Latest / Event Industry News Podcast / How Feast & Fable Turns Meals into Immersive Brand Stories
Transcript
- 0:00Hello everybody and welcome along to the Event Industry News podcast with me, James Dixon,
- 0:11wishing you all a very good morning, afternoon or evening, whenever or wherever you tune
- 0:15into today's podcast from. The sun has come out, you may see glimpses of light just coming
- 0:22through the curtains here, which is great. We've been in a period of terrible weather
- 0:28here in the UK for the last couple of weeks or so, but it's on Saturday we've got a bit
- 0:31of sunshine. I'm recording this on a Monday and yeah, the sun is out. I feel like spring
- 0:38may just about sort of peek its head out from behind the curtains in the next week or so,
- 0:43which would be great, a big pick up for everybody. On with today's episode, my guest today is
- 0:48Jenny McNeil. Jenny is the founder of Feast and Fable, a UK-based immersive dining studio
- 0:54that transforms meals into multi-sensory, narrative-driven experiences. She works at
- 0:59the intersection of food theatre and experiential design, creating events where menus, flavours
- 1:05and sensory cues are integrated into the story from day one. That's as good as an introduction
- 1:10as I've read in ages on the podcast. Let's welcome our guest today, Jenny McNeil. Jenny,
- 1:15very warm welcome to the podcast.
- 1:17Thanks for having me on, James.
- 1:19Very, very welcome. And continuing some discussion, I've recorded an episode already today with
- 1:24the chef. This kind of continues a subject very close to my heart, which is food, both
- 1:32the consumption of and cooking food. But I love when I was kind of reading the background
- 1:36on the business today, the idea and everything that was in that sort of opening paragraph
- 1:42that I've just given them, the idea of basing events around food, rather than food just
- 1:47sort of being an element of it, if that makes sense. You're really the person to talk to
- 1:52us a bit more. Tell us a little bit. Let's start with you, first of all, about your own
- 1:56journey and how that led to Feast and Fable.
- 1:58OK, sure thing. So I'm a little bit of a hybrid in that I am a chef, but I'm also a marketer.
- 2:05So when I first kind of came out of uni all those years ago, I'd been living in France
- 2:09for a little bit and loved food, but didn't think of it as a career. So I went down a
- 2:13more traditional path into marketing and worked in marketing, client side and then agency
- 2:18side in London for about 10 years. And then one day just went, I do not like living sitting
- 2:24at a desk. I don't like being tied to one spot, which has been something that's followed
- 2:29me around ever since and ended up doing a ski season. So I went to the Alps and was
- 2:34chalet hosting, cooking, guiding, all of the stuff that you did back then and very much
- 2:40fell in love with food and thought, right, this is something I could probably do more
- 2:45seriously. So when I came home, went back into marketing for a little bit, it took
- 2:50about a year for me to realise it still wasn't for me. I hadn't changed. And so I went to
- 2:55chef school. So I went to the Leeds School of Food and Wine, did a professional diploma,
- 3:01which is normally a year, but they let me skip the first term because I already had
- 3:03a bit of cooking experience. And yeah, came out the other side, a fully fled chef in theory.
- 3:10And I think because I was slightly older at the time, I decided not to go into kind of
- 3:14restaurant cooking. I did do a couple of restaurant experiences and I worked at the
- 3:18Fat Duck, I worked at the Tate Modern and various places like that, which were very
- 3:22challenging and difficult places to work when you have very little restaurant experience.
