439: DeVonn Francis & Arielle Johnson

27:22Yeah. I had named the series I was doing the living room series because I was thinking about just being a young person sitting in living room with my aunts and uncles and just like listening to them have these very intimate kind of gossipy conversations. But at the same time, this energy of trying to recenter the home space as a space that was just as important as a restaurant space or a fine dining space, because that's where learning happened for me first. It wasn't, I didn't go to school for cooking. I didn't really have a formal cooking background. And so I was really trying to recenter these ideas of what we think of as chic or cool, you know, because for me, the chicest coolest people were my aunts and uncles.

28:13You know, they were turning it out, you know. and and as you like read about the the crazy thing is when you read about the history of how food happens in america or the world in general it are it's always the people who are sort of put in the background and cast in the background who are really setting the tone for these ideas that we think are really chic and cool yeah is there an idea in your head right now of what that looks like yeah let me think about it okay let me think about it okay it'll come to me. So like hypothetically, you're a dinner party guest, you're walking into someone's home.

28:47Yeah. What's a sign or something you're looking for where you're like, okay, everything's going to be lovely. This is going to be a good dinner party. Selfishly, a lot of it just starts with what I like because I think that my taste very rarely steers me wrong. And also if it's wrong, I love kind of emphasizing why something's bad. I think that's also like a really like chic thing to do. It's, you know, like for me, I love video games like Magic the Gathering, you know, and it's not that I want people to have a dinner party where it's specific to Magic the Gathering, but what I am doing as a chef, and I think what all good creators do is they say, what are the elements of this that make it so that people will feel as enchanted and enamored as I feel like when I'm doing this thing intimately, privately or whatever, right?

29:35So like for me, It's, you know, is it the lighting? Is it a smell? Is it what you're wearing? Is it a performance that's happening? Is it an ingredient? Is it someone you're collaborating on the menu with? You know, there's just so much, there's so many like fun, like crayons to play with when it comes to putting together any sort of event. I just get excited about all of it. And it really opens up the door for this, like, for a process of other people to get thinking about just how they spend their time in general, you know. I will say also, because I don't want to, like, misconstrue my motives, like, I love discomfort.

30:14I think it's really important to step outside of what you feel like you understand about something and come to it with a new sense of thoughtfulness. even if you don't come away like loving it as much as I do it's still something that you're encountering and that that feels really important to me yeah I think that's like really nice to keep in mind as well I think like my friends always make fun of me if I walk into a party and the overhead lights are on and there's no music like I don't know if I have like ADHD or what but I find that very unsettling like I can't pay attention to what's happening because I just feel so I mean I never have overhead lighting on in my home apartment, but it just feels bad.

30:57Yeah. Right? 100%. 100%. Like, why does it feel so bad? No, because you feel like you're being interrogated. Yeah. I thought about it answered your question now. Okay. Tell me. Okay. So going back to music, I think music is the best, the best way to think about this question of how culture starts from this sort of like underbelly community and then becomes proliferated proliferate into this mainstream zeitgeist. But if you think about house or techno or rock music, you know, Chicago, Detroit, rock music, and also rock music's connection to gospel music, you know, the sort of polyrhythmic nature of music today is inherently an African thing, is inherently a black thing.

31:49And I mean, especially like coming to New York from a place like Virginia and like being brought into a deeper relationship with music and going out all the time as I do. I was like, oh shit. Like this is like a specific drum. This isn't just, I mean, I know we're saying it's techno. I know we're like all channeling Berlin in our heads, but. But Berlin was channeling Detroit. Right, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned nightlife because I do. I was telling our producer, Shalia, before this that whenever I see you, it's like, I don't know, an hour I won't mention on this podcast. I'm feeling like dead.

32:27And I look across the dance floor and you look like you just rolled out of bed. Like you're so perfect. And I never surprised to see you. Whenever I'm at like a really good set, I just feel like, oh, maybe I'll see Devon. And I think that like sometimes food people who don't necessarily go out or spend a lot of time in nightlife will ask me, like, especially with like Cakesy and like we do a lot of stuff with DJs. Like we've done catering for raves before and it just comes from a place that like I like all of these things and I think that like it's just fun to do them. But I'm curious for you if like you see nightlife and like cooking and restaurants is all kind of part of your same canvas or if they're kind of separate for you.

33:06I've kept them very separate for very long and now I'm sort of percolating on ways to bring them together. I like need you to, I don't know if you want to do this, but I would love for you to do catering for like set the menu for a club in the city or something. The options are just not, it's like, I want to have a smoothie and I can't have a smoothie. They used to have smoothies nowadays and they don't anymore. Yeah. Bring them back. And it's, you know, what's funny because when you go to something like a soul summit and this goes back to my history, my family history of block parties, being able to have a good time and feel nourished go hand in hand for communities that have lived in places like Brooklyn, Detroit, Chicago, like for so, I mean, New Orleans for so long.

