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Articles

The 6th Element of Taste

 Bowl of cold soup
Vollrath Guest - Chef Seth VanderLaan -

For the longest time, I thought the food I made tasted great because I was able to find the delicate balance of salt, fat and acidity in each dish using a perfect mix of classic and modern cooking techniques.

I focused on mastering the basics early on: incorporating textural contrasts and visually appealing plating methods as I honed my craft. I became well-versed in the 4 known basic taste elements: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. I also did a deep dive into “umami”, often debated as the 5th taste element, which characterizes savoriness. If you are not familiar with umami, think of the rich meaty characteristics of a warm chicken broth.

I could describe how all of the 5 elements of taste work in harmony to create the ideal bite, but I knew it was not a perfect formula. Why would a certain dish taste so good to me, but not to someone else? Outside of food allergies and disdain for certain ingredients, why would someone appreciate a perfectly prepared dish more than another?

When it finally clicked, it was so obvious. Emotion… how one feels when eating a dish. For me, that was enjoying my late grandma’s fresh cinnamon rolls or my mother’s goulash or the (fresh out of the box) Jello brand cheesecake around the holidays. It’s something that is part of your soul that only you and likely your close family and friends can describe. It’s personal, hard to duplicate, and it’s the greatest thing you'll ever taste.

The best chefs are able to put the freshest seasonal ingredients together in a menu that appeases both new and returning diners. They are able to do it continuously, without too much repetition of techniques or ingredients. They do this by balancing the natural tastes of these ingredients with spices, herbs, vinegars and fats. This is how great chefs stay relevant and this is how great chefs evolve. Taking what nature has given them at its peak ripeness and supplementing it with background notes to achieve balance.

But how do you add someone else’s emotion to a dish? You can’t -- and that is a beautiful thing! I know a lot of chefs and non-chef food lovers who travel the world in search of new ingredients and techniques. They eat at the best Michelin-starred restaurants and share knowledge in search of inspiration, seeking to further their education and fill in their recipe books. I love watching what these chefs do once they return home and brainstorm with their teams. I, however, take a different approach.

I travel to further understand the emotional connection between locals and their cuisine. I bypass nearly all restaurant recommendations and instead find myself sitting opposite a young boy and his mother at a Bangkok sidewalk food cart. He is smiling and laughing as he plays with his toys and eats from his mother’s som tam (green papaya salad). He is looking over at me as I am clearly sticking out like a giant, burnt, sweating sore thumb on this 105 degree day.

My plate of noodles is delicious, but I am eating vicariously through the boy watching him truly enjoy what seems to be a regular comforting meal for him with his mother, sans the giant sunburned farang (foreigner) sitting across the table. This exact moment brings me that sixth taste and completes the perfect bite. Watching him transports me back to the dinner table with my family and I am now able to feel the emotion in my food. The combination of childhood memories, captivating culture, and expertly wok fried noodles will burn into me faster than the thai chilies will. Memories of that week spent eating nothing but local foods on a Bangkok sidewalk, experiencing moments similar to the one above, will outlast thoughts of meals in any brick and mortar restaurant.

It’s easy to feel these emotions while eating surrounded by family and friends in familiar places -- like coming home for the holidays. But to experience taste outside of these comfortable domestic gatherings requires an open mind and heart. You have to embrace both the craft that went into preparing the food and the likely unfamiliar surroundings of a new restaurant, a new country, or an unfamiliar kitchen at, say, a co-worker’s dinner party.

In your home country, try asking the chef why they created a dish before indulging yourself. Regardless of where you are, understanding the meaning of a dish and soaking in all the other elements in your immediate environment will help open your mind to emotional eating.

Emotional eating has a negative connotation in our culture and tends to be understood as overeating due to stress and/or sadness -- which is not at all the same as tasting emotion in one’s food and surroundings. Our culture has evolved from daily meal time gatherings filled with camaraderie and conversation to isolated convenience eating on the couch. But even when eating by yourself, you can still experience emotional dining. You don’t even need to speak the same language as those around you.

When you find yourself in an unfamiliar place, open yourself up to the experience and immerse yourself in it. Ask questions (if you can). Do your best to understand the food and soak in your surroundings. You don’t need to do this every time you dine out, but doing it every so often can open you up to new cultures, new conversations, and quite possibly new favorite foods.

Being a chef, I always get the question... “What’s my all time favorite meal?”... Besides that pad thai on the Bangkok sidewalk:

  • Pork tamale - bought out of a local’s backpack on a beach in Havana, Cuba
  • A breakfast of snails and champagne in Paris with a hangover caused by beers consumed in London.
  • Ceviche - from a guy on a scooter in Jaco, Costa Rica
  • Arepas - on the wall in Cartagena, Colombia
  • My grandma's cinnamon rolls
  • Eating my mom’s goulash with my brothers
  • Jello brand cheesecake

What’s yours?

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