AMY STOCKLEIN
Dining in the Dark at Charlie’s on Main in Oregon. The event hopes to give diners a unique sensory experience while raising awareness about accessibility.
When the lights go down at the dinner party, the volume goes up. It happens every time, says Denise Jess. “People think they need to raise their voice to compensate.”
Without the benefit of sight, the other senses take over. Suddenly you notice the clatter of silverware on plates. You catch snippets of conversations at another table. Then you sense footsteps behind you. “On your left,” a server says clearly, setting a plate down in front of you.
About 25 people are seated for dinner in the back room at Charlie’s on Main in Oregon, all wearing blindfolds. When the soup course arrives, guests start feeling around for their spoons and for the edges of the plate. Or at least, I’m assuming that’s what everybody does. I am also in a blindfold, trying hard not to spill a drop of what I strongly suspect is a butternut squash bisque topped with fried onion. It’s surprisingly difficult.
I’m seated next to Jess, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired. She’s one of the evening’s hosts, along with Dave Heide, chef and owner at Charlie’s. Over the last few years, WCBVI has partnered with a few restaurants and dining clubs in Appleton and the Madison area for a series called Dining in the Dark, which aims to provide a unique sensory experience while raising awareness about accessibility for people with blindness or visual impairment. “Our other senses are such rich teachers,” Jess tells the crowd. “You take sight out, and you’ll experience food in a whole different way.”
While briefing the dinner guests, Jess doesn’t want to give away too many tips. “But since it’s sad to spill wine,” she says, “try sliding your hand up from the base of the glass.” Heide is equally cryptic in explaining the evening’s menu. “We’re going to bring food out, and you aren’t going to know what you’re eating,” he says.
It’s often said that we eat first with our eyes, and there’s science to back it up. A 2018 study from Cornell University found that eating is a “multimodal experience,” influenced by “visual, auditory, and tactile properties, as well as sensory input from our surroundings.”
After the challenging soup course, servers appear with bruschetta. Finger food is much easier to tackle. It’s a familiar dish, but the first blindfolded-bite reveals the interplay of texture and flavor — crisp grilled baguette topped with tender braised meat and crunchy, tangy pickled onion. But is it beef, or pork? My table can’t seem to agree.
Dining in the Dark originated in Europe more than a decade ago. GingerRootz, a pan-Asian restaurant in Appleton, heard about the concept and approached WCBVI about partnering for an event, but Jess says the organization’s board of directors was initially hesitant. “We really want to make sure the event is treated with a lot of integrity and dignity,” she says. “Board members were nervous it would belittle the experience for those of us who are blind and visually impaired.”
When it’s time for the main course, Heide tells us to expect starch, protein and vegetable, plus a dipping sauce. When servers arrive, they let us know how the plate is oriented: “Chicken is on skewers, sauce is at 12 o’clock.” Since nobody is looking, I poke at my plate with my fingers, discovering three spears of asparagus and a mound of rice pilaf (I had hoped for something easy, like mashed potatoes). Stabbing the asparagus proves challenging — same with finding my mouth. Suddenly, everything becomes finger food.
After a dessert of chocolate-covered strawberries and cheesecake topped with fig compote, the blindfolds come off and Heide shows off photos of what each course looked like. The bruschetta was indeed pork, he says, and he reveals that there were different preparations of onions in each dish — even dessert.
Dining in the Dark is fun and novel, but the deeper goal is to spark curiosity and compassion for those with visual impairment — a population that struggles with isolation, underemployment and a lack of access to public spaces. “Ableism is as much of a societal issue as racism and sexism and homophobia,” Jess says. “It needs and deserves its place at the table.”
Legal definition of blindness: 20/200 or less in the better eye
No generally accepted definitions for: visually impaired, low vision, or vision loss.
Blind and visually impaired people in Wisconsin: about 200,000
Projected number of blind or visually impaired people in the U.S. by 2050: 8 million
