Flavor: What We Thought We Knew Is Wrong
Why am I always dousing my eggs in hot sauce while my dad winces at the faintest chile heat? Why do I believe beets embody deliciousness while they rank at the top of your "utterly disgusting" list?
Prize-winning veteran journalist Bruce Feiler weighs in on this question and a host of others in a fascinating article Gourmet story about the fast-changing science of taste. Flavor chemist Terry Acree from Cornell University says, "Flavor chemistry is finished." He explains:
“Flavor chemistry is finding the chemical molecules that are important to aroma and taste. We spent decades doing this. But the other side of the equation is what’s been missing: how these chemicals interact with our bodies. That’s the part we’re getting to now.”
And they are getting there, thanks to big breakthroughs, many accelerated by the decoding of the human genome in 2003. By isolating the genome's individual taste receptors, scientists can begin to understand how we respond to every flavor known (and perhaps unknown) to humankind.
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5 Comments:
The only thing worse than beets is goat cheese.
scottk at 9:13AM on 06/23/08
Whatever determines a person's sense of taste appears to be mutating (downward) during my lifetime. Cases in point: During the 1960s, every pizzeria I visited was owned by Italian immigrants and produced true Neapolitan pizza. Most hamburger places sold charbroiled hamburgers. Jewish delicatessens sold bagels worthy of the name, and every supermarket carried Italian and French bread with a crust as crisp as any bread sold in Europe.
Now we have two generations of Americans who have grown up on Pizza Hut selling ersatz "pizza," McDonald's selling bland, tasteless hamburgers, bagels with all the character of a hamburger bun sold in every 7-11 in America, and an epidemic of Olive Gardens and their immitators serving "breadsticks" that are neither real Italian breadsticks not real Italian bread, but some like a Wonder brown 'n' serve roll that hasn't been quite baked long enough!
I call this "downward evolution."
Maybe it's simply that "fly-over" America simply has not quite caught up with the New York metropolitan area yet. However, with very little immigration from Europe to reinforce the taste bud gene pool, I'm not sure if we'll every get back to the golden era of true European-American food.
JerseyWarren at 9:31AM on 06/23/08
JerseyWarren, I agree with you whole heartedly. That is one of the reasons that I tend to enjoy our meals cooked at home, from scratch.
DancingShoes at 9:43AM on 06/23/08
JerseyWarren, you are SO right! I live in Flint, Michigan and if I want a hamburger I still go to Halo Burger where they make them the same as they did back when I was a kid in the forties. When I want Italian food, I make it here at home. If I want Mexican food, I make it here at home. Having lived a few years in Queens, NY, my Neopolitan landlady taught me how to cook Italian, and having lived many years in Texas, I know how to cook mexican food. I have pretty much given up eating in restaurants that can be found in any city in the US and just stick to the same little places where I ate in the different places I have lived that have been carried on by the families who started them so many years ago. Nothing can compare!! And, I love beets AND goat cheese!
susi
susitee at 11:25AM on 06/23/08
One of the most delicious dishes I ever had was a bite of my friend's vegetable Napoleon which included roasted beets AND goat's cheese. I was very sorry I did not order it and every opportunity to find something similar has been a disappointment.
We were eating at Nana's which is an excellent restaurant in Durham, NC which has far more sophisiticated eating opportunities today than in the past. Matha's good friend Sara Foster has her place offering fresh and delicious American fare right around the corner from Nana's.
I think that America's palate overall has become much more sophisitcated over the last 30 years and the breads and cheeses and fine French culinary experiences etc that were concentrated in large metropolitan areas are now much more readily available including central North Carolina. Pork barbecue is no longer the only excellent thing to eat here!
My mother drank instant coffee and served us canned asparagus. I can't imagine having to consume that low level quality of sustenance by choice.
Yes, there are many depressing examples of inauthentic and homogenized foodstuffs available to the undiscerning public. But I remember TV commercials for making pizza at home from a box of ingredients included canned sauce and a sprinkling of dry, tastless ersatz parmesan cheese.
We've come a long way baby.
dnc
JohnFred at 1:25PM on 06/23/08