33:56It's not like we're going to go and let's just get wasted. Let's just be high or whatever. It's, there's something about a full body assessment that happens from head to toe that, you know, and again, this word hospitality for me is all encompassing. It's not just about I was served this really expensive thing. It's how do I feel about myself after I sat here with this person? Who and who was I sitting with? And tomorrow when I go to work, am I still feeling those vibrations from the love, from the care from the thoughtfulness from being surprised at the music I heard you know and so for me keep keeping them separate I think doesn't really do our city justice I think that we live in such a beautiful place and there are so many talented people and kind of what you're saying with the the work you've done with the cake scene and being like I'm gonna have really great food that I care about and I'm also gonna be next to the DJs and the performances and the talent that I care about It all, it's, it's world building.

35:02You know, when I go to Poppy Juice, they're constructing a world. Yeah. And you did like the dinner for Pride last year for Poppy Juice, right? Yes. Yeah. We've done a, we've done a few food things with Poppy now. Um, and those are like, those are my sisters. Those are my girls for life because in the, and in the very same way that I was constructing or am constructing Yardi world because I saw a gap in the type of hospitality, the type of culture, the type of pleasure that I wanted, finding spaces of nightlife that also reflected those ideals for me was really important too, right? So when I'm thinking about the different BPMs, the different cultural ties and places and spaces, they're pulling DJs from different cities and different places around the world, you know, that's what they're doing.

35:58They're filling in the gap in ways that they didn't see in nightlife before, you know, and extending that care and extending that accessibility to people who also need that, people who need to see themselves reflected and represented in more spaces than there are right now, you know? So if for me, it feels special to have them together to answer your question. Definitely. And looking ahead at the year, is there anything that you're working on or that's coming up that you're extra excited about? Yeah. Um, I am finally writing my cookbook. Hell yeah. You're in that stage. You're in like the grown stage.

36:40I'm like, oh my, only cause, only cause you know, you see all your friends doing it and they're so good at it and I'm like damn y 'all are so good at this I everybody hates it I would say I is hard yeah yeah I'm always texting Andy Baragani yeah and I'm like babe how did you survive this process it's like having a I've never had a child but I imagine it feels like having a child it's like you spend well two years plus just trying to get this book to like walk and to talk and to to have and to like reflect you right in your thoughts and you have a lot of yourself to reflect so i'm sure there's a lot of going back and forth just keep going yeah no no totally it's exactly exactly this is the thing and this is the hardest part for me because i'm just like oh no who am i who am i today you know and i and god like my my 2024 resolution is trying to simplify and not beat myself up about things not being perfect.

37:44And also knowing that I can do all the ideas I want to, but I have to do them one at a time. So books are hard because they really call a different type of attention in. Someone who maybe is more project-to-project based like me, it's a little harder for me, but I'm really enjoying the process. Cool. I love that. Well, this is Taste. So to close the episode today, I want to play a little taste check with you. So I'll give you a category and you tell me, The first thing that comes to mind. Okay. Take a breath. We're good. Oh, gosh. It's fine. Okay. Favorite cookbook? Oh, my God.

38:22I'm currently reading Jessica B. Harris's cookbook. Okay. We'll take it. Okay. Something you'll never make from scratch. Like, not worth it. Bread. I'm being honest. I'm not one of them girls. It's okay. You have enough going on. There's so much. Sorry, you keep going. No, tell me. There's so much good bread. I'm like, shout out to people who are making it. I will buy it from you. I'm not making it. We live in New York. We can go buy the bread. Okay. Your dream fictional dinner party guest. Oh my God. As in they don't. They don't exist. Oh, they don't exist? Yeah. Oh shit. Well, who did you think about like a historic, a dead person?

39:04So I'd take that. I have alive people, but it's fine. I won't talk about them. um tell me a live person and then okay someone who's not on this earth for like legibility or like life reasons okay um oh okay uh viola davis yes if you're listening to this please and then fictional would probably be storm from x okay hot duo honestly right yeah right right okay uh the lowest effort like highest reward dinner party appetizer this is so stupid like a bowl of fruits or like yardy world snack mix that's okay i was thinking lower i was thinking well you're not making it right like you're someone else is buying it oh okay yardy world snack mix yeah available in the store near you like throwing that one over the plate um okay your lowest effort highest reward dinner party dessert lowest effort highest reward dinner a party dessert a bowl of fruits your favorite new york city bar oh okay right now it's chino grande because i can do karaoke after oh okay i haven't been still what's your karaoke song that's your next flash uh oh that's easy that's uh ashley simpson lala no notes period favorite new york city bakery.

40:23Oh, well, it was Mel, but then they closed. Yeah, they did close. But Zoe Kanan is opening in that space. Oh. So there'll be another bakery around there. Then I'll be back. Yeah. Okay, your favorite New York City restaurant. Oh, Liza, why are you doing this to me? You can tell me too if you say them fast. You said fast. Okay. Kopitiam, Always and Forever. And then Boo's Wonton King. Love them both. Okay, a restaurant that you wish could be your neighborhood restaurant. So it's not where you live. Oh my God, Just Cool in Jamaica. Whoa. They make pudding and toto and they tear. It's crazy. It's so delicious.

