162 Dana Small thinks: Martin G. Myers Jr. et al.,”Obesity and Leptin Resistance: Distinguishing Cause from Effect,” Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism 21 (2010): 643–651.
162 containers of sugary or fatty food: Michael G. Tordoff, “Obesity by Choice: The Powerful Influence of Nutrient Availability on Nutrient Intake,” American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative, and Comparative Physiology 282 (2002): R1536–R1539.
CHAPTER 6: WHY NOT IGUANA?
166 more than $10 billion worth of flavorings: http://www.leffingwell.com/top_10.htm.
187 Virgin Mary in a grilled-cheese sandwich: Jessica Firger, “See the Virgin Mary on Toast? No, You’re Not Crazy,” CBS News, May 4, 2014, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/see-the-virgin-mary-on-toast-no-youre-not-crazy/. The phenomenon has been studied scientifically: Jiangang Liu et al., “Seeing Jesus in Toast: Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Face Pareidolia,” Cortex 53 (2014): 60–77.
191 many other languages have fewer: Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016), 240.
194 Australian chemistry teacher: See, for example, James Kennedy, “Ingredients of an All-Natural Banana,” https://jameskennedymonash.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/ingredients-of-an-all-natural-banana/.
196 “the Dorito effect”: Mark Schatzker, The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth about Food and Flavor (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015).
198 “note-by-note cooking”: Hervé This, Note-by-Note Cooking: The Future of Food (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).
198 BBC news report: “Is This What We’ll Eat in the Future?”, video of Hervé This, BBC News, November 6, 2013, http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24825582.
198 told one reporter: Wendell Steavenson, “Hervé This: The World’s Weirdest Chef,” Prospect, September 2014, http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/herve-this-the-worlds-weirdest-chef.
199 “dirac”: Hervé This, “Three Recipes for Note by Note Cooking,” La Cuisine Note à Note (blog), November 20, 2014, http://hthisnoteanote.blogspot.ca/2014/11/three-recipes-for-note-by-note-cooking.html.
CHAPTER 7: THE KILLER TOMATO
205 40 percent lower than they used to be: Donald R. Davis, “Declining Fruit and Vegetable Nutrient Composition: What Is the Evidence?” Hort-Science 44 (2009): 15–19.
206 chose sixty-six varieties: Denise Tieman et al., “The Chemical Interactions Underlying Tomato Flavor Preferences,” Current Biology 22 (2012): 1035–1039.
206 twice as sweet: Linda M. Bartoshuk and Harry J. Klee, “Better Fruits and Vegetables through Sensory Analysis,” Current Biology 23 (2013): R374–R378.
208 to essential human nutrients: Stephen A. Goff and Harry J. Klee, “Plant Volatile Compounds: Sensory Cues for Health and Nutritional Value?” Science 311 (2006): 815–819.
210 tested what made for a tasty tomato: Tieman et al., “Tomato Flavor Preferences.”
213 looked at the volatiles in strawberries: Michael L. Schwieterman et al., “Strawberry Flavor: Diverse Chemical Compositions, a Seasonal Influence, and Effects on Sensory Perception,” PLoS One 9 (2014): e88446, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088446.
213 a single gene variant: Alan H. Chambers et al., “Identification of a Strawberry Flavor Gene Candidate Using an Integrated Genetic-Genomic-Analytical Chemistry Approach,” BMC Genomics 15 (2014): 217, doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-217.
217 description that emerges: Wendy V. Parr et al., “Perceived Minerality in Sauvignon Wines: Influence of Culture and Perception Mode,” Food Quality and Preference 41 (2015): 121–132.
218 ten times as much thiol: W. V. Parr et al., “Association of Selected Viniviticultural Factors with Sensory and Chemical Characteristics of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Wines,” Food Research International 53 (2013): 464–475.
218 trucking the grapes: Dimitra L. Capone and David W. Jeffery, “Effects of Transporting and Processing Sauvignon Blanc Grapes on 3-Mercaptohexan-1-ol Precursor Concentrations,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 59 (2011): 4659–4667.
218 unique microbial ecosystem: Nicholas A. Bokulich et al., “Microbial Biogeography of Wine Grapes Is Conditioned by Cultivar, Vintage, and Climate,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (2014): E139–E148, doi:10.1073/pnas.1317377110.
