Senses

In my opinion the link between food and love is not just one of coincidence. Their interaction is more than just their mutual existence and importance in our lives. I think one of the things that bind them so tightly in most cultures is their similarities, meaning that they are often substituted (and perhaps mistaken) for one another.

Throughout Nigel Slater's memoir, Toast, the closeness of love and food is prominent, and their apparent interchangeability questioned. The parallel is set up on the first page, where he states that “It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you”. This presents food as a reason for love, and is confusing his love for the food, with his love for his mum. Is it the similarities between love and food that is causing this confusion?

Later in the book, after his mother dies, Nigel realises that food cannot replace his mother's love. He'd previously believed that marshmallows were the “nearest food to a kiss”. However, after his mum dies he reflects that “No Walnut Whip, no Cadbury's Flake, no sugared almond could ever replace that kiss. I'm not sure a marshmallow really came that close.”

Nigel's senses had misled him to compare food with love. He'd compared Marshmallows to a kiss because they were “Soft, sweet, tender, pink” (Touch, Taste, and Sight). This highlights a key similarity between food and love, their engagement of multiple senses, the use of which, draw us in.

If you consider stereotypical dating devices, ingrained into our culture, different aspects target each of the senses.

Firstly Sight: The initial attraction. The extra effort we put into our appearance. The pretty gifts given and received.

Smell: Flowers. Perfume. Aftershave.
Taste: Dinner. Boxes of Chocolates. Popcorn at the Cinema... Perhaps breakfast.
Touch: Holding Hands. Embraces. Kisses...
Hearing: Conversation. Mixed Tapes.


Food also involves all the senses.

Sight: “We eat with out eyes first” - proven I would say, by the amount of pictures of food that litter the Internet.

Smell: Either enticing or repelling.
Taste: Sweet, Sharp, Salty, Sour, Spicy...
Touch: Texture.
Hearing: Sizzles. Pops. Crunches. Etc. 

Realising how sensory both love and food are has led me to wonder if it is one of the reasons they are so often indistinguishable. The senses we use to perceive them are the same.

Perhaps one of the reasons food is so popular in dating is because we are subconsciously trying to simulate one of the most animalistic and sensory of experiences of all, sex.