41:07Okay. Manifesting this for you. Thank you. A party, real or fictional, that you wish you could attend. So it happened or it's like, was it a movie? Oh my God. The red wedding from... From Game of Thrones? Game of Thrones. own are you serious absolutely can you imagine you want to be in the back just watch i would watch yeah i would that was that scene shook okay that's not what i thought you were gonna say but i love that you said rapid i know no that's the beauty of it you keep everyone guessing i love it people don't know how dark i actually am now a fictional food scene that you wish you could eat i really love everything that's happening in julia right now i just binged it oh i haven't seen it still.

41:49I binged it and I want to be there with her every step of the way. Anything she's making. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to go watch Julia. Devon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was so much fun. Thank you for having me. I had such a good time.

42:14Dr. Arielle Johnson, this is Taze. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. It's so much fun. I feel like this is every food person's dream, which is just to ask a flavor scientist all of the questions that people want to know about cooking. And I guess to start, I'm wondering if you could tell me, like, how does one become a flavor scientist in the first place? That's an excellent question. I'm sure there are other people. Well, I know that there are other people that do it, but I can tell you how I did it. Short version. I've always been really into food. Also interested in science.

42:47Got to college where I was doing a chemistry degree and not really sure what I wanted to do with it. Then figured out via El Bui and Ferran Adria, who were on like the cover of the New York Times magazine and Harold McGee and his book on food and cooking, that you could use chemistry to do very cool things with food. So at that point, I decided this is what I need to do and I've got to figure out how to do it. And there wasn't really like a established pathway to get there. So I ended up going to grad school. I applied and got into the agricultural and environmental chemistry graduate program at UC Davis, which is applied analytical chemistry, essentially.

43:30So, you know, chemistry, love chemistry, am a chemist and ended up in the wine department, viticulture and oenology. And there's some really great analytical chemists and sensory scientists looking at wine. so I sort of found out on the job that flavor was a thing that was sensation and it was also chemistry and also psychology and also ecology and evolution and I hate doing just one thing. I like things that let me do combine multiple things at once so it was sort of the perfect topic and you know ultimately I think the one that people who want to know something about science or the science of their food really want to know.

44:15Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I feel like it's funny because obviously we think of like the Maillard reaction is like that's probably the only like food chemistry thing I could name drop on a podcast with you right now. I'm curious if there was a reaction or a discovery or something that like you found particularly illuminating or exciting to you when you were kind of going down this food science path. Yeah, I mean, a lot, a lot, a lot. One of the very first ones was that flavor is technically not objectively measurable. We can measure sensation, but in terms of putting a food sample into some sort of chemistry device and getting an answer out about exactly what it would taste like, that doesn't exist.

45:03and you have to do lots of tricky things to work around it. That's trippy. Is that at all like, I feel like there's this stoner thought of like, is my blue even your blue man? It's like that vibe? Yeah, it's like that times, you know, 10 billion or so for all the different flavors. That's so interesting. And then after you got your degree, I know that you kind of found your way to NOMA, which I imagine is like any listeners kind of peak idea of what it would mean to be a food scientist somewhere. How did you find your way there and what kinds of work were you doing? Well, so, you know, while I was in grad school becoming a scientist, I kept my very strong interest in using what I was learning with chefs and restaurants up.

45:49There was some I'd worked with here in New York while I was at NYU. And, you know, at that time, long before Twitter became the dumpster fire that it is now, a lot of people who were interested in the science of food and creative cooking were on there just posting about it. So just by kind of hanging out in that space, I got to know quite a few people doing interesting stuff with food and with science. Noma had a project at that point called the Nordic Food Lab, which was their sort of lab to understand ingredients and techniques. It was housed in a houseboat, actually anchored right outside the restaurant in Copenhagen Harbor.

46:28But they were doing really, really amazing, fascinating stuff that combined, you know, a chef's perspective with a scientist. And it was pretty obvious to me that that's what I needed to be doing. So I introduced myself, got to talking and ended up going over for a summer in the middle of my in the middle of grad school. So I sort of snuck away from California and ended up in Copenhagen and completely fell in love with everything about it. Yeah, I would imagine like when you talk about working with chefs to be kind of helping solve these problems, like I imagine you being like a pinch hitter or like a mercenary, like coming in in some way, because these are chefs who I imagine already understand a lot about food and technique just through their own work.

47:12So what kinds of questions would chefs be coming to you to solve? Yeah, when I started when I started working with chefs, especially at Noma, I noticed that they knew in some ways far more about food than I did along many dimensions, just from, as you say, becoming like really, really, really skilled cooks at the top of their game with very good powers of observation. There were other things that I knew a lot about that they didn't know so much about, but all of our knowledge was like complementary. So it was kind of just a matter of figuring out how to talk about the same thing using like two different languages.