219 detectably different aroma profile: Sarah Knight et al., “Regional Microbial Signatures Positively Correlate with Differential Wine Phenotypes: Evidence for a Microbial Aspect to Terroir,” Scientific Reports 5 (2015): 14233, doi:10.1038/srep14233.
221 some store better than others: Luke Bell et al., “Use of TD-GC-TOF-MS to Assess Volatile Composition during Post-Harvest Storage in Seven Accessions of Rocket Salad (Eruca sativa),” Food Chemistry 194 (2016): 626–636.
222 vanished after a week: Fernando Vallejo, Francisco Tomás-Barberán, and Cristina García-Viguera, “Health-Promoting Compounds in Broccoli as Influenced by Refrigerated Transport and Retail Sale Period,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 51 (2003): 3029–3034.
222 haven’t reached consensus: See, for example, Marcin Baranski et al., “Higher Antioxidant and Lower Cadmium Concentrations and Lower Incidence of Pesticide Residues in Organically Grown Crops: A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analyses,” British Journal of Nutrition 112 (2014): 794–811; Diane Bourn and John Prescott, “A Comparison of the Nutritional Value, Sensory Qualities, and Food Safety of Organically and Conventionally Produced Foods,” Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition 42 (2002): 1–34; Alan D. Dangour et al., “Nutritional Quality of Organic Foods: A Systematic Review,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 90 (2009): 680–685; Crystal Smith-Spangler et al., “Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives? A Systematic Review,” Annals of Internal Medicine 157 (2012): 348–366.
223 local might not mean fresher: I owe this idea to Alyson Mitchell of the University of California, Davis.
223 didn’t matter one bit: Xin Zhao et al., “Consumer Sensory Analysis of Organically and Conventionally Grown Vegetables,” Journal of Food Science 72 (2007): S87–S91.
224 thought the eco-friendly coffee: Patrik Sörqvist et al., “Who Needs Cream and Sugar When There Is Eco-Labeling? Taste and Willingness to Pay for ‘Eco-Friendly’ Coffee,” PLoS One 8 (2013): e80719, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0080719.
226 says one tomato grower: Quoted in Dan Charles, “How the Taste of Tomatoes Went Bad (and Kept on Going),” NPR All Things Considered, June 28, 2012, accessed March 1, 2016, http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/06/28/155917345/how-the-taste-of-tomatoes-went-bad-and-kept-on-going.
227 20 percent less sugar: Ann L. T. Powell et al., “Uniform ripening Encodes a Golden 2-like Transcription Factor Regulating Tomato Fruit Chloroplast Development,” Science 336 (2012): 1711–1715.
CHAPTER 8: THE CAULIFLOWER BLOODY MARY AND OTHER CHEFLY INSPIRATIONS
233 more of the flavor in the vegetable: Royal Society of Chemistry, “Kitchen Chemistry: The Chemistry of Flavour,” http://www.rsc.org/learn-chemistry/resource/res00000816/the-chemistry-of-flavour.
234 Researchers in England: D. S. Mottram and R. A. Edwards, “The Role of Triglycerides and Phospholipids in the Aroma of Cooked Beef,” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 34 (1983): 517–522.
235 skatole: Peter K. Watkins et al., “Sheepmeat Flavor and the Effect of Different Feeding Systems: A Review,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 61 (2013): 3561–3579.
237 621 different Maillard products: Donald S. Mottram and J. Stephen Elmore, “Control of the Maillard Reaction during the Cooking of Food,” in Donald S. Mottram and Andrew J. Taylor, eds., Controlling Maillard Pathways to Generate Flavors (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society Symposium Series 1042, 2010), 143–155.
239 lab version of a cook-off: Chris Kerth, “Determination of Volatile Aroma Compounds in Beef Using Differences in Steak Thickness and Cook Surface Temperature,” Meat Scie
nce 117 (2016): 27–35.
240 different sets of microbes: My discussion of cheese styles follows Julie E. Button and Rachel J. Dutton, “Cheese Microbes,” Current Biology 22 (2012): R587–R589.
