Cooking For Geeks Part 4

- If you're setting this up for more than a few people, use ice cube trays instead of small bowls so that you can put a tray down in the center of a table with six to eight partic.i.p.ants around each tray.

- Jicama root and tamarind paste are a bit obscure, but they serve as fun challenges for tasters familiar with common flavors. If your local grocery store doesn't carry these, they can be found in almost any Asian grocery store.

- Try to keep the diced items all of a consistent size, around or 1 cm.

NoteHazelnuts or filberts? They're actually different things-the outer husk of a filbert is longer than that of a hazelnut-but either is fine.Experiment #2: SmellIf you'd rather avoid food prep work, you can do a smell test instead. Place the following items into paper cups, one per cup, and cover the cups with gauze or cheesecloth to prevent peeking (you can use a rubber band around the perimeter to hold the gauze in place; blindfolds work too for small groups): - Almond extract - Baby powder - Chocolate chips - Coffee beans - Cologne or perfume (sprayed directly into the cup or onto a tissue) - Garlic, crushed - Gla.s.s cleaner - Gra.s.s, chopped up - Lemon, sliced into wedges - Maple syrup (real maple syrup, not that "Pancake Syrup" stuff) maple syrup, not that "Pancake Syrup" stuff) - Orange peels - Soy sauce - Tea leaves - Vanilla extract - Wood shavings (e.g., saw dust, pencil shavings) Label each cup with a number, and have test takers write down their guesses on a sheet of paper.Notes - You might find that some people are much better at detecting odors than others. Just as with taste, any given smell can be detected at various strengths. Some people are very sensitive to smells; others have a harder time detecting odors (a condition known as hyposmia). hyposmia). Like eyesight and hearing, our sense of smell begins to deteriorate sometime in our thirties and starts to fall off faster once we reach our sixties. It's a slow decline, and unlike hearing and eyesight, is hard to notice as it changes, but the loss does impact our enjoyment of food to some degree. Like eyesight and hearing, our sense of smell begins to deteriorate sometime in our thirties and starts to fall off faster once we reach our sixties. It's a slow decline, and unlike hearing and eyesight, is hard to notice as it changes, but the loss does impact our enjoyment of food to some degree.

- If you are interested in taking a "real" smell test, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a well-validated scratch-and-sniff test called UPSIT that you can mail order. Search online for "University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test."

[image]Lingering Tastes: Carryover and AdaptationWhat you eat does leave a taste in your mouth. Try the following experiment.You'll need sugar, a slice of lemon or some lemon juice, and a gla.s.s of water. Take a sip of the water (tastes like, well...water). Suck on the slice of lemon, or if you're using lemon juice, take a spoonful and let it sit on your tongue. Take another swig of water; it should taste sweet. Now, take a bit of sugar on a spoon and let it coat your tongue for at least 10 seconds. If you try the water again now, you may find that it tastes sour. Taste researchers call this phenomenon carryover and adaptation carryover and adaptation.When planning what to serve together, you should consider how the tastes in a group of dishes and drinks will interact. When serving one course after another, the tastes from the first course can linger, which is where a palate cleanser course comes in during multicourse meals. A common traditional palate cleanser is a sparkling beverage (carbonated water or sparkling wine), although some studies suggest crackers are more effective. Maybe that bread basket on the table isn't just about filling you up!

Smell (Olfactory Sense) While the sensation of taste is limited to a few basic (and important) sensations, smell is a cornucopia of data. We're wired to detect somewhere around 1,000 distinct compounds and are able to discern somewhere over 10,000 odors. Like taste, our sense of smell (olfaction (olfaction) is based on sensory cells (chemoreceptors) being "turned on" by chemical compounds. In smell, these compounds are called odorants odorants.

In the case of olfaction, the receptor cells are located in the olfactory epithelium in the nasal cavity and respond to volatile chemicals-that is, compounds that evaporate and can be suspended in air such that they pa.s.s through the nasal cavity where the chemoreceptors have a chance to detect them. Our sense of smell is much more acute than our sense of taste; for some compounds, our nose can detect odorants on the order of one part per trillion.

There are a few different theories as to how the chemoreceptors responsible for detecting smell work, from the appealingly simple ("the receptors feel out the shape of the odor molecule") to more complex chemical models. The more recent models suggest that an odorant can bind to a number of different types of chemoreceptors and a chemoreceptor can accept a number of different types of odorants. That is, any given odor triggers a number of different receptors, and your brain applies something akin to a fuzzy pattern-matching algorithm to recall the closest prior memory. Regardless of the details, the common theme of the various models suggests that we smell based on some set of attributes such as the shape, size, and configuration of the odor molecules.

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This more complex model-in which a single odorant needs to be picked up by multiple receptors-also suggests an explanation for why some items smell odd when you receive only a weak, partial whiff. To use a music a.n.a.logy, it's like not hearing the entire set of notes that make up a chord: our brains can't correctly match the sensation and might find a different prior memory closer to the partial "chord" and misidentify the smell.

NoteIt also appears that we smell in stereo: just as our ears hear separately, we use our left and right nostrils independently. Researchers at UC Berkeley have found that with one nostril plugged up, we have a much harder time tracking scents, due to lack of "inter-nostril communication."

While you might think of smell as being only what you sense when leaning forward and using your nose to take a whiff of a rose, that's only half the picture. Odors also travel from food in your mouth into the nasal cavity through the shared airway pa.s.sage: you're smelling the food that you're "tasting."

When cooking, keep in mind that you can smell only volatile compounds in a dish. You can make nonvolatile compounds volatile by adding alcohol (e.g., wine in sauces), which raises the vapor pressure and lowers the surface tension of the compounds, making it that much more likely that they will evaporate and pa.s.s by your chemoreceptors.

NoteChemists call this cosolvency cosolvency. In this case, the ethanol molecule takes the place of the water molecules normally attached to the compounds, resulting in a lighter molecule, which then has a higher chance of evaporating.Here's a simple experiment that shows the difference between taste and smell. You'll need a test subject, two spoons, a grater, an apple, and a potato. Without the subject seeing, grate some of the apple (without skin) onto one spoon, and grate some of the potato (again, without skin) onto the other spoon. Have the subject pinch her nose shut, and give her both spoons to taste. Make sure she keeps that nose pinched the entire time! This prevents the air carrying the odorants from circulating up into the nasal cavity. After she's tried both spoons, instruct her to stop pinching her nose, and note what sensations occur. If you want to do this with a large group, flavored jelly beans work, too.

Temperature also plays an important role in olfaction. We have a harder time smelling cold foods because temperature partially determines a substance's volatility.

