Plating is the art of making food look good. Obviously the organoleptic properties play a fundamental role in determining how much we like eating something, but our food experiences are also influenced by the visual and structural arrangement of the plate. Now, new research published in Flavour by researchers from the University of Oxford extends this influence to the cutlery we use to eat.

The goal of the researchers was simple: invade an international conference being held at the Sheraton Grand hotel in Edinburgh and determine how minute changes to the appetizer, main course, and desert influenced the attendees’ perceived liking of the dish. How did they do this? They put a pink or green score sheet on each table and gave orders to the wait staff to set the tables and serve dishes a certain way. Aside from that, all food eaten by the attendees was exactly the same.

Upon entering the dining room, the guests were allowed to sit wherever they wanted, which may have led to bias in the results since those sitting together tend to share common characteristics. But trade-offs are necessary and the benefits of having a study performed in real life outweigh the potential downsides, especially in a field where most research is performed in a lab. Anyway, I can only imagine the face of each attendee as one of the researchers introduced the diners to the event and informed them that they would be taking part in a series of experiments regarding food.

Despite the fact that all of the diners in the present study were served exactly the same amount of the same food, there were clear and significant differences in terms of enjoyment, most notably for the main course.

The only difference between the groups with regard to the main course was the type of cutlery used – heavier banquet or lighter canteen. Both were made of stainless steel, suggesting that the appearance and feel was the essential variable that influenced the attendees’ perception of the main course. It is possible that the attendees associated their conference venue with “high-quality” and that those given the cheaper canteen cutlery had a mismatch between that cutlery and their event.

While it now seems plausible that the weight and perceived value of the cutlery affect the enjoyment of the food, with perceived quality being transferred from the cutlery to the food in an implicit manner, further research is undoubtedly still needed in order to clarify which of the cutlery’s sensory properties affects the enjoyment of the food and, in particular, how weight, tactile, and visual aesthetics interact, and by which perceptual mechanisms.

I don’t have much to add. About one month ago I wrote about two studies that suggested our liking of food can be influenced by our confidence in our decisions and the associations we form. No doubt those played a role in the current study where the participants were likely confident that this was a high-end event and those high-end events are typically associated with good food. Thus, those who were served the banquet cutlery received exactly what they confidentially expected, whereas a mismatch formed in the group served the canteen cutlery. So if you want to impress, best use the fancy knife and fork.