Opinions on Taste Buds and Molecules ?

I have been reading about the book by sommelier Francois Chartier. I did make the lamb ossobuco mentioned in WS this month. The very best thing about the recipe was cutting the lamb shanks crosswise into thirds. A much more elegant way to serve and suggestive of many new prep ideas. Watch the price of lamb shanks cut this way climb into the stratosphere like their veal counterpart! Never thought of it but clearly an advantage.
As for the recipe....the anise flavor derived from a combination of star anise, fennel seed and pastis was way too forward and out of balance. It is something to be played around with in a future trial.
His suggestion is that the anethol, a key aromatic in anise is also a critical compound in Sauvignon Blanc making it an ideal match which made sense to me intuitively when I smelled the sauce but I didn't know the chemistry

[David M. Bueker]

A distinct element of anise is a non-starter for me, so if he's right that's yet another reason why I detest Sauvignon Blanc.

Interesting. Generally, I like sauv blanc and don't get any overt anise flavor in it. I can believe that there are common components to the two, though.

This reminds me of an article I read a while back on the chemistry of cilantro, and why so many people hate it. Apparently to some people, cilantro smells like soap and/or bugs (bed bugs in particular, so I can fully understand the revulsion). There's chemistry to support this; cilantro, soap and bed bugs all share the same or similar group of aldehydes. Even more interestingly, the word "coriander" is thought to have derived from the same word as "bedbug".

Personally, I love cilantro, but I seem to be in the minority amongst people I know.

Oops, forgot to include the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dinin ... ss&emc=rss

If you do gas chromatography analysis to separate out the individual chemical compounds in any foodstuff, or wine, you're bound to find a whole host of intriguing substances. Sometimes from surprising sources. For example, the essential oils of ajwain, an important spice in Indian and Ethiopian cooking, are about 60% thymol, the major essential oil that gives thyme its distinctive aroma and flavor. Yet ajwain seed and thyme are very distinctively different herbs.

So it doesn't surprise me that anisol is to be found in the aromatic spectrum of sauvignon blanc. But that won't necessarily mean SB is a good accompaniment for savory dishes with an anise flavor. For example, I don't find sauvignon blanc particularly harmonious with Chinese red-cooked dishes with star anise as one of the major flavoring components. It's the balance and proportion of the various aromatic components of a spice that determine just how it tickles the human palate.

And yes, all the flavor nuances come from the NOSE, not the tongue. The tongue can only experience five coarse major sensations: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umame. All the subtlety of what we call flavor comes from the sense of smell. I had this fact dramatically driven home to me when I got influenza so severely that it completely knocked out my sense of smell for a week. This happened over the New Year's holiday, and despite my illness I got take-out Chinese food and opened a fine bottle of Champagne to celebrate the New Year. The Champagne had no aroma at all, and tasted sour, nothing more. The stir-fried pork and scallions, which I knew from past experience with this restaurant to be something to die for, tasted like salty cardboard.

Fortunately my sense of smell recovered (although equally fortunately not until after I'd emptied the cat's litter box, which I'd neglected for over a week because I was too ill). I have the greatest sympathy for those who have lost their sense of smell, and who thus are deprived of the greatest joys of food and drink.

-Paul W.

The tongue can only experience five coarse major sensations: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umame.

Essentially the current accepted wisdom, Paul, but the sensory (and especially the culinary part of the sensory) community is coming around to include peppery as another perceptive component sensed by the taste buds.

This would allow the cuisines of much of Asia, PacRim, India/Pakistan, large parts of Africa, large parts of Latin America to encompass one of their essential "tastes". Think about it: peppery is much more a sense of taste than a sense of aroma, and it registers much more on the physical palate than on the olfactory bulb (until it sears the nasal passages, I mean).

Me, I'm an outlaw...not only do I add peppery to the list, I say that temperature should be put in as well.

Yes, pepper ("hot") certainly can be added to the list.

-Paul W.