Your sense of taste is affected by temperature, too. Researchers have found that the intensity of primary tastes varies with the temperature both of the food itself and of the tongue. The ideal temperature is 95F / 35C, the approximate temperature of the top of the tongue. Colder foods result in tastes having lower perceived strength, especially for sugars. It's been suggested that red wines are best served at room temperature to help convey their odors, while white wines are better served chilled to moderate the levels of volatile compounds and sweetness. This would make sense-by chilling white wine, it'll be less likely to overpower the milder meals that they customarily accompany, such as fish.

Jim Clarke on Beverage Pairings[image]PHOTO USED BY PERMISSION OF JIM CLARKEJim Clarke is a wine writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Times, the the San Francisco Chronicle, Imbibe, San Francisco Chronicle, Imbibe, and and Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy, as well as on Forbes.com and StarChefs.com. He is also the wine director at Megu in New York City. Above, Jim stands in front of wood-fired brewing kettles at the Bra.s.serie Caracole in Belgium. as well as on Forbes.com and StarChefs.com. He is also the wine director at Megu in New York City. Above, Jim stands in front of wood-fired brewing kettles at the Bra.s.serie Caracole in Belgium.How do you pair beverages with food?What you're looking for is the structure of the beverage and the dish. For example, if you have sweetness in a dish, you're going to want a similar level of sweetness in the wine. If you don't, the wine will taste relatively flat compared to the dish, or if the wine is too sweet, the dish will be less expressive.Another example would be acidity. Salads can be very difficult because you have acidities in the vinaigrette dressing, so you need a wine that is going to have that acidity as well, or the wine is going to seem flat or even a little bit bitter next to the dressing. If you want high acidity, you can buy an Austrian Gruner Veltliner, a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, a New York Dry Riesling, as a couple of examples. Sancerre are 99% of the time going to be dry and acidic.If you're not into learning about different wines in and of themselves, then when you're buying the wine you should have a retailer who you can talk to. Tell them what the protein is as well as the sauce or preparation. You want to say, "Grouper with a red wine sauce as a reduction: should I do that with a red wine or a white wine?" If you know the dish well and you say, "There's a really b.u.t.tery sauce," then your retailer will probably direct you to a California Chardonnay.The convention I'm familiar with is to look at the type of wine. It sounds like this is not a bad approach?It's not, especially when you talk about Old World wines. A lot of times Old World wine drinkers wouldn't differentiate. They would say, "I'm making coq au vin, coq au vin, so I need a burgundy." There are good ones and there are bad ones, but as far as a pairing goes that's a good pairing. So it can be fairly generic. There is really a broad range of wines within a given category that are going to work pretty well with any given dish. so I need a burgundy." There are good ones and there are bad ones, but as far as a pairing goes that's a good pairing. So it can be fairly generic. There is really a broad range of wines within a given category that are going to work pretty well with any given dish.What are the key variables in wine pairings?Acidity, tannins if you're going with a red wine, body or alcohol level, and sweetness are really the four main things. Flavor is kind of a bonus. The aromas aren't so important to the pairing as the other elements. High alcohol, say California Chardonnay, can be pretty overwhelming for a delicate fish dish. On the other hand, with lobster it's often fantastic because of lobster's rich flavor.Look where a wine comes from; that really tells you quite a bit. In 95% of cases, if it's somewhere warm, the wine probably has fuller body. If it's fuller-bodied, then it has lower acidity, because those two have an inverse relations.h.i.+p. Sugar in the grapes eventually becomes alcohol in the wine. Unripe fruit is tart; that's acidity. As it becomes ripe, it comes into balance. If it's overripe, it actually tastes kind of plain because the acidity has dropped out. Take a place like California, where there are these beautiful warm vintages. Ask me for a light-bodied California white and I've really got to dig on my list. There are a few little isolated areas that do it, but it's really not what they do best. On the other hand, Austrian whites are generally from a cool-climate growing area; those are usually pretty good in acidity, light to medium bodied, and lower alcohol.Why do so many people talk about flavor and aroma instead?People find it much more poetic to talk about the aromas and the flavors. From a practical point of view, if I'm a sommelier on the floor, I'll be very careful about using the word "acidity" with guests. I'll use all sorts of euphemisms like "crisp" or "fresh," because people don't think about acidity in the context of food. "I don't want to drink acid! That sounds terrible!" The fact of the matter is that every beverage has acid in some balance with sugar. Coca Cola technically has more acid than any wine you can think of.It seems like the way that somebody inside the industry talks about wine is not the same language that's used publicly. Why is that?If I'm talking to someone in the industry and they say a modern Rioja, I know exactly what they mean, so we skip a lot of stuff. When I'm training servers or people new to the restaurant industry who need to learn about wine, I talk about that cold climate/hot climate thing and then-and this is a little bit harder, because wine making is changing-about Old World versus New World. New World has more fruit expression; Old World has more earth and spice sort of things. It's still generally true, but there are always exceptions. If someone tells me it's a cla.s.sic Napa Cab, I know it's full bodied because of the warm climate and has more fruit expression because it's New World. So when we talk, we only have to say how it's different from that model, whereas when I talk to the consumer, I can't a.s.sume that they have that understanding already.Are there similar kinds of variables that you use to describe beer pairings?Alcohol is still a factor, as is sweetness-acidity not so much except in some unusual beers like lambics. You don't have tannins but you have hops. Those play into how you pair, just like acidity and those other things in wine. One of my favorite cla.s.sics is oysters and dry stout.Are there particular things that you would avoid in pairings?Don't go overboard trying to get the right pairing, especially if you have a style of wine or beer that you really don't like. People will say, "I'm trying to eat fish because it's healthier, but I love red wine." Well, don't let that stop you. I drink all sorts of wine depending on the occasion or how I feel, but if I'm not in the mood for a big red and I'm having a steak, I'll find something else. You need to match with your own tastes along with matching the food. Certainly, as a sommelier, the first thing I'm trying to find out is not what the guest is having, but what they like. Pairing is to give you more pleasure.Any tips for a consumer speaking with a sommelier?Well, certainly telling sommeliers what you like. Also, a lot of people feel like they need to dance around price. There is an easy way to do this if you're entertaining guests and you don't want to make a big show of not spending a lot of money. When I'm talking to a guest I will have the list open right there so they can run their finger along the name of the wine to the price. They tell me what they're interested in spending. If you wanted to say, "We're looking for something around $100," that's fine, too, but this is kind of a genteel way of doing it. This will save a lot of the feeling like we're sparring with each other because now I know what you're looking for, both in style and in price range, and we'll find a wine for you.Is there an exercise that one could do to better understand how to do wine pairings?Get four gla.s.ses, one with lemon juice and water, one with very overbrewed ice tea, one with some sugar dissolved in water, and one with half vodka, half water. Then get a few dishes or ingredients and taste each of them with the different elements-tasting with lemon juice, the sugar water, the tannins in the tea, and then alcohol. You can see what each individual element is doing to, say, a piece of cheese. What is each doing to this piece of asparagus? You'll see what those different elements are and how they affect the food. We're not talking about wine flavors at all, just the four elements that occur in wine that are really important to the pairing process.[image]Smelling ChemicalsOur noses are veritable chemical detectors on par with modern lab equipment. Our sense of smell is capable of distinguis.h.i.+ng the difference a single carbon atom makes (e.g., octane versus nonane) and sniffing out compounds all the way down to the level of 0.00002 parts per billion (for one compound in grapefruit). That said, factors such as age, hormonal levels, and exposure mean that some of us notice smells at lower thresholds than others.[image]Not all compounds can be smelled. Size, shape, and something called chirality all determine whether a molecule is smellable or not. Chirality Chirality has to do with whether or not a molecule and its mirror version (the pair is known as has to do with whether or not a molecule and its mirror version (the pair is known as enantiomers enantiomers) are identical. Your left and right hands, for instance, are chiral because they are not identical, even though they have the same fundamental shape. Carvone is a cla.s.sic example in chemistry: the compound D-carvone smells of caraway, while R-carvone smells of spearmint.[image]Some chemical structures have distinct smells, and the families of compounds that contain those structures generally end up smelling similar. Esters (compounds with the general formula of R-CO-OR') are cla.s.sically thought of as having fruity aromas. Amines smell stinky and rotting, like week-old raw fish, with cadaverine and putrescine being two of the more well-known odors. And aldehydes (organic compounds that have a carbon atom both double-bonded to an oxygen atom and bonded to a hydrogen atom) tend to smell green or plant-like.While smelling an aldehyde won't bring the entire smell of, say, green ivy, it's similar enough that industry can use aldehyes as artificial odorants to trick our brains into thinking we're smelling the real thing. Artificial flavorings are used in products from laundry detergent to candies, because they cost less and in some cases are chemically more stable than the original scents. Artificial vanilla extract, for example, generally contains just vanillin, which has the molecular formula C8H8O3, which happens to be the most common chemical in vanilla. Although the artificial stuff is missing all the other compounds from vanilla, we still find it to be enjoyable.Many other herbs and spices are also composed of just a few key chemicals, making artificial extracts of them relatively close to the real thing. Fruits, however, have hundreds of compounds that are involved in creating their aromas. Even adding the dozen or so most common chemicals for an artificial strawberry flavoring, for example, leaves 200+ volatile compounds missing in the "odor spectrum." This is why artificial fruit flavors tend to taste, well, artificial (chocolate, too).[image]Here are a few examples of compounds and their smells. A number of these compounds can be purchased online if you happen to have an account with an industrial supplier, such as sigma.com. sigma.com. (Make sure you acquire food or medical grade versions!) Flavored jelly beans and scratch-and-sniff stickers are just a few products that rely on these compounds, so if you don't just happen to have an account with an industrial supplier, try popping open a package of jelly beans and seeing if you can identify some of the odors with these compounds. (Make sure you acquire food or medical grade versions!) Flavored jelly beans and scratch-and-sniff stickers are just a few products that rely on these compounds, so if you don't just happen to have an account with an industrial supplier, try popping open a package of jelly beans and seeing if you can identify some of the odors with these compounds.

Name Description Comment 2,4-dithiapentane Black truffle Black truffle oils commonly use this in lieu of oil from real truffles.

Isoamyl acetate Banana Creating artificial banana extract is one of the cla.s.sic chem lab projects, to the annoyance of teachers in adjoining rooms. It's also the pheromone that honey bees use to signal attacking, so don't take overly ripe bananas on a picnic during the height of bee season.

Benzaldehyde Almond Primary component of bitter almond oil.

Diacetyl Like b.u.t.ter Used in microwave popcorn and Jelly Belly's "b.u.t.tered Popcorn" flavor, in large doses it causes a lung disease called "popcorn lung."

Furaneol Strawberry Also occurs in pineapple, tomatoes, and buckwheat.

Hexa.n.a.l Generic fruity flavor, "tutti frutti" (like pink bubble gum) Search Sigma.com for 115606-2ml.Used in Jelly Belly's "Tutti Frutti" flavor.

Hexyl acetate Golden Delicious apple Search Sigma.com for 25539-1ml.

Maple lactone Like maple syrup Search Sigma.com for 178500-10g.

1-p-menthene-8-thiol and nootkatone Grapefruit Grapefruit has at least 126 volatile compounds, but these two seem to be the primary ones. Jelly Belly's "Grapefruit" flavor likely includes this compound.

Then there's the effect of the temperature of the tongue itself. For example, when drinking a cold soda, as you consume more and more of it, your tongue will begin to cool down. And as your tongue cools, you should perceive the soda as being less sweet. There's a reason why warm soda is gross: it tastes sweeter, cloyingly so, than when it's cold. What does all this mean when you're in the kitchen? Keep the impact of temperature on your senses of smell and taste in mind when making dishes that will be served cold. You'll find the frozen versions of things like ice cream and sorbet to be weaker tasting and smelling than their warmer, liquid versions, so adjust the mixtures accordingly.

As an example, try making the following pear sorbet. Note the difference in sweetness between the warm liquid and the final sorbet. Yes, you could just buy a container of sorbet and let some of it melt, but where's the fun in that?

DIY Lego Ice Cream MakerDon't have an ice cream maker, but have a pile of Lego bricks? Make your own ice cream maker! Ice cream is made from a base (traditionally, milk or cream with flavorings added) that's agitated as it freezes. Stirring the base as it sets prevents the ice crystals that form from solidifying into one large ice cube.Of course, the fun with Lego is in figuring out how to build things with it. To make an ice cream maker, grab a Lego Technic kit and an XL motor and snap away. Once you have your motorized stand and agitator put together, mix up your base, transfer it to a large yogurt container, and prechill it by putting the container in your freezer until the base just begins to freeze, about 30 to 60 minutes. Once the base is cold (but not frozen!), slide the container into your Lego rig, place it back in the freezer, and flip the switch. (Dangle the battery outside, because cold environments slow down the chemical reactions that generate energy.) Check on your ice cream every 10 minutes or so, until it begins to set. You'll probably need to stop the motor before the ice cream completely sets, lest the torque tear your Lego creation apart.[image]For a video of a Lego ice cream maker in action, see http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/book/legoicecream/.Pear SorbetIn a pan, create a simple syrup by bringing to a boil: - cup (120g) water - cup (50g) sugar Once the simple syrup has reached a boil, remove from heat and add: - 15 oz (425g = 1 can) pears (if fresh, peel and core them) - 1 teaspoon (5g) lemon juice Puree with an immersion blender, food processor, or standard blender, being careful not to overfill and thus overflow the container. Transfer to a sorbet maker and churn until set. If you don't have a sorbet maker, you can make sorbet's sister dish, granita, by freezing the mix in a 9 13 / 23 cm 33 cm gla.s.s pan, using a spoon to stir up the mixture as it sets. Or, see Chapter7 Chapter7 to learn about using dry ice or liquid nitrogen to make ice cream. to learn about using dry ice or liquid nitrogen to make ice cream.Notes - The lemon juice helps reduce the sweetness brought about by the sugar. The sugar is added not just for taste, but also to lower the freezing point of the liquid (salt does the same thing). Adding a small quant.i.ty of alcohol will further help prevent the sorbet from setting into a solid block. Ice cream and sorbets have a fascinating physical structure: as the liquid begins to freeze, the remaining unfrozen liquid becomes more concentrated in sugar, and as a result, the freezing point of the unfrozen portions drops. Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking On Food and Cooking (Scribner) has an excellent explanation of this process for the curious reader. (Scribner) has an excellent explanation of this process for the curious reader.