244 more popular than you’d expect: Michael A. Nestrud, John M. Ennis, and Harry T. Lawless, “A Group-Level Validation of the Supercombinatoriality Property: Finding High-Quality Ingredient Combinations Using Pairwise Information,” Food Quality and Preference 25 (2012): 23–28.
247 experimenting with salty ingredients: Heston Blumenthal, “Weird but Wonderful,” The Guardian, May 4, 2002.
248 Chartier’s book: François Chartier, Taste Buds and Molecules (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2012).
250 studied their molecular overlaps: Yong-Yeol Ahn et al., “Flavor Network and the Principles of Food Pairing,” Scientific Reports 1 (2011): 196, doi:10.1038/srep00196.
251 The Flavor Bible: Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs (New York: Little, Brown, 2008).
257 a Wassily Kandinsky painting: Charles Michel et al., “A Taste of Kandinsky: Assessing the Influence of the Artistic Visual Presentation of Food on the Dining Experience,” Flavour 3 (2014): 7, doi:10.1186/2044-7248-3-7.
259 “a quick run through the blender”: Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet, Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Volume 4 (Bellevue, WA: The Cooking Lab, 2011), 343.
EPILOGUE: THE FUTURE OF FLAVOR
261 craft breweries increasing by nearly 20 percent: Brewer’s Association, “Number of Breweries and Brewpubs in U.S.,” accessed May 28, 2016, https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/number-of-breweries/.
261 more than doubling since 2000: Rebecca Smithers, “Good Beer Guide 2015 Shows UK Has Most Breweries per Head of Population,” The Guardian, September 11, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/11/good-beer-guide-2015-uk-most-breweries-per-head-population.
262 Crisco white sauce: Leslie Brenner, American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a Cuisine (New York: Avon, 1999), 21.
264 The number of farmers’ markets: Anonymous, “Number of US Farmers’ Markets Continues to Rise,” accessed May 28, 2016, http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/detail.aspx?chartId=48561&ref=collection&embed=True.
268 found no difference: Wendy V. Parr, David Heatherbell, and K. Geoffrey White, “Demystifying Wine Expertise: Olfactory Threshold, Perceptual Skill and Semantic Memory in Expert and Novice Wine Judges,” Chemical Senses 27 (2002): 747–755.
268 slightly more likely: Gary J. Pickering, Arun K. Jain, and Ram Bezawada, “Super-Tasting Gastronomes? Taste Phenotype Characterization of Foodies and Wine Experts,” Food Quality and Preference 28 (2013): 85–91.
INDEX
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
acetaldehyde, 84
acetic acid (vinegar), 28, 169
Achatz, Grant, 146
acids:
in fruits, 208
tastants for, 22
and touch nerves, 102
acid smell, 50, 61
Acree, Terry, 230
acrid odor, 62
acrylamide, 237
Adrià, Ferran, 107
aeration device, 101
AgroParisTech, 199
Ahnert, Sebastian, 250–51
air, bacteria in, 34
air curtain, 68
airflow, direction of, 70
alcohol:
buzz of, 138
and fermentation, 218
negative experience of, 132–33
Alinea, Chicago, 145–46
alleles, 79, 226–27
allyl alpha-ionone, 55
allyl caproate, 169
almond, 109
alpha-lipoic acid, 160
altitude sickness, 100–101
amino acids, 16, 23, 181, 208, 236–38
amniotic fluid, 140
amygdala, 58
amyl acetate, 167, 173
anaheim peppers, 90
anchovies, 33
androstenone, 74–75, 79
antioxidants, 205
aquarium air stone, 101
Araujo, Ivan de, 123
Ark of Taste, 264–65
armpits, odor of, 241
Arnett Inventory, 97
aromas, laboratory re-creation of, 84
artificial intelligence, 251
artificial sweeteners, 29–30, 139