- 3:26But ultimately, starting my own company was the dream. And I started Ginger Jar. So Ginger
- 3:32Jar is my catering company, which still runs today in the background. And I think because
- 3:37I'd had lots of marketing clients and lots of friends and colleagues that still worked
- 3:43in marketing, it quite soon became very bespoke and very kind of designing food for specific
- 3:50product launches or particular niche things that you couldn't find on your general kind
- 3:55of ABC menu, ABC caterer. And then about 10 years ago, in fact, it was 10 years ago, because
- 4:02I was looking at the 2016-2026 trend and looking back today at things and I met the founders
- 4:08of Ginger Line. So Ginger Line being the sort of pioneers, I suppose, of immersive
- 4:14dining in London. They were looking for someone to start the B2B side of the business and
- 4:20to, I suppose, kind of embed and run all of the food into their long term projects, of
- 4:25which they had two or three running simultaneously. So we started Flavourology, Ginger Line Flavourology
- 4:31and ran that for about six or seven years with kind of COVID gap in the middle. And
- 4:37I suppose Feast and Fable, with it being now 100 percent mine, is a kind of culmination
- 4:41of all of those sort of experiences. So coming from a kind of chef world, coming from a marketing
- 4:47world and then now we approach our events like a kind of marketing campaign brief, I
- 4:53suppose. But with food as a huge point of difference, narrative point all the way through
- 4:58it. And I still chef, I still, you know, fundamentally design food for the experiences. But I also
- 5:05have a, you know, I'm a conceptual experience designer overall, over and above just the
- 5:09food side of it. So, yeah.
- 5:12So how does this sort of, I suppose, sort of conceptualised sort of narrative driven
- 5:18way of experiencing food and combining that with an event work then? Because when I was
- 5:23sort of thinking about this before today's recording, I'm thinking that, you know, a
- 5:26lot of events are very much sort of like jigsaws or Lego sets sometimes, you know, you have
- 5:32pieces that you kind of assemble together to build, you know, the building blocks that
- 5:37build your event, of which food will be an element of that, you know, there'll be a time
- 5:42allotted within your schedule of your event and a space, you know, right, there's the
- 5:47meal service or there's the food being done. And it plays a part in the overall event experience.
- 5:53Whereas it strikes me that you're reversing that, you're making the food what encompasses
- 5:59everything and then getting the pieces of the event to slot in around the food. Would
- 6:03that be fair? Or have I completely misunderstood that?
- 6:05No, no, no, that is. So I think it depends. So I guess if you look at the range of events
- 6:10we do, food as a narrative point can actually be 10 to 20% or it could be 100%. It really
- 6:16depends on the experience and what the kind of outcome of the experience is. I suppose
- 6:21if we were designing for a food based product, so if it was a food, you know, a food or a
- 6:25drinks brand, then the food will be a larger proportion of it. But sometimes if we're working
- 6:31for, I don't know, a finance brand, American Express or that kind of thing, or just something
- 6:37that's less obvious, maybe sports, retail, fashion, beauty, then food is used as one
- 6:43of the narrative devices. So one of the devices that essentially locks everything together.
- 6:48So I think you're right in that, you know, obviously every event has all of these different
- 6:52building blocks that come together. Our view is that conceptually they should really link.
- 6:58So rather than it being like block A, block B, block C, they all kind of follow a loose
- 7:03theme that they should all support each other in a wider function to really kind of prop
- 7:08up a story in a way that, I mean, we were just talking off camera before we started
- 7:13about, you know, different classic novels. And if you think about all of the building
- 7:18blocks of a classic novel, you know, you have the love interest, you have the narrative
- 7:21devices, you have the journey, you have the end or the intrigue. And, you know, but they
- 7:25all build to form a novel that are built to form a collective of short stories. And that
- 7:30is the point, I suppose, of what we do is that we're using food as a very, as a narrative
- 7:35thread. But there's so many other things that contribute that to make the kind of end event
- 7:41or the end experience.
- 7:42And when you talk to clients about, I guess that it might be sort of a twofold thing.
- 7:50Some clients will come to you because they kind of know broadly speaking, or maybe in
- 7:54a bit more detail, what it is you can offer and what you can bring to the party. I would
- 7:57guess that there are a certain element of your clients who come to you on recommendation,
- 8:02but who have maybe not gone into it in as much detail with their events before in the
- 8:07way that you're leading the sort of the food and the event link up and conversation before.
- 8:12So how does that, how does that drive itself? And does it take clients who have not experienced
- 8:17that before a while to understand exactly how they should be thinking?
