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The Salmon Pairs Well with Miles Davis
An interesting study sponsored by Unilever took a look at how background music and sound alter the perception of taste. Among other things, that "foods seemed to taste less salty or sugary as the noise level increase – and more so when noise decreases."
The study reminds me of a somewhat different project called sensous tableware developed by an industrial designer who wants to reimagine the concept of tableware. As he describes it:
Nowadays tableware is just a platform for food to be served in; it separates between the table and the food itself.
From this assumption this project was born, when I wanted to share the tableware as part of a sensory experienced meal and by making the diner active by the tableware.
The tableware includes things like a raised plate for steak, which is designed to let juices from meat drip into other dishes for flavor, but also includes a serving dish with a nozzle designed to encourage people to smell their food. The tableware even includes a set of noise canceling headphones to highlight the auditory qualities of food.
But more than sharing a link between the effects of sounds on food, what I think the Unilever study and Sensuous Tableware share in common is a better understanding of the ways that context shapes our perceptions of food. There's some good research into visual design and food choice: A recent article in The Atlantic, for example, highlights how small redesigns to school cafeterias have "increased fruit sales by 105 percent." But research into how our other senses influence taste is much newer.
While no one has yet tested if piping Mozart into cafeterias encourages children to eat healthier food, even the very simple finding--that noise affects perceptions of salt--has some clear implications. As the author of the study on the effects of music on taste notes, "A salad bar chain wanting to serve crunchy salads may find that they benefit from louder music, whereas a restaurant that serves salty food could consider turning the background music down to reduce the need for additional sodium in their food." For that matter, if you want to cut down on your own salt intake, you should go to a quiet place to eat.
The bigger story, of course, is the ability to measure things like sound, the design of cookware, or the visual placement of food, and make sense of how it influences what we eat. Expect those measurements to become an increasingly important tool to understand and influence our food choices.