Month: February 2016

David Eicke

Apprehension:
Having always been a picky eater, I am usually nervous about trying new things. I sometimes will gag on food items if my body finds them particularly objectionable, and the last thing I wanted to do is spit something up in front of my classmates. This was an interesting experience because, while I didn’t really try anything new, I did face the same uncertainty; I knew the tastes would vary from my established mental “database.” The question was: how much? Nevertheless, I was too curious to pass it up.

Experience:
I picked up a grape, a glass of vinegar, a lemon, some dark chocolate, and a tomato. The first thing I tried was a grape, which actually just tasted like a grape. So, initially, I was questioning whether I’d done something wrong. But then I tasted the lemon, and sure enough, it was much sweeter than normal. I did notice, however, that the first split second of the lemon taste matched what I was used to. It made me wonder if that initial contact tasted sour because I expected it to taste sour, and then perhaps the actual signal being sent from my taste buds overrode my expectations. A similar thing happened with vinegar: the smell primed me to expect a vinegar taste, and for the first split-second, I did taste what I’d previously come to know as “vinegar taste” before it started to taste like Apple Pucker.

This experience reminded me of something that happens with my slight colorblindness. I will occasionally see something as green, and then someone will correct me and tell me it’s red, and it will turn red in front of my eyes. It’s almost as if, with this experience, it was my taste buds correcting me.

Regarding Frequency:
I imagine there’s a threshold where something stops being surprising. For example, if some stereotype I have is upset once—maybe a female wins an all-gender weightlifting competition—I’d be really surprised. Then, if it happened again a few months later, I’d be surprised again. But if it kept happening, or if it happened once a year, my surprise would go away. But I don’t think surprise is a function of time, necessarily. I taste things every day, but weightlifting competitions (that I know of) don’t happen every day. I would anticipate that everything tasting different once a year would surprise me each time it happened, since there were so many instances of “normalcy” in between.

Alexander Jones

Existing Taste Associations
Grapefruit – sour, unpleasant, healthy, stringy, pulpy
Vinegar – pungent, intense, versatile, potato chips, salads
Lemon – sour, tart, seafood, salad dressing, zesty, refreshing
Chocolate – sweet, candy, desserts, brownies, rich, decadent

New Taste Associations
Grapefruit – bright, sweet, juicy, effervescent, refreshing
Vinegar – sweet, bubbly, thick, alcoholic, peppery
Lemon – citrusy, tangy, bright, sweet, refreshing, candy
Chocolate – powdery, dry, bitter, unsatisfying, unappealing

I enjoyed this workshop for two reasons. First, I liked that we put into practice some of the concepts we discussed in class. Specifically, practicing articulating our associations with these foods was a valuable exercise in getting me to think about such things more descriptively. Second, I liked how this exercise encouraged us to consider that an experience is more than just visual or auditory communication. Texture and taste can play an important role in the way we experience things, especially food. I went into the exercise with a positive attitude, excited to experience foods in a new way. I think that having this mindset enabled me to be open and honest with the sensations and associations of tasting each item. It was hard not to have any preconceived notions of what things might taste like, which led to even greater surprise when, for instance, lemons tasted like sweet candy to me. I am intrigued to try miracle berries again and show other people how they can completely alter the way food can be experienced.
I think that the tastes we tasted during this workshop are always present in foods. It was just a matter of masking or enhancing certain tastes that the miracle berries facilitated. I think tasting foods like this once a year would help develop one’s palette. This could lead to new cooking experimentation in trying to draw out or combine flavors that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. It could also lead to being able to pick out more subtle flavors or flavor patterns, like a sommelier attempts to do when tasting wines. I am actually very intrigued in trying this kind of experiment during a beer or wine tasting. If food tasted like this all the time, then we would become accustomed to these flavors and would be surprised if, one day, a lemon tasted sour. It would not be inherently good or bad if this was the case; it would simply be an adjustment of what we expected. In this way, both surprise and anticipation are damped when frequency increases. The less frequently we experience something, the less accustomed we are to it, and the more potential it has to surprise us.

