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EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL | Turn The Page #72 | April 2020 | Artichoke
One of my fellow Turn The Page members recently told me that eating fresh, steamed artichokes can make water taste sweeter. My first thought after hearing this was of course: “How can I possibly write a decent editorial about artichokes if I hadn’t tried this myself?”. So I went out to search for the prettiest looking artichoke I could find and steamed it for about thirty minutes. After finishing a bite, I drank a sip of water and experienced a strange kind of sweetness. Strange, because I could sense that it wasn’t the water itself that tasted sweet. I tried eating some other types of food as well : dark chocolate, peanut butter, mangoes. I even stole some of my roommate’s milk. It was quite fascinating.
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After a bit of googling, I found out that the effect is caused by a substance called ‘cynarin’, which inhibits our sweet-perceiving tasting buds. When you drink water or eat something afterwards, the cynarin is washed away and we perceive this contrast as a sudden ‘rush of sweetness’.
The artichoke I ate is just one of the many examples of how our perception can be fooled. That is what this edition of the Turn The Page is about: senses. We discuss agricultural sensors and interfaces with UX Designer Puck Siemering and the benefits of temporarily shutting off your senses are explored in an article about the meditation technique ‘Vipassana’. First up, ‘The Wonderful World of Prop Design’, in which prop designers Pierre Bohanna and Merlijn van de Sande tell us all about how they create the most convincing props for films and commercials. We’ve collaborated loads of different people to create this edition of Turn The Page. It’s a real pleasure to work with individuals who are so passionate about what they do. It gave us lots of energy and inspiration and it taught us many new things. Get inspired and enjoy!
Stein van Veggel
The Turn The Page Committee of 2019-2020
Jorn, Imara, Zacharias, Gijs, Stein, Renee, Maartje, Susanna, Juwe
EDITORIAL | Turn The Page #72 | April 2020 | Artichoke
