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Convenience Retailer Show Daily Thursday, October 19, 2017 2 8 The Howard Company: Technology Built on Tradition Since entering the digital menu board field 12 years ago with its VisionQuest™ product line, The Howard Company has watched the digital trend grow from modest promotional video screens to full-blown menu displays showing dynamic and static content. Restaurants now have a multi- tude of choices in screen size, visual dis- plays and programming options that were unavailable only a few short years ago. Key to the Howard product line is its all-inclusive package of screens, comput- ers and software, making the conversion from traditional menu boards to a digital system a relatively simple process. The Howard Company brings its expertise in providing high quality indoor digital systems to the drive-thru lane with the DT Choice Digital Drive- Thru Board. Keeping the tradition of giv- ing restaurants options for their drive- thru lanes, The Howard Company offers outdoor digital screens in one, two or three panel configurations. The digital drive-thru operates on the same software as the indoor; menu changes can be managed from a central office. "With both indoor and outdoor digi- tal systems available from The Howard Company, restaurants are now able to take full advantage of quickly changing menu content locally or globally in a matter of minutes," says Doug Watson, The Howard Company President and Chief Executive Officer. To learn more about The Howard Company, visit www.howardcompany.com. How Chiles Define Taste By Mark Miller, Chef and Culinary Anthropologist, often called the founder of modern southwestern cuisine. He also serves as a member of expert chef 's panel for Green Chile Foods, along with Kevin Towles and Roberto Santibanez. Chiles are definitely one of the most important ingredients in my cooking and – not coincidentally – in many of the world's cuisines. I would argue their importance is not because they have a hot or spicy chemical taste, but because they create critical spaces in the process of tasting. These "spaces" allow us to enhance our perception of different foods and flavors. Tasting is a very complex process that involves both our bodies and our minds. The body provides information, but the brain needs to organize and interpret that information. When we taste food or beverages, we are using not only the chemical receptors in our taste buds, but the neural receptors in our mouth that perceive both texture and temperature, our olfactory system and our memory. The sum of all these infor- mational systems into a single percep- tion is called taste. Chiles provide an important path of information during eating – one that is independent of the primary flavors: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Chiles cre- ate breaks in the flow of the pri- mary tastes. Contrary to popular belief, these chile spaces do not block other flavors, but rather they help us perceive them bet- ter. Chile "spaces" break up and redefine the input of taste stimuli into smaller packets of organized infor- mation, so they actually help us define taste in a similar manner as negative space in art, for example, which allows us to better appreciate the forms in a painting. While chiles are not flavors, or one of the primary tastes, they contrast and define the actual flavors, so we can more easily taste them. Chiles are important not because they are tasty but because they help us taste and define other flavors. Almost every culture has adapted to some sort of spice or seasoning that acts like a chile would: strong, spicy and initially not easy to enjoy, such as saffron, mustard, black pepper, wasabi, horseradish and thyme. All enhance the taste of foods – they create a contrast. They do not change or hide the food. They embellish, enrich and enlighten it. Why are chiles the most commonly used spice in the world today? Why do almost all cuisines embrace them when they are introduced? The answer is because they improve the cuisine's cre- ative possibilities, and extend its expres- sive range. In defining taste, chiles define what we eat, and who we are. Chiles acti- vate the sense of being in this world – of being alive. Chiles are truly the spice of life. Visit Green Chile at booth #2553. For more information, go to www.greenchile foods.com, call 952.666.2993 or email sales@greenchilefoods.com.