This article was taken from the January 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
According to first-century Roman gourmet Apicius, when it comes to food, "the first taste is always with the eyes". The latest neuroscience research certainly provides support for such a view, with large increases in activity being reported in a number of brain areas when participants, especially those who are hungry, view images of food.
Several decades of sensory-science research has shown that our perception of taste and flavour can be changed simply by altering the colour of food and drink. Indeed, many a wine expert has been fooled into thinking that they were drinking red wine after having been given a glass of white wine that had been coloured red. In fact, even the colour of the plate, cup, mug or can from which we eat or drink can influence our perception of flavour. In one of the world's largest multisensory experiments conducted with nearly 3,000 participants in London in May, we were able to demonstrate a 15 per cent change in people's perception of a glass of red wine (sampled from a black tasting glass) simply by changing the colour of the ambient lighting from white to red or green.
At the same time, there has been a dramatic growth in the number of people Instagramming images of their food, much to the irritation of chefs. The rise of gastroporn has also been fuelled by the seemingly endless stream of richly illustrated cookery books that no reasonable person could ever find the time to cook their way through. And then there are all those cookery programmes on television. Notice, though, how all of these cases revolve around the "eye appeal" of the food, a trend that can perhaps be traced back to the emergence of the nouvelle cuisine movement of the 60s.
Social pressure to share a meal via smartphone may interrupt the experience -- yet technology also offers great potential to enhance dining. Just imagine a time in the near future, where the seas have been fished to extinction and the actual taste of that yellowfin tuna sushi is just a faint memory. An AR headset would enable the diner to view what looks like their preferred (now extinct) variety of fish while he or she eats another cheaper, non-endangered species (you can see this demonstrated in a video on WIRED's tablet edition). If, as they say, we really do eat with our eyes, then this ought to be an enjoyable culinary experience.
Now, the AR headset isn't the only way to change the appearance of food. A number of researchers have been working on presenting one dish while diners look at another, using QR codes and metacookies printed on rice paper and stuck on top of food.
However, as soon as you take a bite you consume the code and the illusion is broken -- OK for canapés, perhaps, but not what one wants when tucking into what appears to be a juicy steak.
By contrast, the AR headset doesn't suffer from any such problems, for not only can the technology render the texture (of fish, say) beautifully (as shown in the video), but the visual impression is maintained right up until the last bite.
The AR headset can be the digital cutlery of the future, a technology that can enhance, and not simply distract from, our dining and drinking experiences in the years to come.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
