Learning in a new and quickly evolving discipline
“How many senses are there?”
An easy question maybe, but one that had an entire class of 26 Food Culture masters students struck dumb with fear and confusion. ‘What does this teacher want?’ they think as he swaggers back and forth between the rows, hands sunk into the oversized silver buckle on his belt. He repeats the question, this time looking at the group as if he has lost all faith in our basic competence, or maybe just wondering if it’s possible that we are all deaf. Sick of the silence, I offer an explanation:
“It depends on who you ask.”
Today, I find out, this is the wrong answer: “Five!” he exclaims, “there are five senses; we are not in a coffee shop discussing philosophy with our friends.” My answer proved relevant moments later, however, when he continued his interrogation with: “How many tastes are there?” This time there was no hesitation.
“Five!” answered the class of foodies, confidently, thinking themselves very clever. After all, we had just recently learned about the molecular aspects of taste from a leader in the field, who had introduced us to emerging research which proves the existence of a taste receptor for not just four, but five basic tastes. Unfortunately, today we were ‘wrong’ again, as this professor was not emotionally prepared to accept umami as a separate, perceivable taste. This incident, common in our studies, shows that as the relatively new discipline of gastronomy evolves, much of even what to some is scientific fact, is subjective in nature and indeed “depends on who you ask.” In this field so based on individual perception, it is difficult to know what is ‘right’, so difficult in fact, that, as seen above, an entire class can be stymied by the most basic of questions. As evidenced by our reluctance, this was not the first time we had been confronted with conflicting information, and it wouldn’t be the last.
In a later instance, our journalism department head, a bright ball of enthusiasm and far-reaching vision packed into a petite, blond frame, which whisked in and out of our lives intermittently, had prepared a unique class to teach us about the art of the interview in a hands-on way by arranging for us the opportunity to question Paolo Gennari one of the four bothers managing their father’s Parmigiano–Reggiano caseificio. The group’s collective confidence was high, as Paolo proudly described the innovative approach he applies to his family’s business, experimenting with longer aging periods than are traditionally attempted, boldly pushing Parmigiano to its organoleptic max. The class listened, eagerly preparing informed questions and educated responses. After all, having undergone an intensive stage tracking the cheese’s production at all stages throughout the countryside surrounding Parma, we were well-prepared for this moment. If that wasn’t enough, we had another ace up our gastronomic sleeves: training from a nose who knows.
Still fresh in our minds was our indoctrination into the church of cheese conducted by our gloriously idiosyncratic cheese tasting professor whose gradients of perfection—"not-so-perfect, a little bit perfect, quite perfect, very perfect, very very perfect" and, finally, "absolutely perfect"—we still use fondly amongst ourselves to rate products. This professor, whose nose we all revered, not only for its accuracy, but also for the way it passionately ferreted out tertiary and quaternary aromas, revealing to us in an almost magical way the secrets locked in a rind, patiently taught us to detect, “a fruity aroma,” “a little bit of potato,” or maybe “a little electric sensation.” Each of us was secretly filled with delight when he would exclaim “my compliments!” for sensing perhaps “a little animal,” “a lot, a lot, a lot of mushroom,” or maybe even “onion marmalade,” his favorite. It was in this empowering environment, backed up by several on-site Parmigiano-Reggiano tastings, that we identified “a lot of pineapple aroma” as a typical characteristic found in the local cheese.
So when Paolo Gennari offered us a taste of his fine product, filled with the smooth, lactic aromas of fresh cream and rendered butter, as well as the bright, fruity aromas we had come to expect, it was with some olfactory pride that one of my colleagues pointed out a predominant, fresh pineapple smell. At first our professor didn’t respond, but as the rest of us nodded in agreement, she spoke up, looking embarrassed, saying not only that she did not detect any pineapple smell, but also that any aromas beyond the fresh, dairy smells which one “should” smell in Parmigiano-Reggiano are actually off aromas, a fact she had “just read in a New York Times article last month.” The rest of us sat in disbelief, nostrils filled with “a lot, a lot, a lot” of fruity aroma, thinking of all the producers we had visited who had approved of and encouraged our observations. Had our cheese guru led us astray? Were all of our noses deceiving us? Does The New York Times know something we don’t? or is it just more official a judgment because it appeared in such an illustrious publication? My classmate argued her case to no avail. Finally our professor and my colleague shrugged off the comments, and the lecture continued. Each spent the remainder of class uncharacteristically tight lipped and subdued, both silently sure they were right. And why not?
This discipline is subjective. So are all of the humanities, even the sciences to an extent, but maybe none so much as Gastronomy, which is strongly based on the individual perceptions of the researcher’s senses. No one will have the same experience in this field, guaranteed. Yet, paradoxically, this course of study is built upon the meaning we assign to our individual judgments, whether expressed in our writing, our anthropological observations, our approach to technology, our analysis of historical food trends, and even in our photos. Our above-mentioned, cowboy-belted sensory analysis professor, whose job it is to measure and quantify such subjective things, would be the first to expound upon the complexity of injecting personal taste into scientific research, citing an example from the field in which a spicy tomato sauce failed because it was too spicy for consumers in the North of Italy, while not nearly spicy enough for those in the South.
In a field so based on individual experience, perhaps the greatest gift of the masters in Food Culture program was not teaching me the facts and figures of the food industry, but rather giving me the confidence to believe in my convictions and the realization that in a field based on individual perception, my educated contributions are just as valid as the next person’s. It is in this spirit that I have compiled a collection of my class’s work. I hope that gathering together our diverse perspectives—all valid in their own right—will provide a more thorough investigation of our experiences, both for us and for future UNISG students and associates. Because of the subjective nature of Gastronomy, we must keep open the discussion and exploration of new ideas and initiatives. I hope the writing of future gastronomes like us stimulates all five or six of your senses and provides you with every gradient of spiciness and pineapple aroma that you seek.
Published as the foreword to The University of Gastronomic Sciences Reader: Works by the students of the 2008 Masters of Food Culture available on lulu.com.