Alexander Jones

Part 1

For me, snowboarding is a passion that I’ve felt since the second day I strapped on a board. I say second day because the first day was quite painful, but that second day was when things really started to click. It’s a physical, mental, and emotional release. It’s been a love/hate relationship full of ups and downs, but at the end of the day, I always want more. I love snowboarding so much that I dropped everything to be a ‘ski bum’ and teach lessons for two seasons in Park City, Utah, immediately after undergrad.

I’ve had a number of snowboards throughout my years of snowboarding, and I’ve had a somewhat different relationship with each. These relationships generally depend on a combination of the physical properties of the board and the memories I have from riding them. Each board has a different feel and is better at different types of riding depending on its physical properties. Generally speaking, however, I can say that my snowboards represent to me a part of me that is always striving to be better. That is to say, snowboarding, like any other endeavor, is a never-ending journey of improvement, and each time I step onto my board, I am reminded not only of how far I’ve come, but all that lies ahead. My snowboard calls out to me as a challenge but reminds me of all the fun that I’ve on it. With literally one foot forward and one foot back, I can straddle both the past and future. Of course, the ideal is to be completely present while riding, which my snowboards also have a hand in encouraging as they physically connect me to the mountain.

Snowboards are like a key to nature for me. You can’t ride up a ski lift without a pass, but you also can’t ride up the lift without a snowboard (or skis). In this way, my snowboards have been an instrument of exploration, of discovery and connection with nature. Yes, I have seen many sides of nature without my snowboard, but my snowboard gives me access to otherwise unnavigable areas of the mountain. And not only access, but the ability to interact with the mountain in novel ways. I sometimes think of my board as a paintbrush, and the mountain as my canvas. It is an outlet for creativity and adventure.

Part 3

If we took the time to dissect and observe every object in the world this way, we would find ourselves in a seemingly infinite spiral of analysis. Progress and production, as we define them in the capitalist sense, would grind to a halt as everyone became rapt in contemplation. This is not to say that deep observational-emotional analysis does not hold merit. This is what philosophers do with thoughts, artists do with their subjects, and engineers do with the things they’re engineering (though probably less with the emotional side). I think it’s important to be able to ground yourself and take a step back after these types of long looks into things. Regain some context, as it were. I do think that observing the world in this way holds benefit in that it helps foster admiration and the kind of shoe-gazing wonderment lost on much of the adult population. It also seems to help breath life to the emotions and passions that make us uniquely human, while giving those feelings a handhold in the often utilitarian world in which we live.

I think that more people, especially adults, could benefit from periodically taking this kind of contemplative deep dive into the objects and thoughts they come in contact with so frequently. This kind of analysis would seem to hold great benefit for individuals needing a creative or emotional release from the pressures of everyday life. Conversely, this kind of deconstruction and examination could help incite a creative spark. Most people would stand to benefit from the awe inspired by the complexity of engineering and design hidden behind even the simplest of objects. Given its reflective nature, I think this kind of exercise would be most useful later in the lifecycle of an object of frequent use or one related to an emotionally charged experience. Doing this exercise at a later stage of involvement will help give a more fundamental understanding of the object’s design and emotional attachment. A person cannot have built up meaningful associations with an object until after some time with the object. Surely people might have immediate reactions to new things, but only after some experience with the object can a person more definitely say how it makes them feel.

After having broken down my snowboard into formal steps, I do think that I have an even greater appreciation for how its precise technical engineering makes it a more sensitive medium through which I can experience the mountain. This technical engineering indirectly brings me feelings of connectedness with nature and calmness of the mind. Before this exercise, I had previously known about the different material and dimensional components of a snowboard, but I don’t think I had ever thought about all of them at the same time or how they act in concert to lend to the experience of snowboarding. I have always been grateful to be able to snowboard, but now I feel additional gratitude toward the countless engineers and craftsmen who helped design and manufacture my board.