- 8:20Yeah, I think it, I think a lot of it comes down to what that client's or your main contact,
- 8:27I suppose, or group of contacts, what that kind of personal experience is. If they've
- 8:32been to a ginger line, if they've been to a punch drunk, if they've been to something
- 8:35where personally they've experienced immersive theatre and immersive storytelling, then they
- 8:40can understand a little bit more about what, how it would fit to their brand experience.
- 8:44If they're not a foodie and they don't really go, you know, they've never been to sort of
- 8:49the immersive stuff, then they don't really understand what the, what the possibilities
- 8:54are, I suppose. And what you tend to do is then have to sort of do this crash course
- 8:59in what it is that's possible, because generally they'll always start off going, okay, we're
- 9:04going to do a really nice themed dinner. And, you know, a really nice themed dinner is a
- 9:08great thing and it can be experiential and it can be, it can be really powerful. But what
- 9:12we try and do is, is lay a much more on top of that, you know, many, many more levels
- 9:19of engagement and touch points and sensory points that will really kind of compound everything.
- 9:25But it sort of depends on where, where they're starting with, whether or not they'll understand
- 9:28it. And it doesn't mean that if they haven't personally experienced that stuff, that they're
- 9:34not going to get it. You just have to go on a bit more of a journey to get them to understand
- 9:37it. And I think also one thing that people don't fully understand is, is the, is the
- 9:42number of formats we can do. So, you know, whereas, as I said, some people might come
- 9:47thinking, well, okay, it's a dinner, specifically a dinner, sit down dinner, we're going to
- 9:51be looking at table scapes and menus and nice menus and all that kind of stuff. But we're
- 9:56not necessarily going to be looking at, you know, sorry, I'm just, we're not going to
- 10:04be looking at the kind of what, you know, the wider context of performance or for other
- 10:08things that are kind of going on. And so I think, you know, what we, what we can do is
- 10:14very much look, we can look at the dinners, but we can look at multi-room experiences.
- 10:18We can look at stand up experiences. We look at a whole different bunch of formats that
- 10:23look to essentially engage you in a, in an active way rather than being passive, which
- 10:29actually sometimes a kind of a dinner can be quite passive in that you're just sitting
- 10:32there and kind of engaging in something, but you're not necessarily participating. And
- 10:37our main thing is to get people to participate because in that way, they're immersed in a
- 10:41way that they're not if they're just experiencing something.
- 10:44Sure. Well, I suppose at this point, I'm feeling like we should get into maybe letting you
- 10:51explain how it actually physically manifests itself. Are we talking about, you know, changes
- 10:57to structure? So breaking out of the traditional right starter, brief break, main course, brief
- 11:01break, dessert, are we talking about changes to the flow of meals or how does it, how does
- 11:06some of the things that you've talked about actually manifest themselves from a food point
- 11:10of view?
- 11:10Yeah, I suppose. Well, so I'll use examples because I think it's easier to kind of explain
- 11:15it. So the more, the more traditional format would be something like we did for Tropic.
- 11:20So skincare brand, they're a, they're a plant based skincare brand. Very much, they have
- 11:28very much use of natural ingredients in all of their products. So they wanted to do a
- 11:32dinner that was really kind of inspired by the Hero products. And that's really easy
- 11:37for us because you're looking at coconut, you're looking at, you know, herbs, you're
- 11:41looking at sort of perfumes and florals that you can actually eat and bring into the food
- 11:45in a really kind of obvious line, I suppose. But the brief for us to then, or the challenge
- 11:51for us then is to kind of, OK, so how do you change that from just being a lovely plant
- 11:55based dinner? So what we did is look at the way people use the products and look at sort
- 12:00of the beauty ritual, I suppose, that people participate in when they go through that.
- 12:05So at the end of the day or the morning and build that into the meal. So you had courses
- 12:10that were all about cleansing, so the things that were about kind of gut health and all
- 12:15just different elements over on top of just sort of, this is a nice, tasty plant based
- 12:19meal at this particular point. And there were elements where you made a course for
- 12:23somebody else that was about the kind of self-care and participating in care and care
- 12:28of somebody else. So there are lots of different elements to it. But then you take that and
- 12:34you kind of throw all of that up in the air and you do something like we did for Warburton's
- 12:39where we essentially did a multi-room underground experience where you go from room to room
- 12:44experiencing completely different environments when you move. So we actually did the day
- 12:50in the life of a bagel when they did an experience, a sort of take on New York Bagel Factory head
- 12:55on and they were using Robert De Niro at the time in their press ads and then TV commercials.
