The appearance of food and the way we see it influences taste through expectations. Your eyes start judging the food way before your mouth gets a chance to.
Our opinions and expectations are based off our history with food. Our eyes identify a food and our minds decide if we like it or not based on past experiences – thus creating expectations. When our eyes see a fresh-out-the-oven chocolate chip cookie we expect to taste the warm, buttery texture, melted chocolate chips and sugary dough. When expectations are met we enjoy it. If the cookie was warm but grainy and tasted like waffles we likely wouldn’t have the same opinion. Even though waffles themselves are great, your taste buds would have been thrown off by your expectations and the cookie would taste off.
As an example, I love shortbreads. Not sweetbreads. Both are based off of past experiences. My aunt Ruth, who is the greatest cookie maker of all time, used to make the best shortbread cookies you’d ever eat. My memory of those cookies ranks among the best things on this planet. Now in present day I LOVE shortbreads! How they compare to her cookies doesn’t really matter. It’s that nostalgic, buttery flavor that gets me every time. Unless of course they are cheaply made with crappy flavor.
On the opposite end, there are sweetbreads. There isn’t a single more misnamed food in the world. A younger, less-informed me went out to a restaurant years ago and ordered sweetbread. Because there aren’t pictures on the menu and sweet bread is delicious I ordered the appetizer. I was expecting warm bread, sweetened by sugar and glazed with butter. What came out was right out of a mammal. Well, not literally but it was organs. It was cooked – fried – but still. My expectation of warm, buttery bread was not met so when I actually tried it I didn’t like it. From that point on I’ve avoided sweetbreads.
Sight is our first sense when it comes to tasting food. We associate colors and textures to foods and create expectations. It’s a learned experience that you can never get rid of. So, the next time you see a decadent and delicious looking food remember your history plays a big part. And don’t order sweetbreads if you don’t know what they are.