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Philosophy

When I first served crab ice cream in 1998 (which people actually tasted differently if it was called Frozen Crab Bisque), I realised I had discovered a new world of cooking.

I embarked on an incredible journey into that world, which led me to realise that, ultimately, the pleasure we get from eating comes from our brain and, in particular, from our memories and associations and the emotions they trigger.

Discovering fire and eating the food cooked on it helped to turn ape into man by growing and developing the brain. One of the unique gifts we have as humans is imagination. When you add imagination to memory, all kinds of wonderful things can happen. We only need to summon our feelings of curiosity, adventure and discovery to be transported to our most magical memories.

My exploration of multi-sensory dining eventually inspired another landmark Fat Duck dish, Sound of the Sea: seafood and vegetation composed to look like the sea lapping up against the shore, sitting on a shadowbox filled with real sand, and served with an iPod and earbuds playing the sound of waves.

This dish had an incredible impact, because it nudged you. It didn’t tell you what to think or feel. It asked a question – which seaside memory does this take you to?

The dish was a game changer.

A particular food can be rooted in a moment, a location, a childhood memory. What we see, hear, taste, touch and smell determines our perception of flavour: a name, a smell, the lighting, a gesture, a style of lettering, what somebody says or what they wear can all influence our experience of what we eat. We evolved through eating the food that we cooked. Our relationship with it is so intertwined with our nostalgia that a trigger (albeit a very personal one) can transport us to a place of culinary wonderment. And that’s where we want to take people.

Heston