- 13:03So we did this sort of underground, challenging, Peaky Blinder-esque experience where you
- 13:08really didn't know what you were going to go into. So you were met at the door by sort
- 13:11of these two kind of lurking strangers. You went downstairs and then you actually went
- 13:16into this sort of day in the life style thing where the first course you were sitting as
- 13:22if you were a TV audience under a life-size TV screen and you had a Morecambe and Wives
- 13:27style dancers performance within the TV screen making a meal as they go.
- 13:32Yeah, the classic sort of breakfast sketch.
- 13:34Yeah, the kind of, yeah, the opening and closing the doors and, you know, kind of dancing away
- 13:38to it, to a piece of music and a piece of scripted song that was bespoke written. And
- 13:44then they would open some cupboards and bring out your starter and hand it to the TV screen
- 13:48to you. And then you'd walk out of that room and go into another one and have another course.
- 13:53And then you ended up in a pub, in the kind of Peaky Blinder's pub, playing darts with
- 13:57a character to have kind of curry and beer. So, yeah, it's kind of completely, you know,
- 14:02thrown in the air experience compared to a dinner.
- 14:06Yeah.
- 14:07What a fascinating way to kind of, you know, change how we've sort of long integrated food
- 14:13into our events. You know, whether that be, you know, it could be a sort of a high level
- 14:18business dinner for, you know, 20 executives who are wanting to discuss business around
- 14:24the table. You know, it could be, you know, the end of a day's conferencing. It could
- 14:28be an awards event. There's any number of sort of events that utilise food within them.
- 14:33But that strikes me as a complete, you know, re-understanding of how we would deliver the
- 14:37food and combine that with an experience. And I guess once clients understand that about
- 14:42what it is that you're trying to conceptualise and create for them, that brings a whole sort
- 14:48of new level of creativity to them, particularly with this sort of experiential and the brand
- 14:53activation stuff. I'm guessing that they would be really keen to sort of buy into this once
- 14:58they understand the concept.
- 14:59Yeah, it's very much a sweet spot. I think we split what we do into two sides. One we
- 15:04call Brave Brands and the other one we call Daring Hosts. So the gala dinners, the kind
- 15:09of, you know, VIP dinners, C-suite dinners, all of that kind of stuff would fit into a
- 15:14daring host. So that's where you're not necessarily doing something fun to try and tell a brand
- 15:20story and shift a particular product or service, but you're doing it to potentially entertain
- 15:27people in a kind of more ethereal concept. So it might just be that, you know, they need
- 15:30to be in a creative environment that sparks conversation and sparks creative thought.
- 15:37Or it might be that, you know, it's a 250 year anniversary of a particular company and
- 15:41they need to, they want to kind of bring a celebratory message together in a way that
- 15:45gets people to really interact and sort of, you know, participate. So that's very much
- 15:50the kind of daring host side. I would say we do probably 70% on the kind of Brave Brands
- 15:55side where they're really doing events mainly for press or influencers. We always try to
- 16:01get them to extend it out to consumers because press generally like writing about events
- 16:06that consumers can actually go and, you know, experience as well as just the kind of influencers
- 16:11and press. So we just sort of say, once you've built it, you know, send it out, let as many
- 16:15people as possible through it. Because really the food cost, the delivery cost is quite
- 16:21small compared to the whole kind of concept and the venue and obviously all of the set
- 16:26builds and stuff like that that we do. But yeah, you can really go, it's like any kind
- 16:31of good creative brief. You could go many, many directions. It's never, never the same
- 16:35format and it shouldn't really be the same format. So, yeah.
- 16:40And is it always for, you mentioned there consumers, so is most of it B2B focused or
- 16:46do you create experiences that, you know, consumers can sort of, you know, can access,
- 16:52you know, be it sort of seasonal events like Christmas, for example. Is it something that
- 16:56consumers can access via clients that you're working with?
- 17:01Yes, some of them. Yeah. So sometimes the client will pay to kind of extend it so that
- 17:05consumers can come to it. I mean, we did it, we did an event at Christmas called Nutcracker
- 17:10Noir at Protein Studios, where essentially we conceptualised all of the food elements
- 17:15of it. And then we worked with Design Scene and with Secret Theatre, who did the immersive
- 17:21set design and the choreography and the scripting. And we came together as a collective and that
- 17:25was a ticketed experience. So you and I could buy tickets on Fever, go along, have an immersive
- 17:29dining experience. But that said, that's something I do probably more in kind of consultancy,
- 17:35although we did deliver that from the food perspective as well. And then, yeah, so when
- 17:40we do things like so we did a we did an event for Shark Ninja where they launched a double
- 17:46stack air fryer. So for basically people with a slightly smaller kitchen and we built a
- 17:50double stack air fryer on the South Bank. So a huge two storey high air fryer with a
- 17:56restaurant inside. Holy smokes. Right. And you could come to that and you basically went
- 18:00through as you went through a kind of welcome experience, which I think a lot of people
- 18:04thought was the experience. And then it was secret entrance into the kind of savoury course
- 18:09demo with a full chef making the dish in real time in front of you, which you then ate.
- 18:15And then you went through into a kind of really dark and mysterious dessert room, which again,
- 18:19the chef was making something in front of you. So showing how you use the air fryer.
- 18:24And then you kind of went out the other side. And for that one, they had we had a sort of
- 18:29trade day. We had press and influence a day. And then I think we had two consumer days.
- 18:33So groups of 16 people coming through every half an hour for two days from 12 noon to
- 18:409 p.m. And what sort of a world that we live in now that that, you know, a brand like that
- 18:47and what is ultimately a kitchen appliance? You know, I think back to sort of being a
- 18:52kid in the 80s and watching TV, you know, you see adverts and they're really when we
- 18:56look at sort of the kitchen appliance world or domestic appliances and what avenues were
- 19:02available to them, it was really an advert on on the on the advert, you know, the TV
- 19:06channels, the commercial TV channels, maybe on the radio, maybe in newspapers and magazines
- 19:12and things like that. If you think about just the sheer opportunities that are available
- 19:15to a brand like Sharp Ninja now to launch what is a domestic appliance for the kitchen
- 19:21now to be able to do something of that nature and the reach that it gives you, because no
- 19:25doubt you've got people walking past taking photos that's pushing it out onto social.
- 19:30You know, you've got the people who are actually participating in the event who are then reposting
- 19:34that you've got press that can come to it. Just the sheer reach that you can then generate just
- 19:38by being creative and the opportunities that we've now got. You know, you must sort of wake
- 19:42up every day with a new idea. Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. I mean, the reason
- 19:47that QVC was so popular back in the day was because people were seeing people using it.
- 19:52So, you know, it wasn't just about, you know, the catalogue. I mean, obviously, catalogue sold
- 19:57loads and loads of stuff, but you couldn't see people using it. Whereas now, you know, with
- 20:01TikTok and with with Instagram and with all of the social channels, then you can you can create
- 20:06this content of real people using it rather than just, you know, a person in a sort of demo studio.
- 20:12And that's the thing that gets it. That's the thing of people going, you know, on a TikTok viral
- 20:17air fryer brownie and suddenly, you know, you've sold 20,000 units that those kind of things are
- 20:22the other things that tip things over now, which is why the content that we create that put people
- 20:27inside these experiences is so shareable and so repeatable. And that's why people pay us to do
- 20:33what we do, because it's not just about a kind of passive watch sort of demo kind of thing.
- 20:40It's very much about being part of that experience, being invited up to maybe kind of
- 20:44make part of the brownie recipe, being able to kind of feel the things. You know, I mean,
- 20:49we did a whole piece for Shark Ninja where we recorded a symphony based on the sounds of the
- 20:55clunking drawers and the kind of hissing grills because there's such beautiful noises. So when
- 21:01it when it then came to the experience, we made sure that when it came to the dessert,
- 21:05the people found them inside the drawers of hidden air fryers that were hidden around the room.
- 21:10They can feel that kind of clunk, you know, which is so satisfying that the kind of car door noise.
- 21:15I've never thought I've never thought about that as, you know, the sounds that things make and
- 21:21being able to then bring that into the experience as well, because, you know, the sounds sense
- 21:27anything that you're wanting to be immersive, you know, is ultimately sort of trying to
- 21:31utilize and tap into all of the senses, isn't it? Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. So music
- 21:38and what people can hear must play such an important element in heightening the senses
- 21:42when food is involved. Yeah, well, it gives you all of the cues. I sort of always use the kind of,
- 21:48you know, imagine you go to a fancy hotel and there's five different restaurants and you know
- 21:53a lot about what they're going to be like before you sat down and eaten in them because of the
- 21:58cues that they're giving you, you know, everything from the room design to the music they're playing
- 22:03to whether or not when you're met by a maitre d' that they sort of talk in a slightly reverent
- 22:08way or whether or not they're very, you know, kind of vivacious. So you're getting all of these cues
- 22:13before you've tasted any kind of food and I think it's the same with these kind of experiences. So,
- 22:18you know, we use performers almost all of our experiences have some kind of performative
- 22:23element and the reason is that an in-world person, we call the experience the kind of world,
- 22:29an in-world person can act in a way that a kind of, you know, regular human wouldn't and so they
- 22:37can transport you into the world in a kind of way that you go with them and you sort of found,
- 22:41you see all these people that in theory would be quite resistant to being involved or immersed in
- 22:48a way in an experience and you see them just kind of go, okay, you know, and getting involved because
- 22:53they can't help it, you know, it's fun, we know how to do it so, you know, even some of the brands
- 22:59we work with can sometimes be a bit scared that their audiences just won't like it and won't
- 23:04participate. We sort of say, well, that's kind of our superpower to sort of know how to get people
- 23:09to engage and if they really don't want to then you leave them and you go for the ones that you
- 23:14can tell they're going to engage with you and they're going to sort of, you know, soften things
- 23:17up but it's such a big part of getting people involved at the performance side of it, it's such
- 23:23a big part of getting people involved and getting them to really kind of again go from that kind of
- 23:28passive to active state that we're ultimately looking for within our experiences.
- 23:34And what strikes me as well talking to you today and having done a little bit of reading before
- 23:38today's episode is this idea that everyone, I'm sure everybody can remember a great meal that
- 23:45they've had and when I say great meal I don't necessarily mean the fanciest, you know, Michelin
- 23:51restaurant, you know, great food experiences can sometimes just come from, you know, eating
- 23:57something as simple as, you know, I remember having a great, you know, Spanish omelette tortilla
- 24:03in a great little cafe with a great view in Madrid, you know, just the sun was shining,
- 24:11there were people hustling and bustling around the street, that little bit of food that I had
- 24:15was simple but brilliantly done. I had a small glass of beer, I was like my father-in-law and
- 24:20you know, I remember that, it's always logged in my head and food experiences and food memories,
- 24:26they can often really allow people immediate access to where they were at a certain time
- 24:32just by remembering a meal, can't they? And I guess that element probably plays a really
- 24:36important role in what you're trying to do is linking those two things so that the people,
- 24:40if it's a brand event for example, are really taking away that connection and that memory.
- 24:45Yeah, well I think, I can't remember the kind of the technical name for it but essentially
- 24:52when you smell something it doesn't go, it doesn't get filtered through your brain
- 24:55and until for you to then understand it, it goes straight in, so which is why it's so connected
- 25:01to childhood memory and why it's so connected specifically to memory because it's not sort
- 25:05of bypassed by anything, you really can walk down the street and think, oh I remember,
- 25:09I remember that smell, whether that be the kind of donut fry or whatever the thing was,
- 25:14you associate with a particular time, point in time, so I think that's super important when it
- 25:19comes to the kind of memory making side of it but I think it's true, I mean I think meals,
- 25:25we always use this analogy about how all of the kind of or most of the big important times of
- 25:30your life are kind of done over meals, the sort of Christmas gatherings, Easter gatherings,
- 25:34there's a reason why food is so culturally important within every culture really,
- 25:40it is a time that people come together and I think what we're sort of trying to get brands
- 25:46to understand is that the reason for that in a way is it's slightly transactional, it's like you
- 25:50know I'm going to feed you, I'm going to look after you and I'm going to give you a part of
- 25:55my heart on this plate and in this room and in return you give me your time and your attention
- 26:01you know because I'm really looking after you, so if you give me your time and your attention
- 26:06then that's the sort of transaction and something for them to take away in a way that again if
- 26:11you're just walking around and even you might get some merch, you might get some other kind of
- 26:14takeaway, it's not the same as being as being kind of cocooned in a food and drink experience
- 26:21because that's the bit that you really do kind of lock in a way and that you know somebody's
- 26:26really looked after me, they've really understood something that I needed in that moment and you
- 26:31know and I come away from it feeling richer than I did before and that's what food can do.
- 26:38Two things have popped into my head whilst you've been saying that and the first is
- 26:45a condition if you could call it a condition called synesthesia where people hear sounds but
- 26:50it's projected in their brain as colour and they see certain colours and actually it's projected
- 26:56in their brain as sounds, it's an interlinking between sound and colour and synesthesia is an
- 27:02absolute thing and I know some people have actually done synesthesia projects and art
- 27:07projects where you know certain sounds are then evoking certain colours and projections in people's
- 27:13heads and I'm wondering whether or not there is a sort of a food equivalent, I'm sure there'll be
- 27:17people screaming maybe now saying yes there is but you know this idea that we've all been in a
- 27:21situation where we've eaten something and the moment it kind of hits our mouth you immediately
- 27:26go that takes me straight back to xyz yeah you know that event that work trip that I had that
- 27:35holiday that I had that honeymoon that wedding you know this idea that actually just popping
- 27:39something on your mouth could into your mouth could then you know evoke an immediate boom link
- 27:45yeah to another part of your brain I'd love to know if there is a if there is a sort of a food
- 27:50technical thing of synesthesia the other thing that popped into my head was the film Ratatouille
- 27:57that's so interesting that you use that as an example and this and that wonderful bit at the
- 28:01end of the film where the horrible food critic uh Anton Ego I think it is is the character
- 28:09takes the bite of the ratatouille and there's a great sort of flashback scene where it kind of
- 28:13zooms into him being a little boy having grazed his knee and having a bowl of his mum's ratatouille
- 28:19and where that bite of food took him to and that's for some reason having sort of made the
- 28:22link to synesthesia and then I immediately then remembered that scene from Ratatouille which
- 28:28ultimately is perhaps a really good way of highlighting what what what we're talking
- 28:32about today is is that instant memory yeah exactly and it's weird actually Ratatouille
- 28:37is one of the things that when I met my husband he um one of the first things that he said to
- 28:42me was that he wasn't that into food um and I said oh I'm not that into theater as which he
- 28:47pulled up the theater play that he was currently in and uh so one of the things over time was that
- 28:53you know as sort of educating each other into the things that we like and he always says that
- 28:58Ratatouille was his epiphany moment because he realized he could eat vegetables because of
- 29:02Ratatouille and um you know because he I think linguistically the way people describe what they
- 29:08like and don't like about about food I always find it really interesting so he sort of says you know
- 29:13I can eat that or I can't eat that I mean obviously you can eat all of it physically
- 29:17you can physically put it in his mouth and chew it but um you know he has got really definite
- 29:21psychological barriers around some different types of food based on try either trying them as a child
- 29:26or uh being for probably forced to eat them as a child and um they've they've created you know
- 29:32these boundaries in his mind around food and what he can and can't have and one of the big things
- 29:37about what we do and is that you know we we certainly within the gingerland world which was
- 29:42a really great a great place to be because it was a set secret menu you didn't know what you were
- 29:45having before you came so my job was to make people like things that they didn't think that
- 29:50they liked or hadn't previously liked because when they eat them in this setting that's not
- 29:55a normal setting that you know that they're pushed to do so because it's in front of them and it
- 30:01looks it looks delicious it looks inviting and it fits within the world that they're in um and and
- 30:06people have come out kind of going well I didn't think I could eat mustard or I didn't think I
- 30:10liked x and you know and you sort of think oh you know in the right context in the right place then
- 30:16you you do and it might not be something you eat all the time but it's like you know experiencing
- 30:20apple tea when you're on holiday in Morocco and then thinking it's disgusting when you come home
- 30:24in the right place in the right time these things can be amazing um but they don't necessarily
- 30:30always translate to other worlds because all of the other things aren't right you know they don't fit
- 30:36yeah context eating I guess you could call that you know in some respects it's similar to what I
- 30:40was saying about people remembering a great meal that they had because of the setting not
- 30:45necessarily because the food was anything fancy you know this idea of context eating is that
- 30:51you know what you're eating is also linked to another experience and an idea or that
- 30:56the experience itself is promoting you to eat something that you wouldn't usually
- 31:00explore because yeah you you just feel instinctively that it's right to do so
- 31:05um it is it's a really it's a really fascinating um subject to get into I've never discussed this
- 31:11before um which is why I was I was really looking forward to sort of getting into this this
- 31:15conversation to have the podcast and finding out a little bit more um a little bit more about it
- 31:20and how you do it and I suppose that that dovetails us nicely into sort of wrapping up a little bit
- 31:25today but before we do so sort of letting people know how they find out a little bit more because
- 31:29I'm sure people have listened or watched today and gone oh this all sounds very interesting I've
- 31:33never really come across this sort of concept before how do I get in touch so let's answer
- 31:37that question as simple as we can how do people find out a little bit more about what you're doing
- 31:41at Feast and Fable? Sure well we've got a portfolio on our website so which is feast-fable.co.uk
- 31:48um so that portfolio covers some of the different range of experiences we've done from seated
- 31:53dining to multi-room to all of the different kind of things that we do sometimes the consultancy
- 31:57where we've been to Singapore and cooked in the Ritz-Carlton or different kind of places um but
- 32:03also I'm pretty active on LinkedIn so my Jenny McNeil on LinkedIn I'm pretty active in terms of
- 32:09just sort of opinion pieces I suppose um about immersive dining and what it is and uh just
- 32:16different sides of it different concepts of it um so that's a good a good place to start um to
- 32:22check us out. Yeah head over to the website I had a little look around the website before today's
- 32:27podcast recording and inevitably you know you go through the website scroll down to the bottom
- 32:31you'll see links there to the socials to LinkedIn and to Instagram so um loads of easy ways and as
- 32:37Jenny said um feast-fable.co.uk um for those of you who are watching today's
- 32:44podcast that link is on the screen now um but yeah feast-fable.co.uk for those of you
- 32:50who are listening um go and check those guys out really really interesting to see what they're
- 32:54doing um and uh maybe it's something that you could incorporate into your events if you're
- 32:59planning something a little bit different or looking for some new inspiration as to how you
- 33:02you um I suppose uh include and integrate the food element into your events so Jenny it's been
- 33:09fantastic speaking today thanks for uh taking a bit of time out to have a chat with us. Thanks for
- 33:13having me on it's been great to chat all things food. Fabulous and um yeah just sort of on the
- 33:18subjects I mentioned watching or listening um you know if you are uh watching today's podcast via
- 33:24either the Event Industry News website or on something like YouTube thanks very much for
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- 35:18website oh there we go it's wrapped up that's all that's all the spiel at the end of the episode
- 35:24done and dusted thanks as always for listening to the event is a news podcast and thanks again
- 35:28to my guest Jenny McNeil from Feast and Fable for joining us Jenny thanks very much we hope to see
- 35:33you soon good luck with everything going forward thanks so much no problem at all and we'll see
- 35:38everybody on the next edition of the event industry news podcast thanks very much everybody goodbye