This short lecture, provided to a class of students at the Culinary Institute of America, introduces them to a few philosophical sources discussing sense-perception and the phenomenon of synaesthesia -- when meaning from one modality of sense transfers into another modality. I discuss how and why this phenomenon would be of interest to them as chefs-in-training, introduce them briefly to Maurice Merleau-Ponty's thoughts about synaesthesia (namely that it is part of normally functioning perception), and then lead them into thinking briefly about Aristotle's discussion of senses and meaning in several of his works. I conclude by "throwing them a bone" to gnaw on from the history of ideas and cuisine, discussing Aristotle's rather surprising distinction of eight tastes or flavor profiles
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