- You can make a more concentrated simple syrup and then dilute it (after letting it cool) with champagne, pear brandy, or ginger brandy. The alcohol is a solvent and will help carry the smells. Alternatively, try adding a pinch of ginger powder, cardamom, or cinnamon either in the sorbet liquid or as a garnish.

Gail Vance Civille on Taste and Smell[image]PHOTO USED BY PERMISSION OF GAIL VANCE CIVILLE.Gail Vance Civille is a self-described "taste and smell geek" who started out working as a sensory professional at General Foods' technical center and is now president and owner of Sensory Spectrum, Inc., in New Providence, New Jersey.How does somebody who is trained to think about flavor, taste, and sensation perceive these things differently than the layperson?The big difference between a trained taster and an untrained taster is not that your nose or your palate gets better, but that your brain gets better at sorting things out. You train your brain to pay attention to the sensations that you are getting and the words that are a.s.sociated with them.[image]It sounds like a lot of it is actually about the ability to recall things that you've experienced before. Are there things that one can do to help get one's brain organized?You can go to your spice and herb cupboard and sort and smell the contents. For example, allspice will smell very much like cloves. That's because the allspice berry has clove oil or eugenol in it. You'll say, "Oh, wow, this allspice smells very much like clove." So the next time you see them, you might say, "Clove, oh but wait, it could be allspice."So, in cooking, is this how an experienced chef understands how to do subst.i.tutions and to match things together?Right. I try to encourage people to experiment and learn these things so that they know, for example, that if you run out of oregano you should subst.i.tute thyme and not basil. Oregano and thyme are chemically similar and have a similar sensory impression. You have to be around them and play with them in order to know that.With herbs and spices, how do you do that?First you learn them. You take them out, you smell them, and you go, "Ah, okay, that's rosemary." Then you smell something else and you go, "Okay, that's oregano," and so on. Next you close your eyes and put your hand out, pick up a bottle, and smell it and see if you can name what it is. Another exercise to do is to see if you can sort these different things into piles of like things. You will sort the oregano with the thyme and, believe it or not, the sage with the rosemary, because they both have eucalyptol in them, which is the same chemical and, therefore, they have some of the same flavor profile.What about lining up spices and foods, for example apples and cinnamon?You put cinnamon with an apple because the apple has a woody component, a woody part of the flavor like the stem and the seeds. And the cinnamon has a wood component, and that woody component of the cinnamon sits over the not-so-pleasant woodiness of the apple, and gives it a sweet cinnamon character. That's what shows. Similarly, in tomatoes you add garlic or onion to cover over the skunkiness of the tomatoes, and in the same way basil and oregano sit on top of the part of the tomato that's kind of musty and viney. Together they create something that shows you the best part of the tomato and hides some of the less lovely parts of the tomato. That's why chefs put certain things together. They go, they blend, they merge and meld, and actually create something that's unique and different and better than the sum of the parts.It takes a while to get at that level, because you have to really feel confident as both a cook and getting off the recipe. Please, get off the recipe. Let's get people off these recipes and into thinking about what tastes good. Taste it and go, "Oh, I see what's missing. There's something missing here in the whole structure of the food. Let me think about how I'm going to add that." I can cook something and think to myself, there's something missing in the middle, I have some top notes and I have maybe beef and it's browned and it has really heavy bottom notes. I think of flavor like a triangle. Well, then I need to add oregano or something like that. I don't need lemon, which is another top note, and I don't need brown caramelized anything else because that's in the bottom. You taste it, and you think about how you are going to add that.How does somebody tasting something answer the question, "Hey, if I wanted to do this at home, what should I do?"I can sit in some of the best restaurants in the world, and not have a clue what's in there. I can't taste them apart, it's so tight. So it's not just a matter of experience; it's also a matter of the experience of the chef. If you have a cla.s.sically trained French or Italian chef, they can create something where I will be scratching my head, going "Beats me, I can't tell what's in here," because it's so tight, it's so blended, that I can't see the pieces. I only see the whole.Now this does not happen with a lot of Asian foods, because they are designed to be spiky and pop. That's why Chinese food doesn't taste like French and Italian food. Did you ever notice that? Asian foods have green onions, garlic, soy, and ginger, and they're supposed to pop, pop, pop. But the next day they're all blending together and this isn't quite so interesting.This almost suggests that if one is starting out to cook, that one approach is to go out and eat Asian food and try to identify the flavors?Oh, definitely. That's a very good place to start, and Chinese is a better place to start than most. I've had some Asian people in cla.s.ses that I've taught get very insulted when I talk about this, and I'm like, no, no, no, that's the way it's supposed supposed to be. That's the way Asian food is; it's spiky and interesting and popping, and that's not the way cla.s.sic European food, especially southern European food, is. to be. That's the way Asian food is; it's spiky and interesting and popping, and that's not the way cla.s.sic European food, especially southern European food, is.In the case of cla.s.sic European dishes, let's say you're out eating eggplant Parmesan, and it's just fantastic. How do you go about trying to figure out how to make that?I would start identifying what I am capable of identifying. So you say, "Okay, I get tomato, and I get the eggplant, but the eggplant seems like it's fried in something interesting, and not exactly just peanut oil or olive oil. I wonder what that is?" Then I would ask the waiter, "This is very interesting. It's different from the way I normally see eggplant Parmesan. Is there something special about the oil or the way that the sous chef fries the eggplant that makes this so special?" If you ask something specific, you are more likely to get an answer from the kitchen than if you say, "Can you give me the recipe?" That is not likely to get you an answer.When thinking about the description of tastes and smells, it seems like the vocabulary around how we describe the taste is almost as important.It's the way that we communicate our experience. If you said "fresh" or "it tasted homemade," you could mean many things. These are more nebulous terms than, say, "You could taste the fried eggplant coming through all of the sauce and all of the cheese." This is very, very specific, and in fact, "fresh" in this case is freshly fried eggplant. I once had a similar situation with ratatouille in a restaurant. I asked the waiter, "Could you tell me please if this ratatouille was just made?" The waiter said, "Yes, he makes it just ahead and he doesn't put all the pieces together until just before we serve dinner." When people say "homemade," they usually mean that it tastes not sophisticated and refined, but that it tastes like it had been made by a good home cook, so it's more rustic, but very, very well put together.Is there a certain advantage that the home chef has because he is a.s.sembling the ingredients so close to the time that the meal is being eaten?Oh, there's no question that depending upon the nature of the food itself, there are some things that actually benefit from sitting long in the pot. Most home chefs, either intuitively or cognitively, have a good understanding of what goes with what, and how long you have to wait for it to reach its peak.You had said a few minutes ago, "We need to get off the recipe." Can you elaborate?When I cook, I will look at seven or so different recipes. The first time I made sauerbraten, I made it from at least five recipes. You pick things from each based on what you think looks good, and what the flavor might be like. I think the idea of experimenting in the cla.s.sic sense of experimenting is fine. Geeks should be all about experimenting. What's the worst thing that's going to happen? It won't taste so great. It won't be poison, and it won't be yucky; it just may not be perfect, but that's okay. I think when you do that, it gives you a lot more freedom to make many more things because you're not tied to the ingredient list. The recipe is, as far as I'm concerned, a place to start but not the be all, end all.

