I’m reindulging my interest in Aromatherapy as a sort of mood modifying and spur to creativity, and it occurred to me it would be interesting to integrate essential oils into dining experiences. As they say, half of “taste” is in fact smell, so would adding complementary smells not potentially alter in a synergistic way the experience of dining?
As an example, adding the smell of cloves or black pepper to a meal of steak, or bergamot to a pasta marinara dish, or cinnamon to a desert that otherwise does not contain cinnamon. Orange to a salad course. Or, presumably, there are many synergies out there that are not obvious, just as there are in cooking itself.
In a multicourse meal you could put aromatherapy pots out, and switch them as the courses change. You could key them on the wine or beer, or the food, or even a mood you were trying to set.
Then I got to thinking about it, and thought that you could add appropriate music for each course. You could have leitmotifs tied to certain foods or ingredients, recurring themes.
More generally, the goal would be the creation of a mood which combines aesthetic novelty with pleasure, with meditation.
Then I got to thinking about it, and thought that you could add colors–fabric stretched between poles for example–potentially combined with feng shui–and move tables around, move fountains around, or even change artwork.
A talented artist could create a multimedia experience, combining original artwork, music, food, aromas. To add touch you could alter the texture of the chair, or table cloth. Obviously food can have different textures as well.
Then I got to thinking about Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk idea, and thought this would actually fit the bill better.
So much happiness is created with food, so much pleasure, with the right people, in the right place, right environment.
Then, of course, I got to thinking about what modern artists would make of this, bringing out plates of raw meat, and angry music, and bitter colors, destroyed on a tattered canvas.
There is no creation in destruction. This should be obvious. There is a profound difference between describing failure, and creating success. Life follows life. The first and foremost creation of any useful art is a character and self consistent with life, with the spirit, the energy of Goodness, of love, of possibility, of a FUTURE.
When we see destruction in art, what we are seeing is self destruction. We are seeing selves which have not formed, and which rather than trying to form choose to reflect in “creativity” their failures.
Destruction can always appear to be creation, since change is happening, movement is happening. But plainly it is not.
This idea is original, I think. I have not seen it anywhere else. Particularly the Aromatherapy idea seems to me to be interesting.