Do you really know what you’re eating? How looks can trick your tastebuds

At Murphy’s Ice Cream shop on Dublin’s Wicklow St, I’m deliberating over flavours. Should I go for my old favourite, the caramelised brown bread ice cream, or a dollop of Dingle Sea Salt made from Dingle sea water? Or perhaps a scoop of the boozy Dingle Gin ice cream? I imagine what each might taste like, rather than being swayed by the colours or textures on display. It’s not because I have evolved beyond the influence of sight on my tastebuds. No, no. It’s because I literally can’t see the ice cream.

Last year, the Murphy brothers made the decision to change their display system by installing sleek Pozzetti cabinets, after seeing them in action at an ice-cream convention (surely the best kind of convention there is). Rather than the more familiar visual display where you can see the colours of the ice cream rainbow through a glass top, these steel trolleys keep the ice cream at a regulated temperature while being covered with lids.

"We have seen a real difference in how it influences our customers' decisions," says Graham Murphy, the shop manager at Murphy's Ice Cream in Dublin. "When they're deciding on an ice cream, they're focusing on the taste as opposed to the look of the ice cream."

In my work as a food stylist, part of my skill set is to harbour an awareness of the impact of visuals on a dish’s appeal. Simple tweaks can help make an unattractive dish more appetising. Curries and stews may be tasty but, boy, are they ugly. They can be aesthetically propped up with the support of vibrant toppings such as finely chopped chillies and dollops of yogurt for the curries, and freshly chopped herbs for the stews to distract from the delicious hot mess underneath.

The idea of sight playing a significant role in our experience of taste is a relatively new one. "Traditionally, scientists have thought the tongue, nose, and brain dominated how people experience the flavours of the food," writes Amy Briggs in a 2013 National Geographic article about Terry E Acree, PhD at Cornell University's Department of Food Science. Acree presented his findings on the link between culinary perception and sight at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, adding that people can see the flavour of their food and that sometimes the eyes can actually override the information being sent to the brain from the nose and tongue.

Flavourless dye Acree used a test involving a Sauvignon Blanc flavoured with a distinct collection of natural chemicals including banana, passion fruit and boxwood. When Acree’s team used a flavourless dye to give the Sauvignon Blanc the dark red appearance of a merlot or cabernet, unwitting participants said they tasted flavours associated with red wines, such as chocolate and cherries even though they were in fact drinking a white wine.

In a 2014 article in the Wall Street Journal, Sarah Nassauer examined the trend for see-through packaging as a sales technique. "Food often isn't ready for a big reveal after a package has suffered shipping, shelf stocking and other jostling," she remarks on the challenges of see-through packaging. "Packaging also drastically affects how long food stays fresh. Light degrades many foods, making clear wrappers especially tricky to use."

Clear packaging is thought to give products the “aura of being natural” and that can increase sales, Nassauer writes. The article uses the example of how the clear packaging of Coca-Cola’s Simply Orange juice impacted on the sales of its rival PepsiCo’s orange juice brand Tropicana. In the US, Tropicana now appears on the shelves in a clear bottle, mimicking the Simply Orange approach.

Market research companies such as the ipi Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, offers sensory tests on products to characterise their appearance, taste, smell and touch to arm producers with the information to help increase sales.

And so, back to those delicious Murphy’s ice creams, made from Kerry cows’ milk and devoid of additives or unnatural colourings. The power-play between sight perception and our understanding of flavour explains why Murphy’s new display system influences their customers’ choices. The brown bread ice cream is one of my favourites but it’s not the most eye-catching. Its colour is tinged a light brown from the chunks of crunchy toasted brown bread (the best bits). It’s by no means hideous. In fact, it looks real. But it’s a long way from the the swirly, unnaturally coloured gelato that turns heads on high streets in other ice cream shops.

But without the distraction of its appearance, it means I can zone in on the comfort I associate with the taste of brown bread. I imagine the brown sugar caramelising on chunks of brown bread while being toasted. I think about the smell of a fresh loaf coming out of my grandmother’s aga, and it’s probably that association that keeps me ordering Murphy’s brown bread ice cream.

Without being influenced by sight, I’m instead effected by another powerful impact on taste; my memory and the association between food and comfort.