47:46So one question I worked on early on was everyone was very interested in eating insects. I think people are still interested in eating insects, but it was just becoming sort of part of the mainstream conversation at that point. And they had been tasting these ants and the ants had really interesting, you know, sort of citrusy herbal flavors and they wanted to know why. one of the chefs ended up finding a paper about the chemical communication so like pheromones ways that ants talk to each other with molecules and was kind of trying to figure out if there was anything useful from it and asked me to take a look and I was like well those are all flavor molecules so you know that ant is going to taste like lavender that ant is going to taste like cilantro because it has the same molecule the same flavor molecule that's in those ingredients so So sometimes it's, yeah.

48:39You're like blowing my mind. And I often find myself doing something like that where, well, a lot of people are shocked to find out that many questions in the science of food are answerable but have not been studied just because there's not funding for it, really. So there are some things that there isn't an objective data-based answer to directly just because no one's looked at it. But if you can figure out how to rephrase the question to see if some other discipline has looked at something similar, you can often find a useful paper in, for example, like an entomology journal or archaeology, protein biology, all kinds of crazy areas of science you wouldn't necessarily think of when you think of food.

49:22That's so interesting. And I don't mean to sound like unscientific, but why does it from a chef's perspective? Why does it matter knowing why ants taste certain ways when you can just taste them and know how they taste? Yeah, so obviously there's a huge amount that can really only be learned by practice and experience. And this is how you become a great chef. But then, you know, ultimately, there are unfamiliar ingredients or unfamiliar situations or new techniques you want to try out. And in all of those cases, understanding a little bit about about chemistry and about molecules is like the secret sauce that lets you do things that you haven't been able to do before.

50:01Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. I'm curious if you have any white whales kind of problems that you've been asked to solve that you don't have the data or the answers to quite yet. I recently got asked if it was possible to preserve an artichoke heart or many artichoke hearts without making it taste cooked or too cooked, too soft, too sour, too salty, anything fermented. And my first answer was no, that's not that's not possible if you want to store it for any length of time. Like, sure, that sounds like magic. That would be nice. And then, you know, after some pausing and thinking, I dug together a couple of different things.

50:43One paper about bacterial counts and pasteurization in sort of bagged carrots. And another one about enzymes that crosslink the pectin glue that holds the cells inside of a plant together. And it kind of makes it firmer and chewier. So by kind of combining this one paper about enzymes, another one about calcium, which also helps glue together pectin, and pasteurization, we managed to at least construct a trial to see how artichokes would behave under those conditions. We haven't tasted them yet, but I really have high hopes for how it's going to look. Okay, well, I want to know about the results of that because I feel like that's a question I would never have even come up with.

51:29And the answer sounds like it would be very intriguing. And to anyone listening who's like, oh, I wish I could understand more about these scientific concepts. The great thing is that you have written a book, Flavorama, where you're kind of digging into all of this. How did you decide to approach these scientific concepts in an approachable way? Did you come up with any parameters? Well, it all happened actually very organically. I didn't necessarily have a plan to write a book at all. I'd just been working at Noma and in restaurants for a few years at that point and found that I kept getting asked either the same or very similar questions.

52:14and so I was answering a lot of things over and over again and also trying to figure out how to phrase them what language to use how to help people understand that you know hadn't had certainly don't have a PhD in chemistry but you know some very great very smart chefs dropped out of high school to become chefs and English isn't their first language especially if you're in a foreign country so figuring out the communication piece was big but then once I did I kept thinking oh, if only I should make a cheat sheet for all this stuff so I can just, you know, hand it to people when they come and ask.

52:47Or like, I wish there was a book I could give you. And eventually I figured out that that is the universe telling you that you need to write a book. So I talk about the laws of flavor in this, in my book. And they are that flavor is molecules, flavor is taste and smell. Flavor follows predictable patterns. Flavor can be concentrated, infused and extracted. And And flavor can be created and transformed. So that's basically just describing that flavor. Flavor is chemistry in those ways. And there are ways to use it creatively. So I tried to keep stuff all within what I had already explained to some professional chef or cook and any other extra information that was super useful to know.

53:34So at first, it was just almost making your life easier. But now it's going to make a lot of other people's lives easier in the process. It did. Yeah. Yeah, that's my hope. Yeah, I hope so. And I like the principles or the basic laws of flavor that you write about. I think when I was reading it, I had this very silly moment when I was like, oh, it's like I'm reading my high school chemistry book. And it's because it is a chemistry book, but it's also a cookbook and all of these other things. How did you think about including recipes? Do you think of them as like the scaffolding of the book? Are they more of like proving the concepts?

54:03In some cases, they're the like scaffolding or impetus for framing a certain section a certain way. So something like the section on infusing oils. I really started with the smoked tea infused smoke oil and then kind of built it out from there. A lot of other ones are knowing that a concept is important, but also that people should have a practical application for it. Definitely. So I want to read you something from your intro to have you unpack it a little bit further. So in your intro, you write, flavor isn't just ineffable vibes or an abstract quality that imbues lemon with lemoniness. Absolutely everything required to set off the wonderful perceptual experience of flavor in your brain is contained within the food you are eating in the form of molecules.

54:50So can you unpack why it's important to remember that flavor and food comes down to molecules and chemistry in the first place? Like I said earlier, with why chefs would want to know stuff like this, understanding how things work, and in this case, food on a molecular level is really like a form of x-ray vision or like being able to service your own car. So it just adds a layer of understanding why you're doing things and being able to then really know what you should do next rather than relying on someone else to tell you. So, yeah, when you when you look at an ingredient like a lemon, you can think of it as an object that tastes like lemon.

55:33But, you know, the different parts of it taste like lemon in different ways because it's not, you know, a homogenous, not a homogenous object. It has complexity to it. So, you know, if you know that in the outer layer, there are a lot of deposits of very flavorful aromatic oil and that the layer underneath that is mostly bitter and spongy and full of pectin and that the layer underneath that, the fruit itself is like little balloons of water held in place by membranes and cell walls. And, you know, within that tiny, tiny amounts, like a few percent of sugars and acids and even smaller amounts of aroma molecules are dissolved in it.

56:13Then just the way that you approach working with that is different than just thinking of it as like one thing you can do one thing with. Yeah, I think it's kind of obvious that everything is made out of molecules. But I don't think most people are used to thinking about things in like a chemistry kind of way. and just kind of refocusing your brain even is just kind of a fun exercise. I think for me as a home cook, when I was reading this book, I was just like thinking about the things that I inherently knew to do and why that would make sense from a science perspective. And that's my like biggest hope for the book is that people recognize, yeah, this isn't a completely new thing that I have to learn now or something that's telling me what to do.

56:54It complements what I already have developed intuitively as a cook. Definitely. I had a recent experience that I was quite proud of where I had something that I was making that was too salty. I was braising greens in a braising liquid. And I don't know what happened, but when I tasted the braising liquid, it was just so salty. And I started spinning out trying to think about how I was going to fix the greens. And then I realized that I was just trying to eat the greens and not the liquid and that the greens themselves hadn't been fully like, they hadn't absorbed all the saltiness yet. So I just drained them and then tossed them in like orange juice and a little bit of sesame oil.

57:27So it's kind of like a that vibe of flavor. And I was so proud of myself for just stopping to think that like the liquid was infusing into something, but that it wasn't when I needed, which to you might seem very obvious. No, I'm so happy that you that like I'm like, yes, exactly how you should be thinking about it. Yeah, really, really proud and excited. Oh, thank you. Yeah. A plus for me. A plus plus. So can you tell me a little bit about how flavor and smell are combining to make eating like this emotional thing? So, yeah, this is this is one of the biggest hurdles or, you know, unbelievable moments that people tend to have when they're first learning about flavor.

58:06It's that smell, smell as well as taste, but especially smell is one of the most important parts of flavor. And people don't generally know this one because we don't talk about it, but two, because it doesn't feel like smell while we're doing it. um so most people you say smell or olfaction and they think sniffing so putting putting something in front of your face and sucking its smells into your nose holes and perceiving them there um that's what we're doing when we smell that is what and now you will never be able to think of anything else when when you smell something smelling you're welcome basically those those smell molecules can get in from the front but they can also come in the back way uh sort of like up up your throat and into your nose because it's all one airway.

58:49So when you have a piece of food in your mouth, you're actually releasing aroma molecules that sort of float up the back of your throat and into your nasal cavity where you perceive them. And frustratingly, for explaining this anyway, the smell that you experience while you're eating, the smell that's part of flavor, feels like taste. It feels like it's happening inside your mouth. Your brain plays a trick on you. But it is actually happening in your nose. And, you know, anyone who's come down with COVID and lost their sense of smell, but kept their sense of taste can attest to how much more intense and enjoyable and, you know, bright and exciting the flavors are when they have smells involved.

59:27You actually have an activity in the book where you tell people to, I can't remember what it is to eat, but to eat something and to pinch your nose while you're eating it and then undo that and tell the difference. I'll often use a jelly bean for a demo like that. So if you pop a watermelon flavored jelly belly in your mouth and hold your nose and chew it, it's going to taste sweet and sour. And that's pretty much it. Then when you let go of your nose, you'll, you know, let these vapors kind of do their thing. And then all of a sudden, watermelon pops into focus. So yeah, it's a really magical feeling demo.

59:58I even feel surprised every time that it happens, even though I know it's going to happen. But yeah, it's a really great way to understand how smell is a part of flavor. And why the jelly belly? Is it just because it's concentrated flavor in a small package. Yeah, exactly. And they're, you know, they're nice and they're like a little bit tangier than most other jelly beans. So there's a little bit more kind of going on flavor wise. And I also I like the pear ones a lot. The pear ones. What color are they? They are light green with dark green speckles. Can we talk about color for a little bit also?