Tastes: Bitter, Salty, Sour, Sweet, Umami, Others You'll have an easier time seasoning dishes if you understand the five primary tastes the tongue can detect, as well as how it responds to "other" things (for example, the chemicals that give hot peppers their kick, carbonated drinks their effervescence, and peppermint candies their cooling sensation).

When cooking, regardless of the recipe and technique, you always always want to adjust and correct the primary tastes in a dish. There is just too much variability in any given product for a recipe to accurately prescribe how much of a taste modifier is necessary to achieve a balanced taste for most dishes: one apple might be sweeter than another, in which case you'll need to adjust the amount of sugar in your applesauce, and today's batch of fish might be slightly fresher than last week's, changing the amount of lemon juice you'll want. Because taste preferences vary among individuals, you can sometimes solve the balance problems by letting the diners adjust the taste themselves. This is why fish is so often served with a slice of lemon, why we have salt on the table (don't take offense at someone "disagreeing" with your "perfectly seasoned" entree), and why tea and coffee are served with sugar on the side. Still, you can't serve a dish with every possible taste modifier, and you should adjust the seasonings so that it's generally pleasing. want to adjust and correct the primary tastes in a dish. There is just too much variability in any given product for a recipe to accurately prescribe how much of a taste modifier is necessary to achieve a balanced taste for most dishes: one apple might be sweeter than another, in which case you'll need to adjust the amount of sugar in your applesauce, and today's batch of fish might be slightly fresher than last week's, changing the amount of lemon juice you'll want. Because taste preferences vary among individuals, you can sometimes solve the balance problems by letting the diners adjust the taste themselves. This is why fish is so often served with a slice of lemon, why we have salt on the table (don't take offense at someone "disagreeing" with your "perfectly seasoned" entree), and why tea and coffee are served with sugar on the side. Still, you can't serve a dish with every possible taste modifier, and you should adjust the seasonings so that it's generally pleasing.

Bitter Bitter is the only taste that takes some learning to like. Some primitive part of our brain seems to reject bitter tastes by default, probably because many toxic plants taste bitter. This same primitive mechanism is why bitter foods are unappealing to kids: they haven't learned to tolerate, let alone enjoy, the sensation of bitterness. Dandelion greens, rhubarb, and uncooked artichoke leaves all contain bitter oils that cause them to taste bitter; not surprisingly, I couldn't stand those things as a kid.

Adding salt can neutralize bitterness, which is why a pinch of salt in a salad that contains bitter items such as dandelion greens helps balance the flavor. Sugar can also be used to mask bitterness. Try grilling or broiling Belgian endive lightly sprinkled with sugar. Quarter the endive down the center to get four identical wedges and place them on a baking sheet or oven-safe pan. Sprinkle with a small amount of sugar. You can also drizzle a small amount of melted b.u.t.ter or olive oil on top. Transfer the tray to a grill or place it under a broiler for a minute or two, until the endive becomes slightly soft and the edges of the leaves begin to turn brown. Serve with blue cheese or use the endive as a vegetable accompaniment to stronger-flavored fish.

NoteTry this simple "bitter taste test" to demonstrate how salt interacts with bitter tastes. Modern tonic water (a much weaker version of the traditional medicinal drink of quinine and carbonated water that was then spiked with gin to make it palatable) uses quinine as a bittering agent and is easy to get at the grocery store. Pour tonic water into two drinking gla.s.ses. In one, add enough salt to neutralize the taste. Compare the taste of the tonic water in the two cups.

Bitterness seems to lend itself exceedingly well to drinks: unsweetened chocolate, raw coffee, tea, hops (used in making beer), and kola nuts (kola as in cola as in soft drinks) are all bitter. And many before-meal aperitifs are bitter, from the cla.s.sic Campari to the simple parsley-dipped-in-salt-water customary during Pa.s.sover. Conventional wisdom states that bitter foods increase the body's production of bile and digestive enzymes, helping in digestion. The food science literature doesn't seem to support the conventional wisdom, though.

Salty Salt (sodium chloride) makes foods taste better by selectively filtering out the taste of bitterness, resulting in the other primary tastes and flavors coming through more strongly. The addition of a small quant.i.ty of salt (not too much!) enhances other foods, bringing a "fullness" to foods that might otherwise have what is described as a "flat" flavor. This is why so many sweet dishes-cookies, chocolate cake, even hot chocolate-call for a pinch of salt. How much salt is in a pinch? Enough that it amps up the food's flavor, but not so much that the salt becomes a distinct flavor in itself. A "pinch" isn't an exact measurement-traditionally, it's literally the amount of salt you can pinch between your thumb and index finger-but if you need to start somewhere, try using teaspoon or 1.5 grams.

In larger quant.i.ties, salt acts as an ingredient as much as a flavor enhancer. Mussels liberally sprinkled with salt, bagels topped with coa.r.s.e salt, salty la.s.si (an Indian yogurt drink), even chocolate ice cream or brownies with sea salt sprinkled on top all taste inherently different without the salt. When using salt as a topping, use a coa.r.s.e, flaky variety, not rock/kosher salt or table salt. (I happen to use Maldon sea salt flakes.) [image]

In larger quant.i.ties, salt brings a distinct taste to a dish. Try cooking mussels sprinkled with copious amounts of sea salt. Place a cast iron pan over high heat until the pan is screaming hot, and drop in the mussels. After two to three minutes, they'll have opened up and cooked; sprinkle with salt. You can optionally add in diced shallots or crushed garlic, cooking another minute or so until done. Serve with forks and a small bowl of melted b.u.t.ter for dipping the mussels. You should rinse the mussels before cooking, discarding any that have broken sh.e.l.ls or that aren't closed tightly.

