TIME's Best Inventions of 2008

The Other 49 Best Inventions

Dennis Cooper / zefa / Corbis

49. Sound-Enhanced Food

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Experimenting with how sound affects taste, chef Heston Blumenthal found that playing a recording of breaking waves makes an oyster taste 30% saltier than the same food eaten to the noise of barnyard animals. At the Fat Duck, a restaurant in Bray, England, his Sound of the Sea dish comes with an unusual side: an iPod loaded with sea sounds.

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