1:00:30Like with a jelly bean, for example, like do you think people would taste the watermelon as much if it was purple? That's an excellent question. No, they would not. So we use cues from all of our senses when we're perceiving flavor, because flavor is fundamentally about figuring out how to feed yourself well and not something that will hurt you. So, you know, you'll use every type of information you can get to make that decision. So there are studies in psychology, you know, sensory science where if they add green dye to orange juice, a significant number of people will taste it and call it limeade instead of orange juice.

1:01:13So, you know, they taste sweet, they taste sour, they sense some citrusiness, but then the thing that clenches it as lime and not orange is the green color. I think that's so funny. And it makes me think about the way that a lot of flavors are subjective and specifically wine, for example. I think a lot of people, myself included, feel kind of at a loss when it comes to describing the flavors that are within something like what oaky actually tastes like, for example. And I know that you've trained people to become analytical taste testers for research before. And I'm curious if you can say a little bit about what that process is like or what home cooks could take from that to become better tasters themselves.

1:01:55You know, because flavor doesn't really exist until you put food in someone's mouth and they have the sensory experience. In flavor and flavor chemistry research, we do a lot of sensory analysis, and that's essentially training people to be very precise about describing what they taste and estimating the intensity of what they taste. So this sounds like the kind of thing where maybe one in a million people could do it because it's like an esoteric brotherhood that you get inducted into. Definitely not. Pretty much anyone can get really good at tasting. I like to say that a good palate is 95 % paying attention and practice.

1:02:32So there is hope for everybody, I believe. Yeah. So we have to train people. And so there's a line from one of my textbooks that I think about a lot, which is, humans are extraordinarily good at distinguishing flavors from each other. Humans are extraordinarily bad at describing those differences. So we already have the hardware and the sensitivity and the ability to tell that two things are different. So that's actually a huge start because once you can tell things are different, you just have to figure out how to describe how they are different. Yeah, most of training people to be a sensory panelist is getting them to smell things and talk about them, talk about what they smell a lot, bring in physical references for what they say.

1:03:19So in a wine sensory panel, if someone says they smell raspberry, you might bring like fresh raspberries, frozen raspberries and raspberry jam because each is a kind of different interpretation of raspberry. So, you know, is your blue my blue? Is your raspberry my raspberry? This is a way to make sure that everyone's raspberry is the same raspberry. will often sometimes vote on what the closest reference is. And then, you know, by the end of training, having made people smell things over and over again, we'll have basically a set of black wine glasses with things like grass clippings for grassy and raspberry jam for raspberry and actual dirt for earthy.

1:04:01The actual things that we are talking about when we say those flavors to line everyone up with the same concepts. So, you know, you as a home cook don't have to then go through the process of tasting a set of samples in triplicate and painstakingly going through every single possible flavor and reading how intense it is. But the things you can take away from it that are actually useful, it's really just about experience and practice. You can start today. It's helpful to smell different versions, smell and taste different versions of the same thing and try to notice what the differences are and talk about them.

1:04:37And yeah, just make a habit of paying attention and, you know, work in some of these opportunities to learn how to describe things and learn how things are different. Yeah, I like that as like an additional part of the cooking process. I imagine especially I could romanticize in the summer when I get the produce that I've been waiting for all year to take the second to like smell the tomatoes before I cook with them and kind of describe it in that way would be fun. Yeah, no, I think it's super fun. And, you know, then you can notice how the flavor changed by cooking it or by what you paired it with.

1:05:08And then then you have a better understanding of how, you know, those flavor processes work. Definitely. And I appreciate you saying that you think that there's hope for everyone. I can't help but think that like some people just have very different palates based on like cultural experiences or like allergies or all kinds of different things. Like, you know, some people love the smell of gasoline. Yes. And other people don't. Like, how do you accommodate for those differences? So smell out of all the senses is the most closely tied to emotion and memory. You know, a lot of people know the Marcel Proust cliche of tasting a Madeleine and being transported back to childhood.

1:05:44Or like the Ratatouille. Exactly. One of my favorite food movies, actually. Me too. Yeah. Yeah, there is this cliche, but it's completely true. Um, the, the sort of once, once smell signals bind to our olfactory receptors and get transmitted into the brain, the, the bits of the brain that it goes to are snuggled uptight to the limbic system, which is our primary, uh, center for emotion and memory. Um, the amygdala in particular is very close to the, and connected to the, uh, you know, olfactory hardware. So often the signals from what you smell especially will get sent through these emotional centers and you will remember how you felt the last time you smelled or tasted that thing and what it was like before you consciously perceive what it smells or tastes like.

1:06:37So yeah, it's kind of inescapable. It's going to happen every time that you taste. And so, you know, sometimes it is a very dramatic emotion like being, you know, a symbol of your childhood. Sometimes it's, oh, I've smelled this before and I didn't really like it, so I'm not going to like it this time either, probably. One great example of that, when a lot of Europeans will come to America and try root beer and they hate it, they think it's disgusting. Turns out that a lot of the flavors, the primary flavors in root beer are used in toilet cleaner in a lot of countries in Europe. So they have no food reference for what this flavor is.

