Reading the paper this morning, I stumbled across an interesting article about a young mother who went from being a CFO in New York to taking care of her young daughter full-time in Dubai and in the process discovered a passion for creating food that is worthy of being called art. Healthy food is seldom appealing to kids; I have a young friend who won't go near anything that looks like a vegetable with a 10-foot pole!
Her ideas aren't new, but interesting all the same. Her belief? Present healthy food in a fun, colourful, imaginative way and kids will willingly finish everything on their plate.
The article highlighted how kids react to food presentation, but it made me think about how we as adults make food choices too.
I still remember the time, years ago when we had guests over for dinner, and mum made a huge variety of food. Our guests were mostly non-Indian and so most of the dishes took this into consideration with spices being toned down a huge deal. There was one curry that looked very red on the table, and we noticed that nobody touched it. Why? The mental mould that red must equal hot and spicy, especially in an indian house. After a bit of convincing, and a few brave ones taking the plunge, everyone found they enjoyed the dish so much, the pot quite quickly emptied itself. What food looks like impacts a great deal on what we think the food will taste like.
Makes sense really - imagine a plain green salad vs one where the green contrasts with black olives, white soft feta, yellow capsicum, red tomatoes, purple onions. The green salad could have an absolutely scrumptious secret dressing on it that kills the colourful salad in a taste test. But if given a choice, most would opt for the colourful salad. Variety is the spice of life and that applies to food presentation too.
The same goes for soups - Thai soups where green coriander contrasts red chilli and pink shrimps or white chicken look so much better than a dull sweet corn chicken soup. Only someone who has a prior affinity to the sweet corn would opt for the latter (or someone who hates spice!)
Or take for example, a food court in a shopping mall. We see it so often, people walking around in circles, looking at images of food or displayed food in an attempt to decide what steals their fancy today. And how many times do people make bad decisions because of it? That crispy fried chicken on a beautiful sesame bun with fresh green lettuce on the picture looks so good, till you actually order it and realise the slightly sweet but mostly tasteless bun has about 4 sesame seeds on it, the lettuce is so soggy it feels like it came out of a soup and the fried chicken has a terrible stale oil taste - if it isn't also soggy.
Which brings me to thinking about fast food. Out here in abu dhabi, 'free home delivery' is one of the sad realities of life. We get daily flyers at our door with menus, complete with tantalizing images of everything you could possible order and have hand-delivered within the hour from every fast food outlet and restaurant in the city! The vegetables on the pizza look like they might have been freshly grown and picked that morning from a garden at the back, or fried chicken looks so crisp and fresh and non-greasy, it would be close to sacrilege to call it unhealthy. Flipping through those harbiners of doom brings on cravings instantaneously, and the next thing you know you're feeling grease-filled and guilty and vowing you're never going to order fast food ever again. It happens to the best of us, and it's all to do with false imagery.
Imagine for a second instead, the fried chicken picture with a soaked-to-the-bone-in-oil kitchen towel below it. Or that burger with the soggy lettuce and bread. No sane person in their right mind would order takeaways, would they?
On that amusing thought, I'll say adieu and leave you with the link to the article I was talking about:
Till next time folks!
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