The sense of hearing leads to two antithetical worlds comparable, with some forcing, to heaven and hell, worlds that are accessed by crossing two doors side by side, each surmounted by a sign: on the first the sign reads "Sound", on the second, "Noise".

Then, when, hearing is limited to the sphere of the senses involved in gastronomic facts, it is always relegated to a secondary role, if not expelled or, in any case, ignored. In gastronomic case studies, it seems that hearing is useful only to point out reprehensible or even incorrect behavior, such as the waiter who uncorks bottles with pops that evoke the branding of cows, the novice sommelier who cannot prevent the "bang" of the Champagne cork, the cheerful diners who clink their glasses to crown their joyful toast,  the noisy soup sorbiters.

At the origin of this mortification of hearing there is an atavistic vice of humans, characterized by the eternal dichotomy that sees us indulgent with ourselves and intolerant with others.
And to condemn the "guilty" the vote of a rigid moralist is decisive, always present when one sits at a restaurant table or opens one's table to external guests, no matter whether for reasons of friendship, obligation or convenience.

And this makes us understand why on their tables, the intake of food is frequently accompanied by some noise, certainly not in contempt of an etiquette writer but for the physiological need to "dilute" the sensory aggressiveness of food and enjoy it to the fullest.

The same goes for the gurgling generated by the Chinese and Japanese when they delight in their soups or noodles in broth. Their gastronomic canons require that they be served and soaked hot as, in this way, they release the best of their gustatory complexity precisely in the process of slow and airy cooling that takes place in the passage from the bowl to the lips and then to the tongue and, finally, to the entire oral cavity.

If this process were not fundamental, mothers as well as restaurateurs would serve these dishes at much lower temperatures.

But, in the face of these behaviors, we citizens of the Old World shake our heads in disapproval, partly because this way of serving food is not in our ropes and, above all, because we have snuggled up among the soft pillows of our well-being: we want to enjoy but without struggling or taking risks and, in doing so,  We got lost in the arms of the lukewarm, the slightly sparkling, the tasty but not spicy and the sweet and sour.

In short: don't tear me apart but satiate me with kisses.

But we pretend that the silver spoon does not make any sound when it touches the plate and, in the act of toasting, the glasses do not make any clinking, forgetting that, when the spring rain falls on the old tiles of the roof, we rejoice in saying that it “pecks silvery” and if we have to magnify the sounds emitted by the plucking of the harp strings we call them “crystalline”.
All nice but, for heaven's sake, not at the table!

BACK TO: