Why (some) food tastes better abroad

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1:25Jonquilyn Hill:I'm John Glyn Hill, and this is Explain It to Me from Fox. You know that hotline that we tell you to call at the end of every show? 1-800-618-8545 Well, one of you called recently with a question of your own. Why does food seem to taste so much better outside the U.S.? When I was in Japan recently, the produce and meat were amazing. Friends say the same thing about food in Europe, right? the dairy, the bread, the yogurt just tastes better. So is food actually higher quality elsewhere? Or do we just think it is? And if it is, what would it take for the U.S. to have food that tastes and feels like it?

2:01Jonquilyn Hill:Okay, I get what Kate is talking about. Whenever I've left the country, I've had food experiences that I would describe as transcendent. The best tacos I've ever had, amazing oysters, and once I had squid ink risotto, that made me want to be a better person. So what's the deal? Is this all in our heads, or is the food we tend to buy and eat here in the U.S. actually subpar? To find out, we're going to have to take a little trip. Today, we're going to retrace Kate's steps from Japan to Europe and tell you about three foods. Foods that are different other countries, and for fascinating and really revealing reasons.

2:44Jonquilyn Hill:First up, meat, specifically beef. And we start in Idaho. I'm Phil Bass. I'm an associate professor in the animal veterinary food sciences department at the University of Idaho. I am a meat scientist. How'd you get into meat. How much time do you have, I guess? So I grew up in a very Italian family. I know my last name's not Italian, but very Italian family. And we always raised our own animals, cut our own meat, made our own salami, sausage, and all that stuff. And it's always just been a big part of my life. I want to talk about how we judge the quality of meat. Is there specific criteria to judging meat quality?

3:28Yeah. So there's what we call the meat grades. And so in the United States, the three that are most commonly talked about are prime, choice, and select. And so prime being the top level. And it's all mostly dependent upon something called marbling. So that's the little flex of fat, the tiny little flex of fat that you see inside the meat. And what that does is it enhances the flavor, the tenderness, the juiciness of the meat. It's not everything, but it's a big contributing factor.

3:58Jonquilyn Hill:So where in the world does the beef at the top of this scale come from? Okay. If you want to go to what a lot of folks consider the top of the top in beef quality, it's well beyond what we consider prime here in the United States. It's in extreme abundance. And that's our Wagyu cattle in Japan. Wagyu is a breed. And those animals over many, many generations have been focused on for extremely high levels of marbling. Some of our top beef in the United States will have 10 to 12 % fat in the muscle. The Wagyu can have upwards of 40 to 50 % fat. So it's extremely high amounts. The taste is phenomenal.

4:47If you like the flavor of finished beef fat, then it's super buttery. It's very, very smooth. The texture is usually extremely tender. And that's because the fat does, it is less dense than the muscle surrounding it. It makes it easier to bite through. Is it a superior eating experience? You know, a lot of folks that's used to U.S. beef or North American beef, It's almost too much fat. It's almost too rich of an experience. And so it's consumed in usually really small amounts because it is so rich and satiating.

5:23Jonquilyn Hill:How much of it is the cow itself and how much is it how they're raised? Like, do we feed these cows differently? Like, what's the deal? In short, they're not really fed all that much different other than they don't spend a lot of time out on pasture, out on range like we do here in the United States. The majority of the life cycle of cattle in the United States, they'll spend a lot more time out on pasture, out on range. So much of it has to do with just the breed and genetics of the animal. That's super important. And that's where the Wagyu really excel because of how many generations over time that they've been focused on for very high levels of marbling.

5:59The breed in particular, the Wagyu breed in particular, is definitely a different type of animal compared to some of our cattle raised in the United States. The way that they're raised is on very small operations. In Japan, there's very little agricultural land available. And so to have large farms or ranches like we have in the United States, it's just not an option.