1:07:17But the thing that their brain recognizes is like, oh, this is what a bathroom smells like. That's so interesting. And it makes me think about, I think, like maybe an American version of this is like when mint flavors get too like toothpaste-y and it makes you think about like being at the dentist. Exactly. Exactly. In terms of in terms of like getting past differences, there are there are differences in obviously people's experiences. um you know we have about 25 different types of taste receptor and about 400 smell receptors and you know any of those people can have variation in how sensitive they are or how well they bind to things so there is there is variation in subjectivity but uh you know no one's gonna smell a glass of wine and say that it smells like a hamburger so there is at least some some agreement on the shared reality uh yeah and then in terms of like memories bad memories or negative associations with food a lot of people can get past that and you know they're not actually rating how much they like it they're just rating how intense the flavor is seeing why and how people like stuff is like a completely different branch of sensory science actually we do develop these strong associations to flavors but that means we can develop new ones also so the more you're exposed to a flavor in a positive context, the more likely you are to like it.

1:08:34I love hearing that because I do think like I was kind of a picky child in some ways. I still don't eat eggs. I don't like eating eggs. I try eggs all the time because I'm trying to get to the point when like I'll have a positive egg experience and I'm just not quite there yet. But I do think there are a lot of things that like I have even noticed in myself. I've been able to kind of change my associations with over time. Yeah. I mean, when I was when I was about 18, one day I developed a craving for olives, having always hated olives in the past. So it was kind of shocking. Can I ask you about like pregnancy cravings?

1:09:06Like why do those happen? So like part of what we use flavor for, I mean, obviously we use flavor to have a fun experience while we're eating, but there's also some evidence that we use it to find vitamins and things like that. So something like vitamin A, it's this big sort of yellow orange molecule. It's not smellable or tasteable. It does have a color. But when it breaks down, it breaks into these really delicious sort of like violet, rosy smelling molecules. And there are other molecules called carotenoids that are like vitamin A, but like don't have the action of vitamin A. And when those break down into, you know, their version of those molecules, we're much less sensitive to them.

1:09:51So we can actually, you know, we can smell, we can smell the smells that come from vitamin A way stronger than the things that don't come from a vitamin. So, you know, you're using flavor as a cue to making sure that you get all the stuff that you need, the diversity in your diet. Yeah, there are some specific cravings. Like, you know, we can taste salty because we need to eat a certain amount of salt. Like, if we don't have enough salt in our system, all of the kind of liquid balances go off and we die. So that's bad. So, you know, if you have an intense craving for salt, you should probably listen to it.

1:10:25Go eat some olives. And some might be completely random. That's so interesting. I want to talk about Ratatouille a little bit more because you said it's one of your favorite movies. Yes. And I'm thinking specifically about the scene in Ratatouille when Remy is trying to teach his brother to taste flavor. And he's like, close your eyes and taste these different things. and they have like color and sound that are using to illustrate the flavors, which I think as a kid made me wish that I had synesthesia because it's just such a cool manifestation. Like how do you feel about that depiction of flavor?

1:10:56Oh, I love it. And I think it's probably the best example committed to film of how sensing and describing flavor works. So yeah, big fan. I mean, yeah, when Ratatouille first came out and I saw the sequence, I was like, oh, they actually they actually care about understanding flavor and food, which you don't always see in movies about, you know, chefs or something like that. So, yeah, yeah, I absolutely love. I mean, it's, you know, it's a kind of another version of, you know, training an analytical taster, which is, you know, find find a way to describe what you're sensing because, you know, you are sensing something.

1:11:34Yeah, I find that when I'm describing things and I don't know, like the flavor words, I'll talk about like a movie or a feeling or a song or something that I feel like gets the vibe of something, which obviously is like even more subjective than using raspberry. But I think it's kind of fun to think about like the non-flavor ways to talk about things. Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's a certain flavor you get in some port wines that in my brain is churchy smell. And it doesn't like actually smell like anything measurable in a church. But every time I taste it in a port wine, it flicks a switch in my brain.

1:12:06Oh, it's the church smell. Yeah. When you say that, I think of like maybe incense or old rocks or something kind of musty. Some leather, some old books. Yeah. Maybe like an old priest somewhere in there. Just a sous-son of an old guy. So I'm curious, like after writing this whole book, if you could like broadcast a message to everybody in the world about flavor, like what's one thing that you wish everybody could know? That flavor is your friend and developing a sense, not even, you know, expertise, but just like a vibe about how the science of it works will be like the ultimate thing to take your cooking from good to great.

1:12:48Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And something else that you talk about in the book a lot is like the idea of looking for patterns when it comes to building flavor, which I found to be really interesting and helpful. Can you maybe like break down what that means? Yeah. So the book, we talked a lot about molecules in science, and it's like very informed by my experience as a lab scientist, but it's also like really heavily influenced by my time in restaurants. And so like something I've, you know, noticed the kind of the best cooks I know doing is they'll taste their ingredients and, you know, something that came in just that day or something that they have, kind of sit with the flavors and then sort of spring into action and just like whip up a sauce out of thin air.

