Une série et un projet collaboratif de Sarah Parker et du photographe Micheal Bodiam basé sur les repas des athlètes olympiques. Une mise en scène de leurs assiettes révélant leur alimentation et leur régime. Un rendu très graphique autour des calories, à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.
Aromas, appearance and even noise play into menu development on British Airways
When it comes down to it, says British Airways Height Cuisine chef Heston Blumenthal, “Eating is the only thing we do that engages all five senses.” Certainly air travel provides a challenging forum for a sensory experience, but Blumenthal and his culinary team have risen to the occasion to create the most visually appealing, delicious food possible—even at 35,000 feet.
When British Airways initially set out to evaluate their culinary program, they began at the micro level of investigation, examining the science of taste buds at high altitudes with a series of experiments. In such conditions, which are also hindered by cabin pressure and extremely low humidity, most people lose about 30% of their ability to taste food while flying. Based on their research the team worked to maximize each of the five flavors—salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami—in thoughtful combinations on the menu, without simply adding salt or sugar.
Banishing bland and gooey meals, the team assessed the colors of food to understand how much the visual aspect enhances the meal. Partnering with the Taste of London, British Airways conducted an experiment at the festival to see what flavors people expect when eating certain colors—red, for example, being associated with strawberries or raspberries, orange with oranges, etc. The team placed a new focus on the visual interest of each dish, adding color-rich herbs that look and taste good. Presentation also comes into play when it comes to one’s expectations of a meal based on what they see, so the British Airways team incorporated a menu-design document that outlines the proper plating of dishes to ensure they look their tastiest.
According to British Airways Menu Design Manager Sinead Ferguson, noise is another, perhaps surprising, environmental factor that hinders flavor. Ferguson conducted a unique experiment in which people were served two dishes—both tiramisu—while listening to Italian music, then Indian music. The conclusion: people were more inclined to focus on the music than what they were tasting. Many of the test subjects described the food completely differently, then found out it was the same dessert. The culinary team discovered that the flavors in airline meals have to compete with the noise level on the plane as well.
Perhaps most closely tied to one’s sense of taste is the sense of smell. Because the power of taste buds draw from that relationship, the impact of altitude and humidity starts to have an affect at your nose. To combat the assault on one’s olfactory capability, the BA culinary team decided to add citrus juices to add fresh acidity and brighten scents in various foods. Tom Badcock, director of the cheese program for the airline, uses his lifetime of experience to select the ideal balance of pungent cheese so that they taste great in the air, but sit well with other passengers in close quarters.
In their book The Flavor Bible Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg describe flavor with this mathematical equation: flavor = taste + mouthfeel + aroma + “the X factor”. With a similar holistic approach to their culinary program, the team at British Airways factors in closed cabin at 35,000 feet to their menu creation for all-encompassing good meals.
Why flavor goes flying at 30,000 feet
Airline food has suffered for years as the butt of the joke, commonly characterized as bland and passable at best. There’s a scientific explanation for why sky-high meals feel so lacking, however,and illuminates the special challenge airlines face in combatting the problem. From the time you take off, you’re settling into a low-humidity environment that dries out the nasal passage and significantly reduces the power of your taste buds.
Blame these tiny taste receptors and their dependence on your sense of smell, coupled with the depletion of saliva for the lack of wow factor in high-altitude food. “What most people consider taste is really more flavor, of which the vast majority is really from olfaction—or the sense of smell,” says Doctor Gene Liu, an Otolaryngologist at Cedars Sinai Medical Group. “Our taste buds are little chemical receptors in the mouth and throat and predominantly on the tongue that sense sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami when partially broken down foods within the saliva come into contact with the receptor cells. An electrical signal is then transmitted to the taste centers within the brain along specialized nerves.”
There are several factors that affect the conditions inside an airplane and render it so dry—recirculated air and dust particles primarily—and therefore, the congestion this causes, says Liu, “decreases our ability to appreciate the flavor of the food.”
Each flavor type has its own section on the surface of the tongue: Salt and sweet at the front, sour at the sides, and bitter at the back. Eating in a plane at high altitudes, coupled with the low humidity in the cabin significantly reduces the ability to taste the more subtle components of a meal. A dryer mouth can’t experience the flavors as well due to the reduction in the saliva needed to taste flavors. “When we bite into a steak, if we have a diminished sense of smell, we would still be able to taste the salt, but there would be less ‘steak-ness’ to the steak,” adds Liu.
Knowing how to master ingredient combinations helps combat the challenges of creating flavorful inflight meals. In their book, “The Flavor Bible” Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg describe how each taste affects the other—”…bitterness suppresses sweetness…Saltiness stimulates the appetite, while sweetness satiates it…” in a way that may enlighten the average flyer looking for a tastier meal in flight. Understanding how to combine these tastes for this unique eating environment contributes to creating a balanced, flavorful dish.
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