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Archives 2003, Heston Blumenthal for The Guardian Our mind play tricks on us when faced with certain flavour combinations or foods, says Heston Blumenthal, not least because we've been taught not to eat them that way. But what if that means we're denying ourselves a real treat? You know how, when you chew on a piece of chewing gum, it loses its flavour after about 10 minutes? Well, I have got news for you. The chewing gum hasn't lost its flavour. You have. If you take the gum out of your mouth and leave it on one side for about 40 minutes, then eat something else and start chewing the gum again, you'll find that it tastes much as it did when you first started. The fact is that your brain has got bored with tasting the same old flavour, and just ceased to register it. We register the rate of change of flavour more than the flavour itself. This is the reason why, if we eat a plate of food of uniform flavour, we become bored.

Whenever we eat, the poor brain has a fair amount of work to do just to process the data and then let us know if we like a particular food. What makes that food acceptable or otherwise is a complicated issue, because it raises so many emotions and memories, and may even call into question firm beliefs.

Thirty years of questioning everything. Thirty years of culinary exploration and extraordinary moments at the dining table. Heston’s journey began when he was 16, when he went to the three-star L’Oustau de Baumanière and was bowled over by its theatricality and multisensory richness. He began visiting France every summer, translating French cookbooks word by word and cooking the classics over and over.

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