A new centre has opened in France, with the aim to tackle two of the most prominent questions on many a chef’s lips: what constitutes a ‘good’ meal and how is it possible to encourage children to eat their vegetables?
The French Government have endorsed the research with an official stamp of approval, in what some describe as being a unique investigation into our palates.
One of France’s best and well known chefs, Paul Bocuse, designed the high-tech Lyons based centre and on his agenda includes uncovering how different factors like taste, smell, decor, waiters and conversation have an impact on the enjoyment of food. The results are expected to produce a theoretical approach for chefs to use to ensure their food is well received.
Director of the Paul Bocuse Institute near Lyons, Hervé Fleury, said, “The research will focus on man’s behaviour with food and his relationship to taste, pleasure, finance, health and wellbeing.”
Behind the scenes cooks will be slaving over innovative new food technology, where cooking times are cut in half and boiling hot food can be ready to freeze after only five minutes.
Diners will be invited to the centre to trial the food in the 100sq m (or 1,080sq f) eating space, which can be transformed from a brasserie to a fine dining restaurant or a self service canteen.
Reactions and behaviours will be closely monitored to establish why certain foods are left over others, what makes people relax and make conversation or sit saying nothing, as well as how the service is received.
Cameras and microphones will be capturing every facial expression and noise of appreciation while sociologists, nutritionists, linguists, marketing experts and other industry professionals will record the information and use it as material for new master’s degrees that are being created in conjuntcion with French universities.
Five theses have previously been accepted. These include: the language and gestures of waiters; how the resaurant decor and environment affects diners; what makes an enjoyable dinner; what can ensure kids will eat their vegetables as well as how does a customer determine when they are full.
Agnès Giboreau, the research director, commented that scientists would try to establish “what makes us feel comfortable at a table, what favours dialogue and contact between diners. We want to study people from several different countries, but not from the UK because they are too different”.
Martin Laville, Professor of Nutrition at Lyons University, reported that the research could aid nutritionists in discovering why children prefer foods like pizza rather than spinach - by investigating “the codes of pleasure”
Bocuse, 82, whose Lyons restaurant received the coveted three Michelin stars back in 1965 and has kept them ever since, said that the centre would pioneer food into the 21st century, “There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world,” he said.
However, not everyone thought the research was a good idea - Jean-Pierre Hoquet of renowned restaurant, Train Bleu in Paris said, “I don’t think you can put the soul of a restaurant into a formal academic paper. It’s intangible and it depends on so many different things.”
