Why food tastes better in a bowl than on a plate

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

How the choice of cookware reflects a changed lifestyle and approach to food.

In the past, everyone usually ate from plates, but now, both at home and in restaurants, food is increasingly served in bowls. Quartzy journalists figured out the reasons.

A brief history of bowls

“In most national cuisines, bowls are the staple utensil for food,” says Matthew Weingarten, culinary director at Dig Inn, a restaurant chain that specializes in serving dishes. - I associate them with a feeling of comfort and satiety. Probably, it seems so to many of our visitors. But this is a relatively new way of looking at food."

Posted by Dig Inn (@diginn) Jul 16, 2018 at 8:14 PDT

In the 20th century in America, plates predominated on dining tables: one each for bread, salad, main course and dessert. Many middle-class families had two sets of dishes: for every day and for special occasions. From bowls they ate only porridge or soup.

“The use of multiple plates, as well as highly specialized cutlery such as fish knives, reflected the traditional desire not to mix food,” says food historian Helen Zoe Veit. "Eating from bowls was considered unfashionable for most of the 20th century."

How we eat reflects what we eat. In Western popular culture, it has traditionally been some kind of protein source with a side dish, salad, and bread. “Such a sharp distinction between components was considered a sign of manners, education and status,” continues Veit.

Plates with separate slides of food were a symbol of American identity and prosperity, one of the benefits of capitalism and a growing middle class. Bowls were associated with poverty. The change began in the 60s, when bowls became an attribute of the bohemian lifestyle, and the dishes in them became a symbol of the cultural revolution.

Bowls are convenient because you can eat almost everything from them.

Soups, noodles, dumplings are eaten from deep bowls out of necessity. But recently, they began to serve dishes that are no less tasty on a plate. There are many varieties of the so-called bowls (from the English bowl - a bowl): a bowl with cereals, a buddha bowl, a burito bowl.

These dishes are based on whole grains, fresh and cooked vegetables, herbs, etc. For breakfast, smoothie bowls and granola with yogurt, fruit, nuts and other trendy ingredients like acai berries, hemp seeds and chia have become popular.

Cereal bowls are the staple of many healthy fast food restaurants. They are convenient in that the composition can be changed depending on the seasonal vegetables. Visitors can combine ingredients as they wish. This makes them easy to cook at home: you don't have to follow complicated instructions, you can use leftovers from other dishes, and most importantly, eat more vegetables.

Sharing from Dig Inn (@diginn) 4 May 2018 at 6:03 PDT

It's no surprise that bowls have become so popular in the age of healthy eating.

Food from a bowl evokes pleasant emotions

Dishes affect how we perceive food. “When we sit down to eat, certain expectations are formed in our brains about how the food will taste and how much we will like it,” says Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford. "The lighting, the music, the cutlery, all contribute more than we think."

When we see a bowl, we look forward to a rich, satisfying and healthy meal.

“We feel the weight of the bowl in our hands and think that the food will be more. We will most likely find it more flavorful than the same food on the plate,”explains Spence.

In the process of absorbing food from the bowl, there is an intimacy that the plates lack. This partly explains the appeal of such dishes. According to Weingarten, the food on the plate, which needs to be cut with a knife and fork, looks very formal, strict. And we bring the bowl closer to us. This makes it possible to truly enjoy the food and immerse yourself in the process. Many people today seek comfort in their food, and bowls give that feeling.

Posted by Dig Inn (@diginn) Mar 30, 2018 8:56 am PDT

They are not only pleasant to hold in your hands, they are also very beautiful. According to Lukas Volger, a chef and author of books on vegetarian cuisine, their popularity is also due to the "instagramification" of food. With the growing demand for such dishes, there has been renewed interest in handcrafted ceramics. Bowls have become part of the visual experience of food consumption.

In addition, when we eat from a bowl, we see the world as friendlier. This is because we hold the bowl in our hands and feel its warmth. And according to one study, when we have something warm in our hands, everything seems to be better.

If in the 60s in America bowls became a culinary symbol of the social revolution, then today they are a positive statement about oneself. When we eat from a bowl, we feel better to ourselves.