Differences in Taste and SupertastingImagine you're slaving over the stove, cooking dinner with your girlfriend or boyfriend, and you get into a heated discussion about the dish needing more salt. To you it's not salty enough, while to her (or him), it's already way too salty. What's going on? Why can't you ever ever agree on the seasoning? agree on the seasoning?As it turns out, some of us really do taste things differently. Just like variations in eye color, there are variations in our taste buds. What one person senses and perceives can differ from what another person experiences. In terms of taste, there are a number of known differences, one of the most prominent being supertasting supertasting.Supertasting was accidentally discovered in the 1930s when a DuPont chemist, Arthur Fox, unwittingly spilled phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) powder. He didn't notice, but a colleague complained of a bitter sensation from the dust kicked up in the air. Curious, Fox started testing on friends and family (this was clearly in the days before internal review boards) and found that about one in four couldn't discern any bitterness.More recent research by Dr. Linda Bartoshuk has shown that those of us of who can sense PTC can be broken down into two groups: a supertaster supertaster group that detects these compounds as unbearably bitter (~25% of the general population of European heritage) and a second group of group that detects these compounds as unbearably bitter (~25% of the general population of European heritage) and a second group of medium tasters medium tasters who find the compounds bitter, but not overwhelmingly so (50%). who find the compounds bitter, but not overwhelmingly so (50%).If you're looking at the percentages and thinking "Mendelian trait?," you're right: you're a supertaster if you've inherited both dominant alleles from your parents. As with other Mendelian traits, the percentage breakdowns do differ by ethnicity and gender. For example, white females have a 35% chance of being supertasters, while white males have only a 10% chance. Asians, SubSaharan Africans, and indigenous Americans have a much higher chance of being supertasters.If you're wondering if you're a supertaster, there are a couple of ways to tell.Method #1: PTC or PROP test stripsThe best way to tell if you're a supertaster is to see if you can taste the chemical directly. Two chemical compounds are commonly used to test for taste differences: phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) and 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP). You'll need to order paper strips impregnated with either chemical (search online for "supertaster test paper" or see http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/book/supertaster/ for up-to-date sources). for up-to-date sources).Place the test strip on your tongue and let it rest there for 10 seconds. You'll know if you're a supertaster if you experience an extremely bitter taste. Supertasters will generally yank the piece of paper out of their mouths really fast. Medium tasters (individuals with only one dominant allele) will sense a mild but tolerable bitter taste, and nontasters nontasters will enjoy the pleasant sensation of, well, wet paper. will enjoy the pleasant sensation of, well, wet paper.Method #2: Taste bud countIf you don't have test strips, you'll have to stick your tongue out (all in the name of science, of course). Because supertasters generally have more taste buds on their tongues than medium tasters, the low-tech (and low-accuracy, unfortunately) way of checking to see if you're a supertaster is to count the fungiform papillae, which contain taste buds and are correlated to the number of taste buds you have. You'll need blue food coloring, a cotton swab or spoon, and a sheet of binder paper (i.e., three-hole punched paper that has a[image] / 8mmdiameter hole). / 8mmdiameter hole).Place a drop of the food coloring on the cotton swab, and then stain your tongue with it. Place the paper on top of your tongue such that you or a partner can see the tongue through one of the holes. Choose the area that is densest with spots, usually the front portion of the tongue. Count the number of pink dots visible (fungiform papillae aren't stained by the food coloring). If you count more than 30 papillae, you're probably a supertaster. Normal tasters tend to have between 15 and 30 papillae, while nontasters have fewer than 15, on average. These numbers are only broad generalizations, so it's hard to say for sure which group you fall into based on the counts.[image]Counting the number of fungiform papillae visible in a three-hole-punch-sized area of the tongue takes a bit of dexterity and good lighting. Look for the densest area, the location of which varies among people. Count the lighter dots in the circle. This image shows approximately 12.Being a supertaster or a nontaster isn't necessarily good or bad. Supertasters might find some foods-especially dark-green leafy vegetables such as kale, cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts-to be overly bitter, because of phenylthiourea-like compounds that their tongues can sense. Supertasters generally also find astringent, acidic, and spicy foods to be stronger, due to the higher number of taste buds and thus larger number of cells experiencing oral irritation. Researchers have found that in addition to bitter tastes (tested using quinine), supertasters also experience sweet (sucrose), sour (citric acid), and salty (sodium chloride) tastes as being more intense. Nicotine is more bitter to supertasters, and sure enough, supertasters are less likely to smoke. Caffeine also tastes more bitter, and researchers have found that supertasters are more likely to add milk/cream or sugar to coffee and tea.Keep in mind that supertasting is just one of many factors that impact our sense of taste and our food habits. Physiological factors and disease can affect our sense of taste, as can our experiences. Stress leads to an increase in the hormone cortisol, which, among other things, dampens the stimuli strength of taste buds. Our environment can also impact our taste buds. For example, drier conditions change the amount of saliva in the mouth, resulting in a decrease of taste sensitivity.As we touched on earlier, temperature also impacts taste sensation, just as it impacts our sense of smell: foods served warmer (by some accounts, above 86F / 30C) will be detected as stronger by the taste buds than colder dishes, due to the heat sensitivity of at least one of the receptors (TRPM5) responsible for taste. Foods served below body temperature won't register as warm, so if you want a dish-say, a spinach and bacon salad-to taste stronger, serve it on the warmer side (but below body temp). If you want a dish to carry milder tastes-e.g., to moderate the bitterness of beer or sweetness of ice cream-serve it colder.Finally, if you're a cilantro hater-if it tastes like dish soap and you can't stand it-you're not alone; even Julia Child hated cilantro. While there's no known scientific mechanism or genetic marker for determining this reaction, preliminary research based on differences between identical and fraternal twins does suggest that a distaste for cilantro is genetic.

In some recipes, salt is used for its chemical properties, such as the osmosis of cellular fluids for food preservation. We'll cover more uses for salt in Chapter7 Chapter7.

As described in the sidebar Differences in Taste and Supertasting Differences in Taste and Supertasting, there are known genetic differences in the way people taste some bitter compounds. Because salt masks bitterness, those of us who taste things like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and kale as being bitter tend to add more salt to compensate.

Sour Sour tastes are caused by acids in foods. The sensation of sourness is detected by part of the taste bud (ion channels) interacting with the hydrogen ions in the acids. Quite literally, your sour taste buds are a primitive chemical pH tester. In cooking, lemon juice and vinegar are commonly used to make dishes more sour, sometimes for effect but more often to bring balance. When cooking, taste the food and think about the balance of both saltiness and sourness, adding an ingredient such as vinegar to "brighten up" the flavors.

NoteIn Latin American and Asian cuisines, tamarind paste is often used to adjust the sourness of a dish.

From an evolutionary perspective, we appear to have evolved to taste sourness as one method of determining spoilage, because a number of acids are produced by bacteria during the breakdown of food. This isn't to say that sourness in food is always due to bacterial breakdown or that the fermentation caused by bacterial breakdown necessarily results in bad food. Lemon juice is sour due to citric acid, and yogurt (pH of 3.84.2) acquires a sour taste because of the lactic acid created by the bacteria breaking down the lactose in the milk (pH of 6.06.8).

To get a better understanding of how bacteria make the taste of a food more sour, try making your own yogurt using the recipe in Yogurt Yogurt, tasting the liquid before and after fermentation.

Sweet We're hardwired to like sweet foods-no surprise here. Sweet tastes signal quickly digestible calories (and thus fast energy), which would have been more important in the days when picking up the groceries also involved picking up a spear.

Our desire for sweetness changes over our lifespan. Researchers have found that our preference for sweetness decreases as we mature. A child's preference for sweet things is biologically related to the physical process of bone growth. (Quick, kids, run and tell your parents that your sweet tooth is because of biology biology!) And the infamous sweet tooth isn't unique to American kids either; this finding holds up in other cultures.

Sugar is good at simultaneously promoting other flavors while masking sour and bitter tastes. Take ginger, which has a strong, pungent, and slightly sour taste. With a bit of sugar, it becomes enjoyable on its own; sugared and dipped in chocolate, it becomes irresistible. Try making a simple ginger-flavored syrup (recipe at right).

Simple Ginger SyrupIn a pot, bring to a boil and then simmer on low heat: - 2 cups (470g) water - cup (100g) sugar - 6 oz (65g) ginger (raw), finely chopped or minced Simmer for 30 minutes, let cool, and then strain the mix into a bottle or container, discarding the strained-out ginger pieces.Besides adding it to club soda for a simple ginger soda, try using this syrup on top of pancakes or waffles or in mixed drinks (ginger mojitos!). You can also add a vanilla bean, split lengthwise, to the mix while boiling to impart a richer flavor. And if the idea of chocolate-covered candied ginger is still bouncing around your head, take a look at the Sugar Sugar section of section of Chapter6 Chapter6 and use ginger instead of citrus rind. and use ginger instead of citrus rind.

Umami (a.k.a. Savory) Umami (a j.a.panese word that roughly translates to "savory") generates a meaty, broth-like, lip-smacking sensation typically triggered by some amino acids and nucleotides (glutamate is the poster child; inosinate, guanylate, and aspartate are also not uncommon). Glutamate is naturally present in a number of foods, especially mushrooms. To an average American palate, umami is more subtle than the four primary tastes. It tends to amplify our other senses of taste. For example, in dishes with salt, umami "brings out" the salty taste, meaning that you can cut the amount of salt in a dish by adding umami-tasting ingredients.

If you're unable to imagine the taste of umami, make a simple broth by rehydrating a tablespoon of dried s.h.i.+take mushrooms in 1 cup (240g) of boiling water. Let the mushrooms steep for at least 15 minutes, and then remove them and save them for something else (mmm, stir-fry). Taste the liquid; it will have a high glutamate content dissolved out from the mushrooms. (If this is too much work for you, I suppose you could just snag a container of MSG from your local Asian grocery store and dissolve a small amount in a gla.s.s of water.) Why we've evolved to have taste sensors for umami isn't fully clear. Sweetness and saltiness are both a.s.sociated with positive attributes of food (quick energy in the case of sweets and an element essential for regulating blood pressure in the case of saltiness), while sourness and bitterness indicate potential danger. Perhaps umami is a more subtle indicator of protein content, as a way of ensuring we ingest enough amino acids to maintain muscle function. Regardless, umami is worth understanding for the hedonistic value alone. MSG (monosodium glutamate) is to umami what sugar is to sweetness: as a chemical, it's relatively odorless (still full of taste!), but it triggers the umami receptors on the tongue. MSG has gotten a bit of a bad rap in the United States, but so have salt and sugar at various times.

YogurtIn a pan (or, preferably, a double-boiler), gently heat: - 1 cup (240ml) milk (any type other than lactose-free) Bring the milk up to 200F / 93.3C and hold at that temperature for 10 minutes using a candy or IR thermometer. Do not boil, because that will affect the yogurt's flavor.After 10 minutes at temperature, transfer the milk to an open thermos, and wait until it cools to 115F / 46C.Add and stir to combine: - 1 tablespoon (14g) yogurt Screw the lid onto the thermos and incubate for four hours. Transfer the liquid to a storage container and put it in the fridge immediately.Notes - The small addition of yogurt acts as a starter starter because it contains the proper types of bacteria for "good" yogurt. Make sure you use yogurt that states it has "active cultures." because it contains the proper types of bacteria for "good" yogurt. Make sure you use yogurt that states it has "active cultures."[image]

- This recipe sterilizes the milk (pasteurized milk can still have a low level of bacteria) and keeps the incubation period to four hours to reduce the chance of growth of foodborne illness-related bacteria. Longer incubation times lead to a stronger, more developed flavor. As with anything you eat, keep in mind that if it tastes bad, smells off, or looks up at you and cracks a joke, you probably shouldn't eat it. (The inverse is, of course, not true: just because something smells fine doesn't mean it's necessarily safe.) - Try adding honey to the hot milk to take the sour edge off the finished product (sweet helps mask sour). For "Greek-style" thick yogurt, place the yogurt in a strainer over a bowl and let it drip-strain overnight in the fridge. For additional yogurt-making tips, see http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=GH1183.[image]

There are plenty of natural sources of glutamate. Many traditional j.a.panese dishes call for das.h.i.+ das.h.i.+, a stock made from ingredients high in natural glutamate such as kombu seaweed (2.2% glutamate by weight). Making das.h.i.+ is super easy: in a pot, place 3 cups (700g) cold water and a 6 / 15 cm strip of kombu (dried kelp), and let rest for 10 minutes. Bring to a boil slowly on low heat. Remove the kombu just before the water begins to boil and add 10g of bonito flakes (flakes of dried and smoked bonito fish). Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and strain out the bonito flakes. This liquid is das.h.i.+. To make miso soup, add miso paste, diced tofu, and (optionally) sliced green onions, nori, or wakame wakame (an edible seaweed). (an edible seaweed).

Glutamate occurs naturally in many other foods-for example, beef (0.1%) and cabbage (0.1%). And if you're like most geeks and pizza makes your mouth water, it might be because of the glutamate in the ingredients: Parmesan cheese (1.2%), tomatoes (0.14%), and mushrooms (0.07%).

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Glutamate content of common ingredients.

