Those associations can then be used to trigger the reward system even when the perceived reward is smaller than the actual one. Take vanilla. Vanilla isn’t actually sweet. It’s quite bitter. But in the Western world, we have come to associate it with sweet foods, and so, to us, it signals sweetness. When we smell it, our sweet receptors go on high alert—and the food we eat tastes sweeter than it otherwise would.
— Maria Konnikova writes about the emerging field of neurogastronomy and Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant The Fat Duck. Read more at This Man Will Transform How You Eat at New Republic.
Vanilla truly isn’t sweet (if you have ever taste the paste from a vanilla pod, be prepared for a shock!) and in fact Aztec chocolate recipes are deliberately spicy and bitter- they were not sweetened at all!
Exactly.
I truly enjoyed this article. It is fascinating to see how context shapes our perceptions.
Favorite quote: “What we eat and why we eat it is as much a psychological phenomenon as a physical one.” The same may be true for what we smell and why we choose to smell it. 🙂