The Nature of Flavour

At our restaurant, we entertain a very broad spectrum of customers, with varying tastes and preferences. One concept that is particularly of interest (and pertinence) to us, is that of "flavour." What defines a dish as "flavourful," or, conversely, as "bland"? To what extent do our values, environment, and general conditioning inform our perspectives on the taste of food?

Toronto is a metropolis teeming with noise, light, traffic and culture. With the abundance of light and sound pollution, we are indeed strangers to silence and darkness. Arguably, this is so for our other senses; our bodies are bombarded with a spectrum of industrial pollutants which fundamentally change the way we experience with our senses. The way we taste is thus shaped by the very air we breathe.

Moreover, western culture invests flavour with paramount importance. Perhaps due to the fact that we are generally overstimulated, and that our palates are to some extent dulled by environmental factors, we are seeking a greater degree of stimulus. The trend of quantity over quality seems to apply to the taste of our food as well as the size of the portion.

Foods that are salty, fatty, or sweet tend to be desirable to the human palate. From a biological standpoint, that is because natural foods exhibiting these qualities are highly valued by our bodies, and are rarely occurring in nature. So the impulse is to take advantage of these commodities while they are available.

However, if you ask anyone who is on a dietary cleanse, they will tell you that they are intensely more stimulating than usual. Their palates tend to be more sensitive to the subtler flavour of raw veggies and fruit, or unflavoured and unsweetened whole foods.

Hence, the pursuit of flavour is not so much in the potency of the seasoning, but in the purity of the palate. Think about what new sounds one might distinguish in the silence of a forest. Just as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," so "taste is in the tongue of the taster."