A Ratatouille Experience
Nine years ago, I would get home from school, excited to eat lunch while sitting on the couch. I couldn’t wait for the moment to grab my remote control, turn on the TV, click “44” and wait for “The Wonderful World of Disney” to come on. Each day there was a different movie, like The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and then the Goofy movie. But the day I watched Ratatouille for the first time was unforgettable. Remi sniffs a bowl filled with grapes, apples and cheese. He grabs a big red strawberry and a small piece of cheese. He closes his eyes and chews the cheese slowly, tasting the salty, sweet, and oaky nuttiness. As he slowly enjoys the wonderful taste, yellow circles of light appear in Remi’s mind, filling the screen in circular motions. He did the same with the strawberry, tasting the sweet, crispy, and slight tang on the finish. New colors started to appear in his mind; he now thought of pink spirals, that popped and became lines that flowed with sparks surrounding the screen. When Remi joined both the strawberry and the cheese, the colors become an amazing explosion of yellow sparks that start to appear below with music playing in the background, then orange and red splashes took over the yellowish background. Until you couldn’t see anymore black, the screen was filled with color.
After watching this inspiring scene, I couldn’t wait to close my eyes, hoping to see the colors of the taste when I chewed my food. I concentrated, slowly, hoping I would see the fireworks fill my vision with flowers, pink circles and a rainbow background, all led by the taste of the first bite of my dinner. It took effort, but I did it. I could imagine the colors as I closed my eyes and tasted the different flavors in my mouth.
Animated movies are not a child’s favorite forever, and before I knew it, I wanted to watch movies with real people like me instead of drawings in the screen. In these movies, characters didn’t show enthusiasm while tasting something new; there were no colors in the screen and no fireworks. All the characters said was “this looks yummy” or “looks delicious”. The simple change of adding word “looks” instead of colors in the screen made me start focusing on how food looked. I wouldn’t eat brown sauces or green vegetables only because they didn’t look yummy or delicious.
I realized that I was missing out on millions of flavors just because I wasn’t convinced on how they looked. Growing up made me start losing interest in many things, like animated movies, but it also made me forget to use the sense of taste to judge food, like Remi did. He closed his eyes because he knew he would feel the taste more intensely and enjoy the moment. Even though I didn’t expect to see colors and rainbows if I closed my eyes, I decided to give it a try.
Two years ago during summer I made the big move. I reached out for the green smooshy thing next to the tequeños, closed my eyes,and tasted it for a few seconds. I tried it one more time to be sure if I liked it or not, and I was able to concentrate on the creamy, salty taste of the guacamole that became my favorite dip.
I wondered why it was so hard for me not to concentrate on vision, and I understood the reasons behind it after reading John Medina’s book Brain Rules this summer. He explains that vision tricks other senses and how many people don’t realize it because we depend too much on it. We see what the brain thinks is out there, even though it is not 100% accurate, and judge many things based on that, like food. Vision is a sense that helps us in various things; however, it is is important to be able to ignore it sometimes so we can appreciate all of the other 4 senses.
