Sunday, July 30, 2006

Written by Rachel about taste memories.....

I can enjoy food just having it in my memory.......can you? I bet everyone has moments where they associate a certain food with a specific time and a special feeling. Mine is a time in college, returning from a family holiday visit. My
roomate and best gal-pal to this day, arrived with a care package from her mother. My anticipation of what a mother might pack for her daughter returning to college was nothing compared to what we got. After our long drive from the New York/New Jersey area to Boston where we went to school, the care package was revealed. It was, in addition to a great chicken soup that her mother was known for, a fully cooked, ready to eat, roasted turkey. I remember sitting at our kitchen table, ripping into the turkey with our hands, eating all our favorite parts and enjoying the freedom to do that, versus: sitting at the table, politely eating a bunch of side dishes, that serve to distract from the main draw,then rarely get the part of the turkey that you most wanted. That feeling and the taste of that turkey has stayed with me to this day,and I try to incorporate as many of those kinds of feelings as I can in a day! Don't you?

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Rachel writes: What is your perception of taste based on?. How much of what you taste is determined by what you see? Does a yellow carrot taste the same as an orange one or purple broccoli taste like the green one. Tonight David and I made a tandoori chicken from ingredients that we mixed together instead of a pre-mix. There was no red dye in it and some tumeric which gave it a yellow color. David asked me if we should add the red color, and I thought about it and said, Why, the color shouldn't matter! Darned if it didn't taste right to me after that. I couldn't get passed that it wasn't red. It tasted good and the ingredients were correct, but it looked wrong. I also had a yellow tomato and it didn't have the same depth of flavor as the red one. Now I get why things are tasted blind. What you see definitely makes an impression and could influence your opinion. I have heard that if you taste wine in a black glass, it is hard to determine red from white wine. They also taste olive oil in a blue glass so you cannot see the actual color which might influence how you think it tastes. I guess we really do eat with our eyes before we ever get to taste. If we are so easily fooled by food colors, what else might not be as it seems? Something to ponder.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Rachel at "A Matter of Taste" writes:

Thinking about what I may get to eat, is as exciting as actually eating sometimes. One of my favorite cuisines to eat in a restaurant, is Vietnamese, particularly at PPQ on Irving between 19th and 20th Avenues in San Francisco. When I know David and I are on the way there, my mouth starts salivating with the flovors I know I am going to have. Then at the restaurant, I order the curry chicken noodle soup and wait with all the patience I have for it to arrive. Then, suddenly in a waft of flavored air, the soup is ready for my indulgence. Moist chuncks of chicken, cellophane noodles in a broth of spicy but tame coconut and curry bliss. I savor every bite and just about drink the puddle in the bottom of the bowl. No checks, credit cards or stories, cash only. Life is good!