1:13:34And it looks like, well, they must be following a recipe. No, they're not following a recipe. They just like were trying it out. And, you know, at first it really baffled me. Like how, like, how do you figure out how to do that? That seems like impossible. And then, you know, after I was around it more and started figuring out how to do it myself. It's really about like tasting an ingredient and taking stock of all the flavors that are there and kind of separating them from what you think you know about that ingredient. So, you know, in terms of making a sauce, a recipe for a salsa verde might have, you know, green parsley, olive oil, lemon, and garlic and an anchovy.

1:14:11But you can also look at that as flavor components where it has like a green and herbal flavor, a sour flavor, an umami flavor, etc so in theory if you you know are smelling and tasting the ingredients that you have and you like notice those notes you can kind of like do the pattern recognition of like oh okay i've got what i need for a new sauce and then you know pattern it like a recipe that you already know intuitively so like one of my friends actually this is like maybe i don't know one one of those moments that's like iconic for like oh this is what's going in the book he was making a sauce with parsley lemon thyme, lemon verbena, miso, and razor clam scraps and sea buckthorn, which sounds like a completely random assortment of scraps, essentially.

1:14:59And then, you know, we tasted it and it had all the notes of a salsa verde. It had these herbal notes, but they were different from just parsley. It had umami notes from the miso and from the scallop. And it had an amazing tanginess from these like very sour sea buckthorn berries. So like it was familiar in the sense that it hit all of the same notes, but also totally new in the sense that it was, you know, a sauce that no one had ever made before. I think getting to the point where you can think in patterns and, you know, spot them in the wild really lets you kind of cook anything that you encounter.

1:15:35Definitely. I feel like I wish I could send this book to every New York Times cooking commenter that asks like can I swap walnuts for potatoes or like something crazy like that no you can't because walnuts are mostly fat and potatoes are mostly starch thanks Dr. Ariel but no but I mean like if you don't if you don't know that or if you don't if you know if you're explaining don't make this swap uh just because then it's like I think a little less convincing than saying well don't make the swap because like if you have the walnuts these are what the walnuts are doing functionally and potato doesn't have those molecules in it.

1:16:09So no, it's not going to work. Definitely. So to close today, I want to play a little taste check game with you. So I'll give you a category and you can just kind of tell me the first thing that comes into your head. Sounds good. Yes. Okay. Favorite cookbook. Elegant desserts. Okay. Why? What is that? It's a, it has no author. It's from 1984. It is a like exhaustively photographically illustrated 80s guide to fancy, elegant desserts, you know, like a Mont Blanc and the sort of like grilled mochi balls you get at Japanese festivals and I'll flotant and all these other cakes and things from different places, but with every single step exhaustively photographed and explained.

1:16:54And it was a book that my grandmother owned when I was a kid. And whenever we would visit her after I did the sort of like cursory hello, I would go to her cookbook library and start reading. And that was one of the ones that I loved coming back to. Wow. Shout out to whoever made that book because that's how we got the person in front of us today. Okay. Your favorite food, movie, or TV show? Besides Ratatouille, Hannibal. Something you'll never make from scratch. I'm going to come out as a garlic press user. I hate chopping garlic by hand. I know that's not a full dish from scratch, but I hate how it sticks to your fingers.

1:17:28So I will never, ever chop garlic if I can avoid it. Wow. Honestly, the garlic press users needed a redemption arc. So I'm glad that you're taking the stand. Something that you have to order when you see it on the menu at a restaurant. If I see a tortillere, which is a very specific meat pie from Quebec, I'll usually order it because they're great and it's usually a sign that they know what they're doing. A now closed New York City institution that you wish could magically reopen. The bar existing conditions. Your favorite season for cooking. First place is summer, but exclusively outside. And then if it's the all around one, definitely winter.

1:18:05Your go to late night snack. Lately, I live in Woodside, Queens, which has like, I believe the largest population of like first and second generation Irish immigrants outside of Ireland. So there's amazing. I mean, it's just like packaged bread, like packaged sandwich bread. But like the Irish English sandwich and toast breads are like so much better than anything you get here. So lately it has been a piece of Irish sandwich bread toasted with cultured butter. Nice. A restaurant anywhere in the world that you wish could be your neighborhood restaurant. Manfred's in Copenhagen. And finally, a fictional food scene that you wish you could eat.

1:18:47Yeah. So honestly, it's a little cliche, but the feast in Babette's Feast. Yeah. 19th century haute cuisine of it all would be amazing to experience firsthand. Well, I'm manifesting that for you. And thank you so much for coming by and talking about all things flavor with me. It's been so much fun. It's been so much fun. Thank you for having me.

1:19:09This is Taste is hosted by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things happening.