arugula (rocket), 220, 221
asparagus, 222, 233
aspartame, 29, 30
Association for Chemoreception Sciences, 44, 56–57
astringency, 102–4
Axel, Richard, 10, 49, 52
bacon, 33
banana, 102, 167, 173, 194
Barber, Dan, 225–26
Bartoshuk, Linda, 13–15, 30, 37, 42, 96, 103, 206, 212
Beauchamp, Gary, 19–22, 74, 144
beer, 240, 260–61
beets, 220
benzaldehyde, 75, 109
beta-ionone, 79
bipolar disorder, 32
bitter taste, 8, 16–17, 22, 23–24
bitter taste receptors, 30, 33–34, 41–42
blood pressure, high, 31
Blumenthal, Heston, 107, 113, 219, 247–48, 254
boars, male, 75
Bon Appétit, 253, 256
Bosland, Paul, 90–91, 92, 93
brain, 105–31
and chili peppers, 88
emotion center in, 131
flavor created in, 5, 121–31, 196
layers of, 121–22, 123
and learned tastes, 42, 121, 133
motivation region of, 131
olfactory signals to, 48, 57–58, 76, 119
and perception, 118–19, 133
reward circuitry of, 127, 131, 137, 139, 151, 162
size of, 69
taste messages sent to, 38–39
TMS of, 130–31
Brandt, Kirsten, 207, 209, 214
bread, 32, 236, 240, 241
Bredie, Wender, 249–50
Breslin, Paul, 4, 6, 25, 102–4, 120, 129, 210
Brevibacterium linens, 241
breweries, 260–61
broccoli, 104, 222
Brooklyn College, 134–35
brussels sprouts, 220
Bryant, Bruce, 90, 92, 94, 100–101
bubble gum, 193
bubbles, 100–102
Buck, Linda, 10, 49, 52
burnt smell, 50, 61
Bush, George H. W., 11, 39
butter, 35
butyric acid, 169
Byrnes, Nadia, 97
“cafeteria” diet, 150
caffeine, 138, 209
calcium, 36, 216
California State Fair, 124–25
calories:
absence of, in artificial sweeteners, 29
concentrated, 151
flavor linked with, 134
and obesity, 9
in sugars, 16
cancer patients, loss of taste receptors in, 20
caproic acid, 169
capsaicin, 87–88, 93, 102
chemicals in, 91–92
as fat soluble, 94
in liniments, 95
and oil content, 92
Scoville units in, 90
caramel, 109
caramelization, 238
carbohydrates, 34
carbonated drinks, 87
carbonation, 100–102
carbon-carbon double bonds, 236
carbon dioxide, 36, 101
carbonic acid, 101
carbonic anhydrase, 101
carcinogens, 237
carnivores, 17
Carolina Reaper pepper, 90
carotenoid pigments, 225, 226
carrots, 222
cast-iron skillets, 239
cats, 17, 23
cauliflower, 236
cayenne, 90
change blindness, 67
character compounds, 167–70, 173
Chartier, François, 248
Chateau d’Yquem, France, 216
cheese, 122–23
and fermentation, 240–41
flavor wheels for, 193
raw-milk, 241
reduced-fat, 162
stinky, 36, 69, 71
synthetic flavor of, 123
chemesthesis, 87
chemophobia, 194–97
cherry, 173
chewiness, 104
chewing:
mouth closed for, 68
smaller bites, 150
thorough, 149
chewing gum, 87, 89, 109, 120–21, 129, 165, 210
Chez Panisse, California, 263
Child, Julia, 264
children, and new flavors, 142–43
chili burn, 87–88
Chili Pepper Institute, 91
chili peppers, 38, 86–99
author’s taste tests, 92–94
capsaicin in, 87–88, 90, 93, 102
and genetics, 96
heat of, 87–88, 89–92
length of burn, 91
matrix effect of, 92
pain as pleasure in, 94–97
quenching the burn of, 93–94
sharp and flat qualities of, 91, 92
speed of heat action, 91
where the heat hits you, 91
Chinese restaurant syndrome, 26–28
chlorhexidine, 20–21
chlorophyll, 207, 227
chocolate, 36, 103, 113, 230
tracking, 63–64, 67
Chukchi people, 143
cilantro, 78
cis-3-hexenol, 168, 174, 175, 176–77
citral, 167, 173, 195
Clarke, Menzie, 167–70, 191
clove, 167
Coca-Cola, 87
cocoa butter, 103
coconut, 167
coffee, 48–49, 71, 74, 236
and odor molecules, 49, 167, 169
odor vs. flavor of, 69–70
in research studies, 111–12, 224
coffee plant, seeds of, 209
colors:
sorting, 61
special language for, 59, 191
conscious awareness, 139–40
consumer demand, 196–97, 214