Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
AFTERWORD
A dinner with some friends, a meal with the family or having fast food with the one
you want to spend all your time with is an experience. Every meal has a message,
communicates a feeling, to those who take part in it.
The substantial entirety of a meal is like art, seeking to inspire and to over-
shadow any feeling of “commodity” that it might have. Of course there are other
possible perspectives on how, when and where we eat, but here I deal with the
meal as an inspiration of impressions. Composing the experience is a matter of
balancing perceptual sensing such as, points, lines, shapes, colours, proportions,
movements, directions, light, sound and, orientation in the room and atmosphere
and combining it with smell, taste and tactile scenarios, into an expressive and
meaningful entirety of the impression we call the meal. In other words, the mean-
ing of the meal emerges from the interplay of activating and balancing forces.
Which of our senses do we use in a fast food restaurant?
The unconsidered answer is “all of them” but the whole point of fast food:
food as fuel naturally brings a stress and haste that covers and chokes our senses
like cling film. One consequence of this may be a need to increase our ability to take
in information through our senses. In principle, there is no limit to the efficiency
of our senses, but a high throughput of information is a stress factor.
A meal is not only about the sense of taste. Consciously or unconsciously,
diners experience all sorts of other sensory information: verbal and non-verbal
communication with serving staff, the atmosphere of the room: light, colour,
sound, directions and movements. There is also noise and body language from
other guests, the odour of different bodies and the scent of food.
A pleasant, energy-giving and interesting meal depends upon a balance
between all the factors involved. Our experience of a meal depends largely upon
our sensory experiences: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hand, mind and intuition all
contribute. Creating the entirety of the meal involves the whole palette of “ingre-
dients” that ultimately influence the diner 's senses.
By combining the different disciplines in a meal, the Department of Culinary
Arts at the University of Orebro, Sweden, bases its educational approach on five
aspects of the meal: the food itself, room, the service encounter, the atmosphere
and the economic control system. As a professor in art and design, as well as,
being an artist and designer, I would like to extend this view.
From a designer 's view of perspective, the meal can be defined in an odyssey
designed to explore at least seven “ingredients” that make-up the meal's entirety,
as
I
have
developed
in
“The
entirety
of
the
meal:
a
designer 's
perspective”
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