The perfect TV dinner? Try going without

Sensory expert suggests mints and barbecued meat for sports matches – and nothing at all for thrillers

IT MIGHT be tempting to settle down with a takeaway to watch Killing Eve or Bodyguard, but according to one scientist, eating while watching a television drama could actually damage your enjoyment.

Prof Barry Smith, a sensory expert at the Institute of Advanced Studies at University of London, is currently working with Twickenham Stadium to discover the best food to eat while watching sport.

He believes the same tricks which work at the rugby stadium to increase anticipation and heighten the senses will also work for people watching appointment dramas or sporting events at home.

For big matches, he recommends sourcing wintergreen mints, which carry a vague smell of liniment and the locker room, to increase expectation, followed by using a “grassy” olive oil to feel closer to the pitch, and barbecued meat to tap into primal memories of rival sportsmanship and celebration.

For television dramas he recommends eating beforehand, so that viewers can give a thriller their full attention.

“People should really be eating before they watch drama,” he said.

“When people eat in front of the television we find that they eat more and they eat faster, because they aren’t really giving full attention to what they are eating or what they are watching.

“So it’s best to eat something that leaves the mouth feeling clean and refreshed beforehand, so something like a cherry sorbet, which is sour and has acidity.

“For years we’ve seen the diets of top sports people analysed and dissected to improve performance, but no one has ever looked at which food best enhances the experience.”

According to statistics, almost half of meals are now consumed in front of television as Britons fit food around their lifestyles rather than lifestyles around mealtimes as in the past.

But it means that they could be harming their enjoyment. And there is the added danger that stimuli from a drama can make food taste worse. For example watching a bloody murder while eating steak is unlikely to aid digestion.

And studies have also found that people eat 15 per cent more when the television is on, because diners miss the sensory cues which tell them when they have had too much.

The problem is worse for boring television programmes, where food intake rises to 50 per cent more.

For drinks, Prof Smith recommends matching wines to the countries or teams playing in a sporting event, or locations in a TV drama.

For a noisy match or drama, a Bloody Mary is best because it keeps its flavour even in boisterous environments. Previous studies have shown that noisy environments, such as in aircraft, damage the sense of taste and the umamirich tomato juice is one of the only flavours that survives.

And if watching films in the air, Prof Smith has discovered that high-altitude wines – such as an Argentine Malbec – tend to be rated higher on taste tests than when they are on the ground, which he speculates is because the atmospheric conditions on the mountains where they are blended are similar to in an aircraft cabin.