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Quote by Bee Wilson

“One of the reasons that we do not usually think of our tastes as learned is that most of the learning tends to happen in the very early years of life; and then it stops.”

Quote by Bee Wilson

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

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First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

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“When we talk of memory of food, we generally assume that nostalgia is a phenomenon that occurs late in life - like Proust being transported to his youth by a madeleine dipped in lime-blossom tea. But food memory is there from the start. Even babies have nostalgia!”

Food Memory Nostalgia Food Writing

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“We are all born with echoes of our mother’s diet, which means that no one is a totally blank slate when it comes to flavour.”

Mother Food Food Writing Food Memory

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Flavours - these memories generated backwards through our nose - are all learned.”

Food Eating Food Writing Flavour

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Already, by thirteen weeks, the taste buds are mature. A thirteen-week-old foetus weighs maybe an ounce, with no fat under the skin, no air in the lungs. Yet already they can not only swallow but taste, and these sips of fluid leave memories.”

Food Motherhood Food Writing

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“It is curious that we talk so little about the flavour of formula, given that it is the main food many babies taste for that crucial first year.”

Children Kids Food Food Writing Formula

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Registering different flavours is one of the main ways that our bodies interact with the world around us. Amazingly enough, the human olfactory bulb is the only part of the central nervous system that is directly exposed to our environment, through the nasal cavity. Our other senses - sight, sound and touch - need to travel on a complicated journey via nerves along the spinal cord up to the brain. Smell and flavour, by contrast, surge direct from plate to nose.”

Food Eating Food Writing Flavour

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Flavour is not actually in food, any more than redness is in a rose or yellow in the sun. It is a fabrication of our brains and for each taste we create a mental ‘flavour image’, in the same way that we develop a memory bank of the faces of people we know. The difference is that whereas faces fade when you haven’t seen them in a while, flavours and smells have a way of lodging themselves in indelibly.”

Food Eating Food Writing Flavour

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“What you taste as a child is still there in your adult brain, even if you haven’t thought of it for years.”

Childhood Food Eating Memory Food Writing

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Molecules that look near-identical to a specialist chemist lab will be easily distinguished by an ordinary person who smells them.”

Food Smell Food Writing

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“The experience of tasting food is far more multi-sensory than is the case with hearing, sight or touch, which is why it requires the most sophisticated part of our brain to process it. In fact, eating is influenced by hearing, sight or touch, as well as flavour: we prefer apples that crunch loudly, steaks that look blood-red, sauces so smooth they seem to caress the inside of our throats.”

Food Taste Senses Food Writing Flavour

Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat