Can zesting and juicing a lemon, and then savoring a lemony morsel of cake lift your spirits? 

The School of Life recently published a book of recipes developed through a collaboration of philosophers, chefs, and psychologists. The book promotes the idea that certain foods and recipes can change your mood in specific ways.

The authors of this book called “Thinking & Eating” assign symbolism to sixteen foods. A lemon is a symbol of hope, while mushrooms are associated with pessimism, for example. The book provides recipes that help you cope with various inward-focused emotional need states as well as dishes that help with entertaining situations. There is guidance for relationship challenges and suggestions for how to sharpen your thinking.

In this podcast you’ll hear snippets from several friends and colleagues about their experiences making recipes from this book and eating the end dishes. It’s a somewhat diverse group in terms of overall background and comfort level in the kitchen. This plays out in their reactions to the recipes and the degree to which specific recipes do or don’t affect their moods...and thoughts.

Sounds courtesy of Audeption, eyenorth, and cemagar at freesound.org