litigation rising exponentially ...

[rich]

Obviously it comes down to taste, but before that I think it's smell. Most people will try something even if it's not visually appealing (unless you see a roach walking around the plate). Far fewer will attempt to taste if something just smells awful.

Edited July 29, 2005 by rich (log)

[Metal Spice]

For me, it's smell. If it smells bad, I won't even taste it. Also why I hold my nose when I take Nyquil when I have a nasty cold. When I hold my nose, I can't really tatse it in the true sense of the word - I get the aftertaste but that's it. Food also has no taste to me when I'm congested & can't breathe.

[birder53]

Smell! It can start the ball rolling before you even see the source. Imagine a wonderful cognac filled snifter - the aroma takes my breath away before I even get a drop on my tongue.

[shelora]

The sound of the coffee grinder in the morning is enough to immediately coax me from deep slumber.

Food hitting hot oil - music to my ears.

There are also tactile sensations I enjoy. I love the feel of penne pasta on my flesh. Let me explain.

When I worked in restaurant kitchens, there would be big bus tubs filled with dry pasta. I would enjoy running my hands through them. It felt cool against my flesh and the sound was like water running over pebbles. I've often fantasized about how it would feel to have the same sensation over my entire body - like part of a spa treatment for foodies.

Edited July 29, 2005 by shelora (log)

[jamiemaw]

Smell!  It can start the ball rolling before you even see the source.  Imagine a wonderful cognac filled snifter - the aroma takes my breath away before I even get a drop on my tongue.

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Indeed: One can smell without tasting but not the reverse.

Edited July 29, 2005 by jamiemaw (log)

[Pan]

The easy answer is "taste." Of course, taste actually includes a very important component of smell, as we all know. One counterpoint to that, though, is the durian, which is legendary for its horrible smell, yet -- to those who like it, including me -- can taste very good. And we could talk about stinky tofu, stinky cheese, etc. Surely, people aren't eating those things because of their inviting smell? (Well, maybe some of you weird foodies are. )

[jhlurie]

On first reading this topic, I doubted there was really any acceptible answer OTHER than taste, because otherwise the other senses have no appropriate context in relation to food. There's no sense in processing them, because without taste, food is only fuel, whereas the lack of any of the others doesn't necessary do that.

But then it occured to me that the tactile sense is the only one which is unavoidable. Think about it. The visual component can be easily masked with a blindfold, or by just not looking. The aural blocked by earplugs. The olfactory eliminated by noseplugs. Even taste can be easily blocked, or at least highly altered, by the presense of a countermanding taste. I suppose you'd still be tasting SOMETHING, but it would be a lie.

But short of nerve damage or medication, you can block the tactile. So it could be argued that the "most important" sense is the one you can never escape.

Smell is the sense I'd not WANT to surrender as part of my eating experience. I doubt it's the most important, but it's often the most pleasant.

[jamiemaw]

On first reading this topic, I doubted there was really any acceptible answer OTHER than taste, because otherwise the other senses have no appropriate context in relation to food.  There's no sense in processing them, because without taste, food is only fuel, whereas the lack of any of the others doesn't necessary do that. . . .[EDIT]

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Please see Post # 13, upthread.

[Zucchini Mama]

I think I would go crazy if I could not hear with both my inner and outer ear when I am eating.

I get so much pleasure from the sound of the crunch of my food and the tinkle of my fork on my plate. I would be very sad if that part of the synthesis of the sensory experience was missing. I am also so pleased by a chef who gives me a variety of textures to experience. Food that's all mushy makes me so depressed, you might as well be serving it to me in hell.

Sight, smell, taste, of course. But to a sensual monster, it's the synthesis of these pleasures and the interconnectedness of things like texture and sound that create the blissful experience of eating a great meal.

Zuke

[viva]

Smell is important for me to enjoy food - I hate having colds or allergies when nothing tastes right because I can't smell it.

But to truly revile a food, it's all about the tactile/touch. Slimy, mushy, mealy - nothing invokes horror like a nasty texture.

[mizducky]

Certainly I like my food to look pretty, but there's also a number of beloved foods I can think of that, if one were to go solely on appearance, would send most people running away screaming. Take chopped liver, for instance. I adore the stuff, but nobody can convince me it looks particularly aesthetic (nomatter what shape your bubbe molded it into ). And remember that old saying about how it must have been a brave person who dared to first eat an oyster? So, I can eliminate the visual from my list of senses essential to my food enjoyment.

Now that I think about it, I've been known to eat with gusto even while in the throes of a blithering head-congested cold, when both my hearing and sense of smell were considerably restricted. I've also managed to enjoy food--carefully!--right after a dentist's appointment, with novocaine still making major parts of my mouth feel like pieces of somebody else's body. So I can apparently make do without the tactile sense.

So, I really do think I've legitimately narrowed down my essential food-enjoying sense to that of taste.

Not that I don't thoroughly enjoy the other sensory aspects of eating, when available and functioning properly ...

[Pam R]

Other than taste, smell is most important for me. Sight is nice, but if something smells truly horrible, I can't eat it. If it looks not-so great.. but I trust the person making it, it's ok.

I'm the first one to admit that I may have missed out on some great-tasting things because the smell drives me mad (ie: canned fish. people seem to like tuna and salmon - I tend to gag when I smell it).

The other thing about smell and food is that it brings back many memories. Every Passover when I start baking with cottonseed oil, it sends me right to Israel in my mind. I can smell the falafal and fries that I enjoyed while strolling around. When I walk into work and the 50 lb. sack of onions has been frying for 2 hours, the smell sends me right back to my grandmother's kitchen when I was a child. Even if the food doesn't taste as great as it did in the past, the smell makes me think that I'm enjoying the same things I used to.

edited to add that the only thing from Senses I've tried is their bottled water. It looked clear, felt cold, smelled like clean water, swished when I poured it over ice and tasted like clean, clear and tasty water

Edited July 30, 2005 by Pam R (log)

[mizducky]

I'm the first one to admit that I may have missed out on some great-tasting things because the smell drives me mad (ie: canned fish.  people seem to like tuna and salmon - I tend to gag when I smell it).

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This brings up an interesting side issue--tolerance/acceptance of stinky foods does vary widely. I actually enjoy the smell of lots of foods that other people find objectionably stinky. I never quite understood what various housemates, landlords, etc. found so objectionable about the cooking smells of things like fish, cabbage, organ meats, etc. -- I mean, I respected their dislikes and all, and tried to plan my cooking accordingly; but I could never quite get my brain wrapped around *why* the smells disturbed them so, as they seemed perfectly acceptable to me.