Relish
Taking keen, slightly greedy pleasure in something.
Relish is taking keen, slightly greedy pleasure in something. The chest is full with keen pleasure and the body savours. The enjoyment exceeds strict moderation while staying pleasant. The appetite for what is enjoyed stays keen.
Take what you want with both hands
Relish is greedy in the best sense. It is the refusal to take a pleasure half-heartedly. The big bite. The full attention. The unapologetic enjoyment. Many of us were trained out of relish. We were told not to want too much, not to take too much, not to seem too pleased. The training served someone, but it did not serve you. Today, when you find a thing that genuinely pleases you, take all of it. The whole bowl. The full hour. The complete experience. Do not apologise for the appetite. The appetite is part of being alive. Suppressed appetite leaks out elsewhere as resentment. Honoured appetite turns into gratitude.
"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
— Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Relish has a distinctive body signature of keen sustained pleasurable engagement. The chest is full with keen pleasure. The breath becomes engaged with the savouring. The body savours what is enjoyed. The face shows particular keen pleased quality. The voice carries particular relishing quality when expressing relish. The body holds itself in a way that suggests being engaged with what is relished: posture often leans into the experience, gestures often communicate the keen pleasure, attention sustained on what is being relished. The state is typically sustained over the duration of what is being relished, often producing memorable enjoyable experiences. Various objects of relish exist including food, victories, sustained pleasurable activities.
Relish has been engaged with in various contexts including culinary tradition where it has particular meaning, broader pleasure research, and various aspects of sustained enjoyment. The word originated in food contexts referring to something giving pleasing taste and has been extended to broader enjoyment. Research on savouring including work on capacity to sustain and enhance pleasure has examined related dimensions. The capacity for relish appears widely shared though substantial individual and cultural variation exists in how readily it develops.
Relish arises through specific conditions involving keen pleasurable engagement. Common patterns include:
Relish is one of the more distinctive enjoyable states when cultivated. The following help.
Build capacity for savouring
Relish develops partly through capacity for savouring which can be cultivated. Building practice of sustained engagement with pleasurable experiences, attending to dimensions of pleasure, and various other savouring practices supports broader capacity for relish over time.
Allow keen engagement when it arises
Some people resist keen engagement through patterns including discomfort with strong pleasure, particular cultural patterns that emphasise moderation in pleasure, or various other patterns. Allowing keen engagement when it arises supports broader access to relish.
Distinguish from problematic excess
Examining whether your relish remains in territory of pleasant keen enjoyment, or has crossed into problematic excess including gluttony or various other excessive patterns, supports better engagement. Healthy relish supports enjoyment while excess may produce difficulty.
Engage with traditions that cultivate it
Various traditions particularly cultivate relish including various culinary traditions, particular cultural patterns, and various other contexts. Engagement with these traditions when they speak to you provides resources that pure individual engagement may not provide.
Recognise relish in various domains beyond food
While the word originated in food contexts, relish applies to various domains including accomplishment, sustained activities, particular experiences, and various other contexts. Recognising relish in various domains supports broader engagement with this distinctive quality of enjoyment.
"Research on savouring has examined capacity to sustain and enhance pleasure; relish involves particular keen quality of savouring with slightly greedy dimension that adds to ordinary enjoyment."
— A theme in research on savouring
What is relish?
Relish is taking keen, slightly greedy pleasure in something. The body has been engaged with sustained keen pleasure that has slightly greedy quality, with quality that combines strong enjoyment with particular keen appetite for what is enjoyed. The chest is full with keen pleasure. The body savours. There is a quality of taking pleasure that exceeds appropriate moderation while remaining pleasant, of operating from keen enjoyment that has its own slightly greedy quality, of being engaged with what is enjoyed in keen sustained way. Relish specifically refers to keen slightly greedy pleasure.
Where do people feel relish in the body?
Relish has a distinctive signature of keen sustained pleasurable engagement. The chest is full with keen pleasure. The breath becomes engaged with the savouring. The body savours what is enjoyed. The face shows particular keen pleased quality. The voice carries particular relishing quality when expressing relish. The body holds itself in a way that suggests being engaged with what is relished: posture often leans into the experience, gestures often communicate the keen pleasure, attention sustained on what is being relished. The state is typically sustained over the duration of what is being relished, often producing memorable enjoyable experiences. Various objects of relish exist including food, victories, sustained pleasurable activities.
How is relish different from enjoyment?
Enjoyment is broader category. Relish is the specific keen slightly greedy form. A person can enjoy without relish (broader pleasant engagement without specific keen slightly greedy dimension). Relish involves the additional keen dimensions. Ordinary enjoyment can be present at various levels of engagement; relish specifically involves keen engagement with slightly greedy quality that adds particular character. The distinction matters because the experiences differ: ordinary enjoyment can be moderate and sustained over time without specific intensity; relish specifically involves keen quality that may exceed what moderate enjoyment includes while remaining within healthy pleasure rather than crossing into problematic excess. Both are valuable; relish represents particular form of enjoyment that emphasises the keen slightly greedy dimension. Research on savouring has examined capacity to sustain and enhance pleasure including the keen quality that relish involves.
What do people relish?
Various things can produce relish. The word originated in food contexts; particular foods continue to be common objects of relish including foods that are particularly enjoyable, savoured slowly, or appreciated keenly. Various accomplishments can be relished including significant achievements, victories, particular successes; people may relish their accomplishments through sustained appreciation. Various activities can be relished including hobbies engaged with keenly, particular experiences appreciated deeply, sustained pleasurable engagements. Various sensory experiences beyond food can produce relish including particular music, particular visual experiences, particular tactile experiences. The keen slightly greedy quality of relish can apply to various contexts where significant pleasure occurs and is engaged with through keen appreciation rather than just casual enjoyment. The capacity for relish appears widely shared though substantial individual variation exists in what produces it and how readily it develops.
Can relish become problematic?
Yes, in particular ways. Relish can cross into actual excess or gluttony when keen enjoyment of food or other consumables crosses into actual problematic excess that produces difficulty. Healthy relish involves keen enjoyment that remains within healthy territory; gluttony or various other forms of excess crosses into problematic territory. Some apparent relish in particular contexts including taking pleasure in others' suffering crosses into schadenfreude where the moral quality differs substantially from ordinary relish in pleasant things. Sustained patterns of relish that have crossed into problematic territory may warrant attention; various patterns including problematic relationships with food, problematic patterns of taking pleasure in inappropriate things, or various other patterns may benefit from examination. Healthy relish in pleasant things supports enjoyment and broader wellbeing; problematic forms warrant different engagement. Examining whether your relish remains in territory of pleasant keen enjoyment, or has crossed into problematic excess or directed at inappropriate objects, supports better engagement. The capacity for relish itself is healthy; particular patterns or directions may produce difficulty warranting attention.
No source-level citations are stored for this entry yet. The dictionary draws on the broader literature in affective neuroscience, psychology and cross-cultural emotion research. See the About page for the project's wider references.
Relish sits in the joy family as one of its more distinctive keen forms. It overlaps with enjoyment as broader category, with pleasure as broader response, with savouring when sustained engagement with pleasure is involved, with gusto when broader vigorous enjoyment is central, with what culinary tradition has engaged with extensively, and with what research on savouring has examined as feature of sustained and enhanced pleasure.
See where relish sits among the other 402 emotions.
Open Relish on the wheel