Crunch, Crackle, and Pop

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2015

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Sound is the forgotten flavor sense,” says experimental psychologist Charles Spence. In this episode, we discover how manipulating sound can transform our experience of food and drink, making stale potato chips taste fresh, adding the sensation of cream to black coffee, or boosting the savory, peaty notes in whiskey. Composers have written music to go with feasts and banquets since antiquity—indeed, in at a particularly spectacular dinner hosted by Duke Philip of Burgundy in 1454, twenty-eight musicians were hidden inside an immense pie, beginning to play as the crust was opened. Today, however, most chefs and restaurants fail to consider the sonic aspects of eating and drinking. That’s a mistake, because, as we reveal in this episode, sound can affect how fast we eat, how much we’re prepared to pay for our meal, and even what it tastes like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So I certainly think that sound is the last sense that anyone who thinks about food thinks
0:07.4	about.
0:08.4	It's always a smell and taste first, that maybe the colour of food, that maybe the textures,
0:12.6	and sounds the one that's left out by food scientists and general public alike.
0:16.8	That's right, we've talked on Gastropod about how sight and smell influence the way you
0:21.3	taste your food, but this week we're all about sound, the forgotten flavor.
0:26.0	This is part two of two episodes you've already heard about how sound might help us
0:29.9	find insects in the field and diagnose sick chickens.
0:33.8	Now you'll hear about how sound might make your toffee taste sweeter, and your pringles
0:38.3	crispier.
0:39.3	I'm Nicola Twilly, and I'm Cynthia Gravers, stay tuned for the secrets of Sonic Seasoning.
0:46.0	The go-to guy for sound and food is...
0:48.6	Professor Charles Spence, I'm head of the Cross-Model Research Laboratory here at Oxford University.
0:54.3	You might be wondering just what cross-modal means.
0:57.3	So we've kind of broken the brain down, perception down into each of the senses, but a growing
1:01.8	area of research is highlighting just how much the senses talk to each other in our mind.
1:07.8	And how if you change one sense, it can have a profound impact on what you experience
1:14.5	in another.
1:15.8	So for example, we might find that if I change the smell, as you're looking at something,
1:21.1	it might change how attractive it looks visually.
1:24.0	If I change what you hear, it might change what you taste, if I change what you taste,
1:27.4	it might change what you feel.
	...

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