There is a huge difference between taste and flavour. We tend to believe that the enjoyment gained by food comes entirely from the mouth through taste, but that’s just a misconception. Our nose and the sense of smell have a big contribution and although there are only five tastes that mouth can detect, there are thousands of aromas. The combination of taste and aroma makes up flavour. When great chefs from around the world realised this fact, they tried to think of ways by which to incorporate, enhance and intensify aromas in their creations.
One of the first to attempt this was of course the innovative Heston Blumenthal at his restaurant The Fat Duck, in England. One of the dishes included in the degustation menu, named Jelly of Quail, Crayfish Cream aims at creating the illusion of a forest scene. This is achieved by the use of dry ice, which is ice that sublimates at -78.5°C. When it comes in contact with a hot liquid it evaporates in thick mist giving out the aroma of the liquid. So a wooden box arrives at the table together with the plate, where the dry ice sits in solid form under a surface of oak moss. Then, hot water from a cast iron kettle is poured onto the moss, the dry ice melts allowing the forest fog to flow over the table with some additional smell which refers to wet soil and trees
Grant Achatz at the renowned Alinea devised various ways of enhancing the aroma of a dish and hence its flavour. In a dish containing sweet potato, brown sugar, bourbon and cinnamon fragrance, a smoking cinnamon stick is coming out of the top of the dish and it is used as a handle. Even though you don’t taste cinnamon, you still get the fragrance of it while you’re eating cinnamon stick comes close to your nose. In another dish combining lamb with the fragrance of rosemary , the diner is presented with a brick where three small sizzling bits of meat are topped with various garnishes. The diner can feel heat emanating from the brick so and when the rosemary sprig is inserted into a small hole at one end of the brick, it lights up and almost immediately the air fills with the scent of rosemary.
