The Fat Duck

There have been many fruitful discussions over the past few years with Heston Blumenthal, who has a fascination with all things sensory – and as importantly he is keen to know more about how the brain deals with the multiple arrays of inputs coming in from the senses when we are eating; a truly multisensory behaviour. The pleasures we experience when dining – which are different in many ways from those we have when simply just eating – are all of course coming from the brain. Discovering more about how our brains’ process sensory signals from taste buds, olfactory, vision, hearing and touch receptors, and how our expectations and memories affect what we perceive when enjoying a good meal can lead to finding new ways to excite the senses and to enhance pleasure.

At the 2010 Cheltenham Festival of Science Heston and Francis talk about the pleasure brain and how he creates such wonderful dining experiences  – http://cheltenhamfestivals.com/science-2010/hestons-sweet-shop/