How The Right Cutlery Makes Cheap Food Taste Good

Did you know that even the cutlery you use makes a difference on how food tastes to you? Here is to lightweight spoons and cheese that is saltier when eaten from a knife.

A Game Of Glasses

If you thought that wine glasses at most have to be divided between those for red and white and then happen to visit a friend who sees himself as a wine connoisseur, you’ll probably have a “you know nothing, Jon Snow” moment.

A Bordeaux apparently needs a different glass than a Burgundy, there are whole batteries of glasses just for the different types of white wine, and you better not be caught drinking your Pinot Noir out of anything but a Pinot Noir glass.

The crazy thing is, it’s true, it makes a difference, but it’s a chicken or the egg question: is the taste there because of the glass, or do you imagine the taste because you made the decision to use a specific glass?

Your Brain At Work

Because for our brains perception is important and that goes far beyond the exalted world of wine lovers. Already previously it has been show that smaller plates and taller glasses can make you eat and drink less and now a British researcher discovered that even your cutlery dictates how you perceive your food.

Vanessa Harrar from Oxford University had people eat foods from different kinds of spoons, knifes and even toothpicks and found the following (PDF):

• White yoghurt was reported to be of better taste and quality when eaten from a white spoon
• The same yoghurt eaten from a pink spoon was rated worse
• But a pink yoghurt eaten from a blue spoon tasted saltier
• If a very heavy spoon was used, participants rated the yoghurts as “cheap”
• Cheese was reported to taste “saltier” when eaten from a knife

Fill ‘Em Up

Lesson to be learned: Use small plates and light cutlery and without spending a fortune you can have your friends eat little, still feel full and praise you the cook of the century. A glass of Château Migraine to that! From an Alka Seltzer tube, of course.

Picture courtesy of Tiffany Terry.