Teresa Haun

Pre-Berry Associations
Bread – dry, stale, textured, crusty, carbs
Blueberries – healthy, delicious, antioxidants
Lemon – sour, bitter, not good on its own
Almonds – healthy, filling, salty, crunchy

Post-Berry Associations
Blueberries – very sweet, delicious, tastes like candy
Lemons – sweet, taste like an orange, tastes like candy, I want another!
Almond – tastes normal except a little less salty, still just as crunchy and textured
Bread – tastes a tiny bit sweeter , still just as textured and dry

I really enjoyed participating in this workshop and went into it very open to the idea of experiencing a small change to alter my perception of food tastes. I think my openness to the experience changing predetermined associations added to its effect, since the taste differences on some foods were somewhat subtle but I was looking for the differences as opposed to rejecting them. For some foods like a lemon, my associations changed dramatically after having the berry. Lemons are generally a food that you cannot consume on their own, which I found to be the case again before having the berry. Once I had the berry, it was actually enjoyable to eat a lemon and tasted like eating a piece of candy. I even went back to get more because they tasted so good! The blueberries tasted very, very sweet after having the berry and also seemed similar to the sweetness level found in candy. The almonds and bread both had very subtle taste differences pre and post-berry and if I hadn’t been looking for the differences, I think it’s very likely I wouldn’t have even noticed them. The almonds didn’t taste quite as salty as they did before the berry, and the bread tasted a bit sweeter after the berry.

If all food were to taste like it did after the berry just once per year, I think I would enjoy this since I could easily satisfy some sugar cravings without actually consuming much sugar on that day. As the frequency of days increased with this effect, I think I would be less content with the change. I definitely wouldn’t enjoy it if all food was to taste as sweet as it did after having the berry for longer than a day in the short-term, because manufactured food and produce wouldn’t have been adjusted yet. I tend to like savory foods more than sweet foods, so in the short-term it would very tough to adjust to everything tasting so sweet. In the long-term, recipes and ingredients in each manufactured food item like bread could be adjusted to add less sugar from the start, since the berry effects will add plenty of sweetness. For items like fruit in the long-term, I would guess that growers would look to create new varieties that are less sweet, since the berry will make up for the missing sweetness.

Xiaojie Li

If we look at things in the world this way, it reminds me that everything can be dissected. This is also the basis of globalization manufacture. Nowadays 3D printing makes some integrated production possible. However, in terms of forms, almost everything is the combination of different forms.
So, when we are doing manufacture, we need to think of different resources of every parts. Also, we can make improvements through changing some parts of the object, rather than changing the whole thing.
The meaning of the object is connected both with the function and the appearance. For example, there used to be single glasses, but now there are barely single glasses. Also, the design changed a bit through time. However, as the function didn’t change a lot, people still call it “glasses”.

Elena

I got excited about this activity from the moment I read the New York Times article “The Miracle Fruit, a Tease for the Taste Buds”. I had no idea a fruit like that existed! To be honest I think my expectations were too high. Please, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the experience a lot; however, I think my predictions were a little unrealistic. I thought everything was going to taste very different. As a consequence I was not as surprised as you might have expected.

My associations didn’t change dramatically. Probably I got the weirdest ones after eating a grape. What automatically came to mind was: a) sweetened figs, b) something this sweet cannot be healthy.
I think it would be okay if something like this would happen once a year, but I wouldn’t like it to be all the time. I love lemons and limes the way they are! Nevertheless, I’m also aware that sooner or later I would get used to it (it will be the new normal).

Something that would have been amazing (although I’m not sure if possible at all) is not to have been told about the specific effects of the fruit. We could have been prompted to work in pairs. Student A would pick some food from the table, while Student B would eat it with his/her eyes closed (careful with food allergies!) Then Student A would ask Student B to guess each one of the options and to tell him/her the associations that come to mind. The process should be repeated exchanging the roles of the students. Finally, the food would be revealed in the order it was tasted. I believe the surprise effect would be maximized in this way.