Page 57 - The European Baking Ingredients Market Report 2022 - Volume 1

European Baking Ingredients Market Report 2022
Finger food: eating with our hands
Professor Charles Spence
Head of the Crossmodal
Research Laboratory
University of Oxford
ver since the Italian
Futurists first exploded
onto the scene in the
Eopening decades of the
20th century, people have been
considering the benefits of eating
with their hands. However, it is only
1
since DeBrett’s Guide to Etiquette
relaxed the guidelines regarding
There has been a
noticeable growth of
interest in the simple
sensuality of eating
without cutlery.
www.ebimr.com
Fingerfood 57
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
certain foods (i.e., pizza, chicken hands, For example, Quetzelcotel,
wings, spare ribs and ice-cream the opening course on the tasting
cones), that one has been able menu at London-based chef Jozef
to eat with the hands at informal Youssef’s Kitchen Theory, is eaten
gatherings in polite society. Since with the hands. As Youssef notes,
6
2
the Guide’s publication 10 years there is a sense in which, when
ago, there has been a noticeable people use their hands, rather than
growth of interest in the simple cutlery to eat, that makes for a
sensuality of eating without cutlery. more mindful eating experience.
After all, it is not so long ago that Another solution to the problem of
Mrs. C. E. Humphry’s wrote in her avoiding sticky fingers when eating
book, Manners for Men (1897) with the hands was trialed by KFC
that only “bread, biscuits, olives, a few years ago, with the launch
asparagus, celery and bonbon,” of their ‘finger condoms’ in Japan.
7
may be “touched with the fingers”. Perhaps unsurprisingly though, the
3
By contrast, the latest trend at trend did not catch on, presumably
high-end restaurants now is to due in part to the unfortunate name
spoon a small mound of caviar given to these new gloves, and the
directly onto the guests’ hands. fact that this solution would seem
These caviar bumps have proved to run counter to the Colonel’s
to be something of an Instagram iconic slogan: ‘Finger lickin’ good’.
sensation. 4
Some time ago, I was lucky enough
A few years ago, the two Michelin- to work with the innovative NY
starred Mugaritz restaurant based chef, Jehengir Mehta, who helped
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outside San Sebastian in Spain’s with the US launch of my prize-
Basque country, dispensed with winning book Gastrophysics: The
cutlery altogether for one season. New Science of Eating. At the
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All of the 20 or so courses on the press launch, the chef literally
tasting menu were to be eaten with placed the food on the journalists’
the hands, with plenty of wet wipes hands. In fact, Mehta has been
to help clean fingers between known to go even further when
courses. And while few chefs have hosting romantic dinners for two,
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gone quite this far, there are plenty where he has the couples eat from
who encourage their guests to eat their partner’s hand, rather than
at least one of the courses with the their own. While such an innovative
approach to plating undoubtedly
makes for a most memorable dining
experience, one with some real
‘Sticktion’, one might wonder
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what eating with the hands does
to one’s enjoyment of the taste/
flavour of the food.
Back in 2010, my Canadian
colleague Michael Barnett-Cowan
conducted a study in which he
glued together two halves of a
pretzel, one fresh and firm and
one soft, the latter having been
soaked in water for a few seconds
before being patted dry. The 10