Happy Valentine's Day!

Mr. Mari and I stopped exchanging purchased gifts on Valentine’s Day after our first year together. We know how much we love each other every day; we don’t need one day out of an entire year to remind ourselves of that fact. That said Valentine's Day is a fabulous excuse for us to eat well. Scratch that, to dine well.

A few years back, there was an exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt titled, Feeding Desire: Design and Tools of the Table 1500-2005. The exhibit went through the history of eating utensils, like how the Egyptians made spoons by attaching shells to sticks; to J.P. Morgan owning a 300+ piece place setting - An individual place setting; to stripped down modern “eating tools” of the Germans and Scandinavians. You can see in the image above how during the late 1800s dining utensils added to the theater and entertainment of the meal.

Jinhyun Jeon’s 2012 thesis spoke volumes to me in regards to how one eats. She focused on the neurological condition known as synesthesia: stimulus to one sense triggers one or more of the other senses; synesthetes get their brain wires crossed constantly. These utensils by design, can amplify or trick your mind into thinking what the food’s texture and mouth feel might be. She calls it sensorial stimuli. I’m hoping Chefs Ferran Adrià and Grant Achatz or frankly any chef have taken note of her work and if they haven't already, are thinking beyond the plate and vessel.

Happy Valentine’s Day; I hope you’re dining extra well today too.

(Image, from the top! Ceramic bulbous tableware by Jinhyun Jeon; silver sifting spoon (c. 1862), silver macaroni server (c. 1865), silver ice cream hatchet (c. 1870) via Taipei Times; knobby ceramic spoon by Jinhyun Jeon)