Day 1 of Week 6 was a relief from the previous week’s hectic and stressful planning. We presented our strengths and weaknesses from the previous week’s event and Chef demonstrated the importance of using salt and pepper to season food. He largely used the inartistic, yet helpful, picture found above to illustrate his points.
There are pores that rest on the surface of your tongue. Your taste buds reside within those porous holes on your tongue. When you eat something, particles, oils and juices flow into the pores, and your taste buds do their job. Salt widens those pores, allowing for more food to seep into them. This allows your taste buds to send signals to your brain communicating flavor at a higher capacity and at a faster rate, therefore amplifying your sensations when you eat.
Pepper, on the other hand, is pain. Your taste buds perceive black pepper, or spicy things in general, as a physical danger to your body, and your brain understands this as being literally on fire. But this is not the case of course. My question is why do people like pain? Most people seem to like some sort of spice on their main entree. It’s probably the subtle feeling of adventure that draws people to things that create a visceral reaction like black pepper does.
Day 2 of Week 6 had us experimenting with tastes. There are five major tastes that your tongue can perceive: Bitter, sour, sweet, umami and salty. Right off the bat people were spitting and choking on their first spoonful of salty water. I love watching people sputter (and I think chef does as well). So funny. But other than the constant complaining that made up this class period, I found the taste testing to be extremely informative. It makes a lot of sense to me now why most junk food exaggerates these flavors to make them more marketable.
AHA Moment
My AHA moment of this week came at the end of Day 2 when Chef asked for volunteers to help out at the Neverland Festival that helps feed 500 homeless children a year. Prioritizing how we spend our time outside of work and school is very important. And it seems to me that a lot of people prioritize things that are generally arbitrary. I’m not saying that you have to volunteer whenever they have a spare moment, but do you really need to update your Instagram so badly that you can’t hep feed some kids that wouldn’t eat otherwise? Putting life into perspective is very important to me, and it saddens me to see so many people who lack perspective.
It’s so easy to sit in this little protected bubble that we call the United States and say you’re a “good person” (whatever that means). But you’re not. And until you come to terms with that reality and start incorporating the inner beast that you are, you will never be able to be genuine in your empathy with other people. We should try our best to be our best every day, and volunteering is a great opportunity to demonstrate your effort as long as you go into it with the right attitude and mindset. As Professor Cauvin would say, “Perception is reality”.
Maison de Gastronomie 