Sensual Dinner

One day in June, in one of the large exhibition halls of Paris, Psychologies France gathered 285 people for a gala dinner “Silence and Concentration”. Simple dress code: black or white top. No menu. And only one condition – to eat in absolute silence. The evening was hosted by meditation specialist Coco Brac de la Perrière with celebrity Michelin chef Thierry Marx. How much noise he made! However, such wordless meals had happened before. Since 2011 (in our country since 2013), such evenings have taken a firm place among the unusual and sometimes slightly pretentious events that are called eatertainment¹ and which are organized all over the world.

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In Shanghai, at Paul Pairet’s Ultraviolet, a secret club, guests are locked in groups of ten in special “sensual” rooms. There, for three and a half hours, exquisite meal changes are accompanied by a variety of video and sound sequences, temperature changes and sounds. In London and Moscow, the Dans le noir restaurant serves meals in the dark, and in Brooklyn, a place called Eat (“Food”) requires visitors to remain silent for a month. As for the guilty, they are allowed to finish their meal on the bench at the entrance! Such restaurants are such a resounding success that some can be visited only once, such as the College of Bernardines (Collège des bernardins), where they are allowed to eat once in a lifetime for severe monastic dinners. What makes visitors pay tidy sums (sometimes up to three hundred euros) for a dinner in silence or blindly?

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No matter how the party is organized, its main goal is to place us in unusual conditions in which eating would be perceived differently. The possibility of automatically swallowing your dinner is completely excluded – our senses are aggravated, and we are ready to re-evaluate what we eat. “In fact, food always activates the senses, even though we may not realize it,” explains body psychotherapist Sylvie Alexandre. “In the dark or in silence, we can turn a meal into an unforgettable adventure.”². Feel the burning broth on your lips, listen to what is happening around, how our neighbors are chewing food (a nightmare for those who suffer from misophonia…). All this can be enjoyable only if you follow the rules of the game: after all, frankly, we can perfectly chew silently, thinking about what will happen after dinner or how not to spill the sauce on our trousers.

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In practice, it turns out that “feeling” is more difficult than just communicating with others. You are obliged to remain silent or sit in pitch darkness, and communication with a neighbor turns into a real test. Try to pass water to him if you are forced to be silent or can’t see anything! “Yes, this is the most interesting thing – how we go to the goal in such unusual conditions,” Coco Braque de la Perrier has fun. Cecile, a participant in the dinner in silence, got a lot of pleasure: “What are you, you don’t need to avoid looks, on the contrary! To ask for salt, you need to smile, tilt your head. Irina, a participant in the blind dinner, had to feel everything around her, including her neighbor. “I had to find the basket of bread he had in his hands!” Embarrassed, she admits. But are all these decorations really necessary so that we can finally enjoy the taste of what is on our plate?

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A feast for all senses

“We need to reclaim the attention that is not ours right now,” emphasizes Coco Braque de la Perière. We hang out in smartphones, computers, TVs, drown in a sea of ​​information that surrounds us from all sides, so we forget to pay attention to ourselves. In a situation where we are forced to listen to our own sensations and reactions of our body, we eat consciously. Mindfulness helps us understand what we like and dislike. When we focus on the smell, texture or taste of a dish, we understand what is good for us and what is not.” “I was making myself another cup of coffee and noticed that my hands were trembling. And I realized that I was overdoing it with quantity, that it was time to stop, ”admits Katerina, who has been drinking no more than one cup of coffee a day for six months now. It’s also helpful to focus on the actions we’re doing – cut off a piece, bring it to our mouth, chew it, then swallow – we eat slower and get full faster!

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Adherents of eatertainment are convinced of the positive effect of such an experience, but scientists do not support their enthusiasm. According to one American study, it is enough to simply eat in a calm environment.³. Scientists believe that a quiet sound background affects the satisfaction with food and its quantity – what we eat, we like it more and bring more satisfaction. In addition, if the meal involves all the senses, we get a more realistic picture of what we eat. This is confirmed by cognitive therapist Jérémy Lafraire: “Taste is a cognitive representation of the totality of all the senses.” Do not deprive yourself of some sensations, being afraid to make a mistake. For example, color affects the sense of smell and anticipates our sensations. When we see a red strawberry, we already seem to feel its sour taste – blindly, we can hardly recognize it, even if we can determine the texture of the berry in our mouth … It is useful to talk during a meal (although we used to think otherwise): “Conversations help to orient in tastes and expand your sensory experience,” the psychologist clarifies.

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Another nuance: when we eat with our hands, noisily inhale air with our nose, chew with an open mouth (it’s better to do it alone), we can get even more pleasure from food, return to childhood. It’s great, because it doesn’t matter if we’re sitting in the kitchen as a family or alone in the dining room, eating can be a moment of connection with ourselves and with others. “Unless, of course, we want it,” says Sylvie Alexander. Any experimentation must be voluntary. And then it will be a great gift for yourself, for which you do not need to spend hundreds of euros and put on a show.

¹ English neologism, a fusion of the words eat – food and entertainment – entertainment.

² Author of the book “My body knows it” (“Mon corps le sait”, Robert Laffont, 2008).

³ Psychological Reports, August 2012.