Senses working overtime

and a recipe for raw asparagus salad with breadcrumbs, walnuts and mint

We have for centuries sought to replace experience with knowledge. What a spare world we now live in.

—Hugo Kükelhaus, German philosopher, craftsman, and educator

Recently, Naomi Duguid shared some thoughts about food photography — how cookbook images, for all their beauty, can sometimes separate us from the real work of cooking. From the mess and the steam and the small, sensory decisions that shape a meal. It got me thinking about how often we trade the thing itself for a picture of it. How we begin to substitute doing with knowing about, seeing with researching, scrolling with experiencing.

It’s not that knowledge is the enemy. But there’s a subtle shift that happens, often so subtle that we hardly notice it. In our quest to curate our food, a moment, our lives, we edit out the messy details that add imperfections and richness to the whole.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the “clean up” feature I recently discovered on my phone’s camera. With the touch of a button I can eliminate that pesky person who stepped into the frame just as I took the photo; capture the Tour Eiffel and make it appear as if I found a magical moment alone with this iconic monument; strip a piece of art of its human context to see the whole piece without encrumbrance.

A David Hockney work that needs human scale to release its power

Yet it’s an edited view of life that deprives it of the texture and human scale needed to make the moment real.

Senses working overtime

I was a child when we visited Expo ‘67 in Montreal. I don’t remember much beyond the rush of colours; the world pavillions featuring faraway places, the hum of the crowds.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Hugo Kükelhaus had created a small, quiet exhibit there: the Experience Field for the Development of the Senses. It was meant to bring people back to their bodies — to remind them how to feel space and sound, texture and balance. It invited full sensory engagement at a time when the world was already beginning to prioritize speed, efficiency, abstraction.

Now nearly 60 years in the rearview mirror, Kükelhaus’s exhibit was eerily prescient. Long before smartphones, screens, or digital fatigue, the exhibit demonstrated that we were drifting away from experience, and into something thinner. That we might come to know more and feel less. Kükelhaus was sounding a gentle alarm, reminding visitors to find a better balance: appreciating not just knowledge, but also the value of experiencing the world through our senses.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

—Søren Kierkegaard, Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, and social critic

We live in a time of extraordinary access. A how-to for everything. We can learn anything, follow anyone, simulate almost any experience. But increasingly, I find myself craving the texture of things. Potting plants and getting the dirt beneath my nails; kneading the dough; shaping clay into bowls that hold something real. Not having a clear roadmap for what the finished product might be but trusting the process.

There’s a humility in doing something rather than just knowing about it. Especially when the outcome is uncertain, when there’s no mastery in sight…and no photo worth sharing. Because experience — unmeasured, unrecorded, un-Instagrammable — is still the richest kind of knowing.

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Raw asparagus salad with breadcrumbs, walnuts and mint

Joshua McFadden, Six Seasons

This isn’t the prettiest of salads, no matter how artfully I try to arrange the dish. But it’s one where all the requisite pieces come together in a beautiful harmony of flavours: crunchy-crisp, salty, toasty, and delicious.

It all depends on your own sense of taste—your preference for lemony bursts, a cheesier texture, a bit more heat. Instructions and a photo alone won’t teach you how to get the best result, but try this a few times while we have glorious asparagus on hand, and you’ll get it just right.

Ingredients

1 pound asparagus, tough ends trimmed

¼ cup lightly packed mint leaves, sliced thinly

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

⅓ cup dried breadcrumbs

½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

½ cup finely chopped lightly toasted walnuts

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

Dried chile flakes

Extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Put the breadcrumbs, Parmigiano, walnuts, and lemon zest in a large bowl. Add 1 teaspoon salt, a bunch of twists of black pepper, and ½ teaspoon chile flakes. Toss to combine everything.

2. Cut the asparagus on a sharp angle into very thin slices and add to the crumb mixture. Add ¼ cup lemon juice and toss some more. Taste and amplify the flavours by adding more salt, black pepper, chile flakes, or lemon juice.

3. When the salad tastes bright and delicious, add the mint and ¼ cup olive oil and toss. Taste and adjust again, and serve.