March 2023
Charles Michel starts his masterclass with the question, ‘What can we learn from people loving burgers?’. I’m secretly relieved as I’m planning on cooking some pizza later for my Applied Nutrition challenge and was worried it wouldn’t pass muster (even though it’s for a three-year-old audience!).
It’s a good question though - as Charles Michel describes, the tried and tested formula of a burger works on a cognitive level - you know it’s tasty without being oversold or heightening expectations too much. On a sensory level – what other context are we allowed to eat so uninhibitedly with our hands? It also works on all our flavour senses - unami in the meat and ketchup, sweetness in the pickle and bread etc. There’s a science behind the success of the burger that Charles Michel argues we can learn from and apply in fresh contexts.
In terms of my own healthier pizza recipe for fussy toddlers, the cognitive aspects of their experience were certainly at the forefront of my mind in making the choice to cook pizza, a familiar food. The “you know it’s tasty” argument certainly applies here, helping to get the salivary glands going which in turn heightens the child’s sensory experience of the food. Equally however, “overselling” is a risk, if the kid is expecting junk food, then a healthier version needs to deliver on taste too. Putting a value on culinary art, the second item he wants to discuss, is the business of artistic presentation, or how customers perceive attractive presentation as being higher value, even with the same ingredients. It’s an intuitive idea, but the actual differences in perceived value are very surprising. For example, a dish centred on the plate was perceived as worth 30% more than one off centre. And simply by changing the angle of an element on the dish, it was perceived at 15% more.
It’s also interesting to hear Charles Michel discuss how to describe a dish – part reporter, part poet. You want to communicate the skill involved in its creation, but also the story. It’s better not to oversell - the level of expectation of the diner, and how they measure the experience against that expectation will determine their enjoyment and likelihood to return. Everyone wants a “good value” meal!
But what about the rest of us…? One of the students has an interesting question for Charles Michel, ‘How do we apply these artistic culinary skills in a non-Michelin, more regular setting?’. He mentions a number of papers about how we can use the science of presentation and cognitive arguments in order to encourage people to make healthy choices. I find this really interesting as I have previously studied behavioural science in the context of applying it to behaviour change communications campaigns. One particular campaign I worked on for almost 7 years was around reducing farm accidents. In that context, I applied cognitive arguments, such as “everyone is doing this” in order to encourage farmers to make safer choices. I’m quite passionate about encouraging people to make healthier choices with diet, so it makes sense to apply these techniques in the nutritional and culinary context.
It’s clear people are suspicious of food marketed as “healthy” in certain contexts, so maybe that’s not the best argument to use! I’ve worked on the other side of the fence too, marketing products to consumers (not always the sensible or healthy choice either!) and the marketing industry certainly uses behavioural science to sell. One of the few clients I refused to work for over the years was the processed bread lobby, as I couldn’t bring myself to make arguments for why a family should choose a regular white pan over a more nourishing option. To the bewilderment of my colleagues!
It’s been a very thought-provoking presentation from Charles Michel. I finish with the question ringing in my head, ‘how do we convey nurture through food?’ I recall a previous video of Charles Michel’s where he talked about how a mother’s food tastes better, just because Mum made it. The “love” and “nurture” conveyed is not just notional, it has a physical manifestation in our senses. As the group I’m researching for Applied Culinary Nutrition is children, this is a very relevant concept. That “nurture” relationship between a parent and a child conveyed through eating is vital to the child’s healthy relationship with both the parent and eating practices. Food for thought indeed.
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