Taste shapes: Kiki and Bouba in the kitchen
Last night, Food Network Canada showed an episode of the BBC's excellent "In Search of Perfection" where host Heston Blumenthal set out to create the ultimate chili con carne. In the show, Blumenthal decided that cornbread is a better accompaniment to chili than tortilla chips. Why? Because chili is a Kiki and so are tortilla chips, but cornbread is a Bouba.
Kiki and Bouba are the names of two shapes from a psychology experiment. You’d know just by looking at them which one is Kiki and which one is Bouba. In fact, that’s the point of the experiment.
I was reminded of that idea this morning when the coffee place downstairs featured a cinnamon pastry flavoured coffee. I thought I liked spices in coffee, so I was surprised when I didn't like this. I’ve mentioned on here before that I am the #1 proponent of fennel seed in coffee. The difference between the two? Fennel seed makes coffee a Bouba and cinnamon forces it further into Kikiland. Or at least that’s how I see it.
What foods do you think are Kikis and which are Boubas? Can any of you think of foods that could go either way based on small changes?
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
7 Comments:
I don't want to offend, but I have no clue what you are talking about…
jasonbrink at 2:40PM on 04/30/08
I know exactly what you are talking about (and have heard of this before) but have already used up the stash of time I allow myself to discuss outlandish ideas each day. Sadly.
So if I do come up with anything I'll have to do it tomorrow. It's a good challenge. :)
Karen Resta at 2:50PM on 04/30/08
I tried to put a link in the original post but it didn't take. Let's try again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
Maybe you had to see the show. I think it explained the idea as it relates to food much better than I could. Don't know if "In Search of Perfection" airs in the states, but it must somewhere on the internets and is worth the search.
drastic at 3:21PM on 04/30/08
Wait, what? Kiki and Bouba?
Is this like balancing yin and yang foods? Hot/masculine and cool/feminine energies? If so, I'm all over that.
Can someone pleas post a link or give a little more detail?
butterface at 3:27PM on 04/30/08
Oh, that makes much more sense now. I posted just before you put the link up.
This seems a little different than the yin/yang balance in asian food or macrobiotic cooking.
So raw leafy greens would be Kiki, and round root vegetables would be Bouba, but the distinction gets harder since it's based on shape and "personality" rather than effect on the body. Sugar would be Kiki, right? But would sugar syrup be Bouba?
butterface at 3:35PM on 04/30/08
Ok, so I have still done a terrible job of explaining this. It's not that the food is the same shape as the original Kiki or Bouba. If you did the experiment with two foods instead of two shapes, which one would people guess was called Kiki and which Bouba.
Lets say that you had a hot pepper and a bowl of sour cream and told somebody that in some made up language one was called Kiki and the other Bouba. I bet most people would guess that the hot pepper is Kiki. Some food is not obviously a Kiki or a Bouba, but a lot of foods are.
drastic at 6:12PM on 04/30/08
Oy. Intuitively, I understand this, even without looking at the link, but I don't know if I'd be able to explain it, either. Kiki has a sharp, clicking sound, and Bouba is round. So Kiki foods would have a sharpness to them, and Bouba foods would be round/soft. So chili is Kiki, avocado is Bouba. Potato chips are Kiki, most dips would be Bouba.
I think that if you gave people pairs (or lists) of foods and asked them to pair the words to the foods, most people would intuitively make the same choices, except for those who over-think it. Yet even those who made the common/correct choices would have trouble explaining why they made those choices. They'd probably say "that's what it sounded like."
dbcurrie at 5:00PM on 05/01/08