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Somethng to Chew on
and Sam Maguire in Kerry
"Just because you can thrill a toddler by chewing with your mouth open doesn't mean you should.”--Michael Nesmith
A minority of people chew with their mouths open. I’m
pleading the fifth here. The Late Norman Wisdom used to do it playfully
to “annoy” his family.
But now an expert from the University of Oxford has claimed
that eating with your mouth open is the best way to consume food, even
if letting your fellow diners see your food as you chew is widely
considered bad manners. Prof Charles Spence, an experimental
psychologist, found that it maximizes flavour and allows you to derive
as much pleasure out of each mouthful as possible.
Professor Spence and his team of researchers found that
eating with your mouth open can make food taste better. Chewing food
with your mouth open can help “volatile organic compounds” reach the
back of the nose which can make food taste better, the new study said.
Volatile organic compounds are molecules that can create aromas and
contribute to the flavour of food. So the benefit of them reaching the
back of our nose means it can stimulate cells responsible for our smell,
which can “enhance” the dining experience. Charles Spence, says that
we have, “. . . been doing it all wrong. When it comes to sound, we
like noisy foods – think crunchy and crispy. Both crisps and apples are
rated as more pleasurable when the sound of the crunch is amplified,” he explained. “To
best hear the crunch of an apple, a potato crisp, a carrot stick, a
cracker, crispbread or a handful of popcorn, we should always ditch our
manners and chew with our mouths open.”
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The team is trying to better understand how senses can impact the
way we eat. As well as chewing with your mouth open, the Professor
advises that people should use their hands to eat their food where
possible. “Our sense of touch is also vital in our perception of food
on the palate,” he says. The research shows that what you feel in the
hand can change or bring out certain aspects of the tasting experience.
“Feeling the smooth, organic texture of the skin of an apple in our
hand before biting into it whole is likely to contribute to a heightened
appreciation of the juicy, sweet, crunch of that first bite.” He added:
“This can be extended to the feeling of grains of salt sticking to the
fingers when eating French fries with our hands or the sugary residue of
buttercream on a hand after picking up and biting into a slice of
birthday cake.”
“Some say the first taste is with the fingers/hand. Texture provides useful information about the freshness and hence freshness of produce such as apples.
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Wine experts and professional coffee tasters know to let the air
in while tasting, so why not try the same by eating an apple with your
mouth open? It may help to make the most of the 75-95% of taste that
comes from the retro nasal olfaction – that’s the smell that emerges
from the back of back of your mouth into the back of your nose when
eating and drinking.”
I contacted Professor Spence and asked him what sort of
feedback he got from writers of food etiquette and allied politically
correct institutions.
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Here is his reply::
- “Well, seems to have hit a nerve.
- I have received some of my first hate email !!?
- The wine/coffee experts appear to be in agreement and have been in touch.
- The food scientists are convinced you get more flavour with mouth closed.
- And Debrett's already allowed fine diners to eat some things with their hands.”
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Now, with Oxford approval, isn’t it time that open-mouthed
chewers formed some sort of association? How about CAVE, Chew and View
with Enthusiasm?
* * * * *
Kerry has won the All-Ireland football final for the
thirty-eighth time. The Sam Maguire Cup is once again in the Kingdom.
Dan Doyle who grew up in Kerry’s Black Valley, which was the last place
in Ireland to get electricity. He now lives thousands of miles away in
the U.S. Looks forward to All Ireland Sunday. Here are his thoughts
written on the eve of this year’s final;
“So tomorrow is the All Ireland final football match in
Croke Park in Dublin. Two counties made it through after playing all
year. This year it is Galway and Kerry. Tonight these players will sit
and think about tomorrow. It is a time to reflect on a life with the
ball. They start as young lads and some make it this far.
It takes a lot of help to step on that ground at Croke
Park, a lot of luck, a lot of hours alone training, a lot of
meditation, and a family who leaves them alone to get the bodies in
tip-top form. To play tomorrow is an honour. This game is an amateur
sport played by the fittest 30 men in the world.
I have had the privilege of knowing a few who made it
this far. I have had the privilege of knowing a few who won All
Ireland medals and to their dying day they remembered that game for the
rest of their lives. One friend won two and he had them made into a
bracelet for his mom. When she died she made sure he got them back.
Most of us who win medals really think little about them but an
All-Ireland medal is something special.
Tonight will be hard to go to sleep and tomorrow they
will lace on the boots and march behind the Artane Boys band and when
the referee blows the whistle all the nerves will go away. It will be
tense in the beginning. Bodies will be tense and then it will start to
flow.
If it is a good game the referee will be mostly out of
it. It is a place where names are made. It will be all over and they
will shake hands and swap jerseys. They will go home to Kerry and
Galway and they will play it over in their minds for years. People will
shake their hands and congratulate them if they win, but for those 30
tomorrow it is a world away from everyone except those men between the
white lines.
It is actually a beautiful game to watch when it is
played the way it is supposed to be played. Some will retire. Some
will see they are too old as it is a young man’s game and as winter
winds blow off the mountains players will hang the boots up, some
forever. Anyway lads I am glad it is Galway and Kerry, two great
sporting counties, and tomorrow night we will have a winner.
I used to love the third Sunday in September when
Kerry played in Croke Park. I have seen a lot of good times and a lot
of heartbreak too when we lose, I will listen on the radio to Ambrose
O’Donovan in America. I could be anywhere looking at it on these big
screens but I will do what my father did in the Black Valley when we
listened to Kerry V Armagh long ago in 1953. I just won’t hit the Pye
Radio with a stone hammer just because the battery died as Mc Corrig was
taking the Penalty.
"Good Luck, lads, tomorrow and it is our honour to watch Gaelic games all over the world.”
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See you in September.
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