Omnivore - Dining in the Dark: Like dining in the light, but harder

• http://clatl.com/atlanta/ImageArchives?by=1223504
• And, here I am enjoying crab, curry and raisin risotto at Dining in the Dark (dramatization)

When I told my mom I was covering a Dining in the Dark event for work, you’d have thought I told her I was covering a Dining on the Contents of Dirty Diapers event. Really, the idea of eating a meal in pitch darkness was that offensive to her. After lots of “Oh my Gods” and “Gwynn, that’s disgustings,” I broke it to her that blind people would be serving the meal. That completely blew her mind. Apparently, she thinks of a server as a sort of quality control officer, a culinary watchdog whose vigilance is only things that prevents the kitchen staff from putting pubes in everyone’s food (what she actually said would be in my food was grosser). Obviously, in the absence of that safeguard, the people preparing the food would be compelled to tamper with it.

OK. My mom is nuts (kidding … kinda … luvs you, Mommy!), but I think there’s something to her reaction. Whether by evolutionary necessity or sheer aesthetics, people are pretty married to getting a good look at what they eat before they start shoveling it into their faces. Of course, the visually impaired don’t have that option, but for the sighted, not seeing what you’re eating — or drinking or sitting on or sitting by — is a novelty, and kind of a disconcerting one.

The idea behind Dining in the Dark, a once-monthly event in the Dialogue in the Dark space at Atlantic Station, is that eliminating the ability to see heightens the remaining senses. Foods’ flavors become more intense, their aromas more tantalizing, their textures, especially the finger foods, more interesting. I don’t really know if that was the case, but I left full of delicious things and awfully glad I could see again.