Come back to your senses
Coffee to go. Drive-thru. Eating in the car. Eating lunch at your desk at work because there’s all those emails to catch up on.
Does this sound familiar to you?
Running. Running. Always running. It seems like the pace of our life is spinning faster than ever before, and this has transcended into the way we eat and drink.
It’s not like we necessarily like it this way, but somehow here we are. My biggest criticism, as a sensory instructor, is: are we even tasting what we’re eating or drinking? Really savouring the flavour of that giant latte you just splurged on? Probably not.
And what a shame, when tasting is such an experience.
That’s what I love most about my work. I am able to slow down time it seems, and taste things with my students at a decelerated pace. I can often see something switch in their eyes when I say, “Slow down, close your eyes, and just smell this. Take your time. Spend a whole minute just smelling.”
It’s almost as if they are relieved to have an excuse to do so. I see retailers taking this simple process and being successful. Go to any local winery, brewery, distillery, even tea shop, and there’s the chance to have a sensory experience. A chance to connect back to a primal necessity we all have to eat and drink, and savour the experience of it.
The classic theory behind the art of tasting is using your senses — primarily sight, smell and taste — to do so. Looking at your wine, for example, can give you clues as to its age, its alcohol level, even its health. The sense of smell is the big one. It’s what brings flavour through the nasal passage and also works together with taste receptors on the tongue (sour, sweet, bitter, etc.) to create flavour. We need our nose to bring that full experience to light.
Ever tried a nice piece of dark chocolate cake with a congested nose? Sure you can taste the sweetness and that bitter finish from the cocoa, but you won’t be able to detect that the pastry chef actually incorporated cinnamon into the batter. The flavour isn’t detectable.
Yet tasting is really a full body experience; we actually use all our senses. Touch, like the texture of food, is important to recognize. There’s nothing like the sensation of a silky, perfectly cooked scallop. If it isn’t cooked right, the texture would be your first clue.
There’s a word that the Japanese have called “Nodogoshi” that I love. It refers to the feeling one has of food or drink going down the throat. This, too, is part of tasting.
And then there’s sound. Look at any professional chocolate taster and part of the process is to hold the piece of chocolate to your ear, break it, and listen for the “snap.” That indicates the quality of the chocolate. My son likes to listen to his cereal “snap, crackle and pop” before he eats it in the morning — it actually changes the way he enjoys eating breakfast.
These aspects of our senses are important to recognize, and often us “busy adults” have lost sight of that.
I reflect often on the enjoyment of eating and drinking, and love that there’s an emotional connection to tasting as well. I’m not talking about the joy we get from tasting a flavour we like, I mean physiologically. Sometimes it’s a memory that harnesses this feeling. For example, whenever I smell a traditionally made sparkling wine, where you can smell a yeasty, bread-like aroma, I feel a little pang in my heart. I’m reminded of my childhood where my father would be kneading bread dough, with flour dusting the edges of the counter top that I was too small to see over. It makes me both happy and nostalgic, and I feel that way when I sip the wine.
But that’s my experience, and this is what is so fascinating about tasting. No matter what, we will all taste things differently. We have our own memories, taste receptors and preferences. The best thing you can do for yourself, as Émile Peynaud preached almost 40 years ago in his book Le Gout de Vin, is to slow down and appreciate the process of tasting. Don’t just consume, but enjoy.
So after reading this article, I challenge you to do the same. Put the cellphone down. Take the time. Relish in the experience of using all your senses, and just reconnect. — Kristina Inman is a certified CAPS sommelier and TAC tea sommelier who teaches at Niagara College where she also works on business development for the Canadian Food & Wine Institute.