Flavours of life (Cultivating a Seventh sense for Cornish food)

Imagine yourself closing your eyes for one moment, transporting oneself to a dark mine shaft, probably a century ago. Its 6.30 pmof a rather long Saturday evening and the lift is carrying you progressively upwards towards civilisation. A few lingering crumbs of afternoon Pastie still rumbling in your rather empty tummy. What would be the flavour you would be most looking forward to (that a Bal maiden would prepare for tea)! Flavour is the sensory impression of food and is identified by the chemical interpretation of taste and smell. Cornwall and the life it supports have a plethora of flavours, which identify different moods, according to different seasons and reasons. A bite of slender wild garlic leaf picked randomly during a romantic coastal walk soothes the senses as much as, a sliver wrapped around Cheese enjoyed at the end of a meal at a top end restaurant chased by a thousand sparkling bubbles of a satisfying vintage of certain good year. The uniqueness of Cornish flavours lies in its diversity. Ranging from the humble Cornish Earlies the succulent strawberries, from sexy sardines to mighty megrims, from exotic saffron cakes to age old pasites, from ancient meads to contemporary cyderrss..Cornwall has a falvour to suit every palette. When a master of wine slurps a sip of last of the summer wine and rotates it around his mouth, the individual is trying to relate current flavour sensations with memories and anecdotes: and in a matter of moments the sommelier (wine waiter) creates an experience around the bottle which becomes a fond memory for ever. In the recent past the flavours of the food, have been altered with natural or artificial flavourings, which affect and mislead the senses. Nature tends to choose a particular optical rotation, which determines the flavour. Most commercial flavour chemicals are of mixed optical rotation and create an illusion of taste. My hopes and aspirations as a campaigning Chef and a humble gastronaut is that Cornwall, and its people keep on valuing the flavours of the past, enjoying the ones of the present while innovating flavours of the future and never should dawn the moment when we have to have bottled pasties, powdered Cornish scrowlers and organic Mothers Milk Ice-cream... Heres a toast to the seventh sense of Good Clean and Fair flavour choices. Debate what you put inside your body, as that is what you becomes forever!

@freerangechef (on twitter)