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.