Arouse Your Senses | George Sideras | TEDxDaytonSalon
[Music] so tonight we're gonna have an experiment in the in the lobby at the intermission and it's gonna revolve around the use of our senses as we all know we developed our senses to help us navigate and interpret the world around us but as a chef what I found be able to create a truly memorable dish was to be able to engage the five senses so we have sight that old axiom we eat with our eyes right there's there's touch the texture of the food upon the palate their sound that satisfying crisp eNOS crunch of a great potato chip there's also taste which is the sweetness of an apple pie and then there's smell you know that a room of a roasting chicken in the oven now one of the great tools I have as a chef is be able to control and manipulate aroma for we know that aroma comprises about 80 percent of what we can taste but more importantly aroma is a vital survival skill there's a direct relationship between the sense of smell and memory without that memory we would never be able to identify those foods that were beneficial even more importantly those foods that were less than desirable some evolutionary biologists have suggested that women present possess a greater sense of aroma recall and this probably stems back to our days as a nomadic Wanderers when women were often the purveyors of new food into the diet one can only assume that the men were out hunting or watching TV interesting enough it's been recently suggested that there's an inherent aspect of memory and and smell and aroma that it's embedded in our genes this is called primal flavors I think of the aspect of grilling meat you have muscle grilling on an open fire fat dripping into those coals waving and combining with smoke and what it does is it provokes a a physiological response of salivation and there's a hormonal response that drives anticipation and it drives hunger but what's really fascinated me about aroma recently is because it's got this hardwired nature to our memory is it has it has the opportunity to trigger memories and as I get older I find that a Roma's continually trigger more my long-term memories for example I can be cooking at the stove and I'm browning butter I add some lemon juice to it and I add some fine herbs that aroma coming out of the pan is caramelize ations it's the sweetness of the caramel it's the vanilla it's the sharp note of the citrus it's that or baisha snare of those herbs and I'm immediately transported back in time transported to a place called the maisonette in Cincinnati that was a line cook there and immediately I'm surrounded by the controlled chaos that's going on around me the heat and the sweat is on my face and the chef is bellowing at me for yet another Dover sole Holliman year hmm tonight tonight we're going to provide you that opportunity to use that time machine in the lobby we have three identical tables so no elbowing everybody out of the way and on those tables there's six jars they're all numbered one through six each jar contains a different aroma what I would like you to do is open the jar pass it around your nose and close the jar write your impressions down on this form or your memories for what you think it is if you're we're interested in after the intermission about sharing some of these memories so if you have a profound memory that you'd like to share please give it to the volunteer at the table and quickly work your way through because this is going to be a groundbreaking experiment here what I would also want you to keep in mind is if you have trouble smelling we call that sensory adaptation that sometimes you get overwhelmed with smells think of that last Thanksgiving dinner you're in the kitchen you're surrounded by the smells of the day you sit down and you're just not hungry it's not a hunger issue it's an aroma issue so on the tables there's a small jar of freshly ground coffee I want you to take that jar and take some great big deep breaths in that and that'll reset your nose and you can continue on with the tasting that's a trick I learned from the old perfumer so we're gonna start intermission we've got some light snacks out there for you we have the ever-popular cash bar I'll be elbowing you out of the way there and of course we've got the aroma experiment please come back the intermission is 25 minutes we are going to have four more dynamic speakers and I look forward to seeing you thank you very much for your kind attention [Applause] [Music]