cf
charles’ fugue
a multisensory experience in five rounds
Synesthesia, a rare condition that causes one sense to be activated by the stimulation of a different sense, has been observed in cases linking color with sound, color with letters, or numbers with spacial perception, among others. This marvel is viewed as a neurological phenomenon, but it is factual that everyone possesses synesthesia to a small degree. Truthfully, all five senses overlap in the human mind, their links impacting the perceived enjoyability and experience of dining specifically. Different smells, sounds, and sights present while eating can cause a meal to seem wonderful or disappointing, and can even coax the other senses into interpreting food in a particular way.
It is intriguing to think of these findings as synesthetic or “magical,� but it is important to note that in reality they are the result of the brain recalling past associations between taste and the other senses. Involuntarily, the brain stimulates one sense if it is reminded of an experience involving another sense. Ice cream trucks play high-pitched songs, subconsciously causing one to perceive food as sweeter when listening to high-pitched music. Red wine is often bitter in flavor, causing one to subconsciously taste all red-colored wines as somewhat bitter, even if the red results from dye. Charles’ Fugue is a multisensory dining experience aiming to explore the interplay of the five senses and their rolls in comprehension of taste. It aims to evoke appreciation for the tremendous impact of sensory stimulants on the perception of flavor and the pleasure of food.
who is Charles?
Professor Charles Spence is an Oxford University psychologist and the head of the school’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory. He has published over 500 articles on sensory modalities and provides leading research on the subject. Currently, he also acts as a consultant for several multinational companies for multisensory design and marketing.
“our brains constantly combine information from different sensory modalities in order to make sense of our environment.” —Professor Charles Spence
Beethoven
round 1
avocado cucumber soup
an experience in touch avocado temperature
cucumber garlic lemon sour cream served both heated and chilled
Temperature provokes a variety of reactions from the human body, heightening and lessening the senses, including taste. Simply warming the tongue can influence some people to perceive something sweet in the air, while cooling it can give the impression of saltiness or sourness surrounding. What’s more, one is much more able to perceive flavors intensely when warm than when cold. Hot cucumber soups ordinarily include vegetable stock, chicken broth, onion, or lamb to add sweetness. The two soups served in this course are identical, focusing on the typical salty quality of chilled cucumber soup and the noticeable difference with temperature.
round 2
ginger steamed broccoli
an experience in scent broccoli addition
ginger garlic fish sauce served with nose plug
When you are ill with a stuffy nose, you may notice that your sense of taste decreases. This is largely in part due to the fact that smell is one of the largest contributors to taste. We smell through two pathways, the nostrils and the esophagus. The combination of smelling and tasting gives food its true flavor, and leads us to describe nonedible items with flavored words. The scent of a rose is described as sweet although it is never eaten. While the steamed broccoli is cooked with ginger, the spice is difficult discern when blocking scent pathways. Since aroma is debatably the strongest identifier for ginger, it enriches the dish greatly when introduced suddenly.
round 3
rosemary crusted lambchop
an experience in taste lamb loin rich
porcini mushroom rosemary leaves garlic black pepper sea salt served with a blindfold
If you have ever wondered why airplane food tastes so bland, it is more than likely the result of unpleasant loud noise that decreases taste perception. Umami, however, the newly accepted fifth taste, is immune to changes in pitch and loudness. Umami is the taste of savory flavors, present in many mushroom, parmesan, and tomato-based foods— which alludes to the reason many people on airplanes order drinks they rarely desire, such as Bloody Marys. Umami-based dishes are often very flavorful and are perceived as incredibly rich due to their sense-resistant flavoring. By wearing a blindfold and concentrating entirely on taste, one can fully savor the ingredient.
round 4
orange and beet jelly squares
an experience in sight blood orange expectation
beetroot gelatin served in their natural colors
One of the brain’s most powerful associative elements is color. In the case of beverages, clear colored drinks are perceived as more pure and clean due to association with clean water, while brown and dark colors are perceived as dirty due to association with contaminated water. Adding red to a clear liquid will increase its perceived sweetness due to association with red berries. The brain cannot help but assume orange jelly, the color of an orange, will be orange-flavoried, while red jelly, the color of a beet, will be beet-flavored. Unexpectedly, blood oranges produce red juices, and yellow beetroots appear orange, a color-reversal that startles the brain and taste buds.
round 5
chocolate mousse
an experience in sound cocoa pitch
egg butter sugar served with a high ambience and a low ambience
Due to the brain’s recollection of past experiences and judgment of environmental factors, sounds are able to modulate taste perception. High pitched sounds cause food to taste sweet, while low pitched sounds cause it to taste bitter. Sonic properties are not literally altering the taste of food, but the qualities impact how it is perceived. Sweet, pleasing high pitches involunarily cause one to imagine sweet flavor; low, mysterious pitches bring out the opposite. When listening to the high-pitched track, the rich mousse tastes a bit sweeter, and when listening to the low-pitched track, the pudding is perceived seems somewhat bitter.
Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Great Fugue, Opus 133, is a fast paced, joyful melody connoting regality in its sharpness. This meal offers the thrill of choosing a path, offering two options for the diner in many instances, in hopes to promote the brain to compare and contrast, realizing the impact of all senses on the perception of taste alone.
www.charlesfugue.com