Others In addition to the primary sensations of taste, our taste buds also respond to oral irritation brought about by hot peppers (typically from the chemical capsaicin), cooling sensations (typically menthol from plants like peppermint), and carbonation. The reaction to hot peppers is governed by a neurotransmitter called substance P substance P (P is for (P is for pain pain; go figure). In one of nature's more subtle moves, substance P can be depleted slowly and takes time-many days, possibly weeks-to replenish, meaning that if you eat hot foods often, you literally build up a tolerance for hotter and hotter foods as your ability to detect their presence goes down. Because of this, asking someone else if a dish is spicy won't always tell you if it's safe to jump in. Carbonation in soft drinks also irritates the taste buds, but in a different way that stimulates the somatosensory system. Carbonation also interacts with an enzyme (carbonic anhydrase 4) to trigger our sour taste receptors, but for now it's unclear as to why it doesn't actually taste sour to us.

Our mouths also capture data for a few chemical families present in some foods, along with noticing texture and "mouthfeel." Some of the sensations picked up by our mouths include pungency, astringency, and cooling. Pungency is commonly described as being like some strong, stinky French cheeses: a sharp, caustic quality. Astringency results when certain compounds literally bind to taste receptors and causes a drying, puckering reaction. Astringent foods include persimmon, some teas, and lower-quality pomegranate juices (the bark and pulp are astringent). Cooling is the easiest to understand: the chemical menthol, which occurs naturally in mint oils from plants such as peppermint, triggers the same nerve pathways as cold. Menthol is commonly used in chewing gum and mint candies.

Different cultures give different weights to some of the sensations listed here. Ayurvedic practices on the Indian subcontinent include food recommendations as part of their prescriptions, defining six types of taste: sweet, sour, salty, warm (like "hot" but not the same kind of kick), bitter, and astringent. No umami, but two additional variables: warm and astringent. Thai cooking also defines hot as a primary taste. For most European cuisines, these additional variables are of lesser importance, possibly due to genetic differences in taste receptors related to supertasting between Europeans and Asians.

Taste AversionsYour reaction to a particular taste is based in part on your prior experiences with similar flavors. Have prior exposures been pleasant, or revolting? Taste aversions-a strong dislike for a food, but not one based on an innate biological preference-typically stem from prior bad experiences with food. Sometimes only a single exposure that results in foodborne illness (and usually an unpleasant night near the bathroom) is all that it takes for your brain to create the negative a.s.sociation.The food that triggers the illness is correctly identified only part of the time. Typically, the blame is pinned on the most unfamiliar thing in a meal (this is known as sauce bearnaise syndrome). Sometimes the illness isn't even food-related, but a negative a.s.sociation is still learned and becomes tied to the suspected culprit. This type of conditioned taste aversion is known as "the Garcia Effect." As further proof that we're at the mercy of our subconscious, consider this: even when we know we've misidentified the cause of an illness ("It couldn't be Tim's mayonnaise salad, because everyone else had it and they're fine!"), an incorrectly a.s.sociated food aversion will still stick.One of the cleverest examinations of taste aversion was done by Carl Gustavson as a grad student stuck at the ABD (all but dissertation) point of his PhD. Reasoning that taste aversion could be artificially induced, he trained free-ranging coyotes to avoid sheep by leaving (nonlethally) poisoned chunks of lamb around for the coyotes to eat. They soon learned that the meat made them ill, and thus "learned" to avoid the sheep. I don't recommend this method for kicking a junk food habit or keeping your coworkers from stealing unmarked food from the company fridge, as tempting as it might be.

Combinations of Tastes and Smells Most dishes involve a combination of ingredients that contain at least two different primary tastes, because the combination brings balance and adds depth and complexity. Whether the dish is a French cla.s.sic or a simple item of produce, the taste will be simple ("one note") unless it's paired with at least one other.

To alter the flavor of fresh fruit, you can sprinkle it with sugar (try this on strawberries) or salt (on grapefruit), wet it with lime juice (papaya, watermelon, peaches with honey), or combine it with an ingredient from another taste family (sweet watermelon and salty feta cheese). If you can find fresh papaya, try slicing it and sprinkling a bit of cayenne pepper and salt on top of the pieces for a salty/sweet/hot combination. Try replacing the papaya with other tropical fruits and the cayenne pepper with other hot items. Guava and chili pepper? Mango salad with jalapenos and cilantro? Strawberries and black pepper?

NoteBlack pepper has no capsaicin (the chemical that gives cayenne pepper and jalapenos their heat) but is still pungent due to another chemical, piperine.

For another twist, try mixing foods high in fats with hot ingredients. They should pair well with ingredients that contain capsaicin, because capsaicin is fat soluble. Experiment with avocado and sriracha sauce, commonly known as rooster sauce rooster sauce for the drawing on the bottle of one popular brand. for the drawing on the bottle of one popular brand.

NoteRooster sauce (sriracha sauce-Thai hot sauce), it has been said, can improve the taste of any any dorm food, but beware, it's spicy. As one friend quipped to me, it'll hit you like a freight train and then leave like a freight train. dorm food, but beware, it's spicy. As one friend quipped to me, it'll hit you like a freight train and then leave like a freight train.

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For you visual thinkers, here's a diagram of the combinations of the four basic flavors, with a few foods labeled for each combination. Ask yourself: what other foods have these combinations? When cooking, think about which tastes your dish emphasizes and in which direction you want it to go.

Many foods are combinations of three or more primary tastes. Ketchup, for example, is surprisingly complex, with tastes of umami (tomatoes), sourness (vinegar), sweetness (sugar), and saltiness (salt).

Taste combinations are equally important in drinks. The hallmark of a well-mixed c.o.c.ktail is the balance between bitter (bitters) and sweet (sugar). Likewise, unless you've learned to enjoy bitterness, coffee and tea (slightly bitter) are commonly combined with sweeteners (milk, sugar, honey) or acidifiers (lemon juice, orange juice) to balance out the tastes.

In some cases, the combination of different primary tastes is achieved by serving two separate components together, pairing one dish with a second on the basis that the two will complement each other. In Indian food, for example, the salty sweetness of a yogurt la.s.si balances out the spicy hotness of curries. Consider the following combinations of primary flavors. With the exception of bitter/salty, every pair of primary tastes is a common combination.

Combination Single-ingredient example Combination example Salty + sour Pickles Preserved lemon peel Salad dressings Salty + sweet Seaweed (slightly sweet via mannitol) Watermelon and feta cheese Banana with sharp cheddar cheese Cantaloupe and prosciutto Chocolate-covered pretzels Sour + sweet Oranges Lemon juice and sugar (e.g., lemonade) Grilled corn with lime juice Bitter + sour Cranberries Grapefruit (sour via citric acid; bitter via naringin) Negroni (c.o.c.ktail with gin, vermouth, Campari) Bitter + sweet Bitter