6:25Jonquilyn Hill:Is it possible for us to raise our own Wagyu beef here in the U.S.? Like, can we do that flavor affordably and domestically? Yeah, you know, it's really starting to become a movement here in the United States. It was very much just kind of a little niche dabbling of Wagyu cattle. And over a very short period of time, we've really developed a lot of the Wagyu genetics to become, I would say, almost comparable to that that's found traditionally in Japan. The Japanese sourced is still considered the very top of the heap, but cattle producers here in the United States have really come a long way and have produced some pretty phenomenal beef that's all American-raised.

7:13Jonquilyn Hill:Okay, so Kate was on to something about the meat she had in Japan. Wagyu is different than the beef you typically have. It's a delicacy. And I should say that even in Japan, Wagyu is a treat. But it's not just genetics that make Wagyu good. There's also a difference in how the meat is prepared and eaten. And to hear about that, we need to talk to a butcher. So we called up Kinkato. He comes from a family of butchers in Kyoto. So about 120 years ago, my grandfather and great-grandfather brought Wagyu calf to the rice farmer for cultivate their land. Talking about Wagyu, I try to start talking about food culture.

8:01In Japan, we mainly eat rice. So basically for Wagyu beef, we produce to eat rice. That's a kind of big difference between the U.S. or European countries because when we eat steak in the U.S., we eat steak. I'm about to fight 72 ounces in just 60 minutes. This might be one of the biggest steaks that I've eaten. But very unique preparation in Japan for Wagyu is we have like a paper thin slice. If we don't slice that thing, it might be too much fat. But the good preparation for Wagyu is the dry aging, which is my specialty. Because Wagyu has kind of unique aroma and umami. If you do not aging, you cannot taste that potential.

8:56and that's the one reason why people start using Wagyu genetics for their own country's bread. The Wagyu is spreading everywhere in the world today. So wherever you go, you will be able to eat or taste different tastes of the Wagyu. It's difficult to explain in just sound because even you see it, still you cannot taste it. So until you actually taste Wagyu, you cannot actually understand how good match or pairing with rice. And if you put a little bit soy sauce on it, it creates a totally different world.

9:46Jonquilyn Hill:Phenomenal Wagyu. Maybe coming to a city near you soon? Could a lesson in the meantime maybe be less is more? Thanks to our meat experts, Phil and Ken. Up next, a vegetarian option.

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12:17Jonquilyn Hill:Okay, we went to Japan to hear about meat. So how about another food on Kate's list? Bread. To investigate, I called up Eric Pallant. I am the author of a book called Sourdough Culture, A History of Breadmaking from Ancient to Modern Bakers. If we want to talk elite bread, there's one country we got to focus on. It's the place where they have more than 30 ,000 independent bakeries or boulangeries. And the bread is kind of required by law to hit a certain level of quality. You are the expert. So I got to ask. People will come back from France, especially, and be like, oh, my gosh, the bread was so good.

12:59Jonquilyn Hill:Like, I can't get it like that here. I'm never touching American bread again. Wee, wee, wee. Ha, ha, ha. Did the bread in France actually taste better, or is this vacation brain hitting us all? No, it tastes better. It really is better bread, but there's a caveat. You can buy shit bread in France, too. Go to a supermarket, and you can buy industrial bread in France just as easily as here. But go to a boulangerie and that bread will be fresh and taste of wheat and leavening and love and time and patience. I would argue nothing you can buy in a colorful plastic bag will ever match. Essentially by law in France, a law passed in 1993, that said if you're buying bread in a boulangerie, it must be made with four ingredients, essentially.

14:01Flour, water, a leavening agent, yeast or sourdough, and some salt. Et pour réhabiliter la vraie baguette, le gouvernement français a décidé de promulguer un décret... Décret pain, which sets some ground rules. For instance, traditional baguettes, this is a baguette tradition. They have to be made on the premise where they're sold, and they can only be made...

14:21Jonquilyn Hill:Wait, so they have a law on the books where it's like, hey, your bread has to be fresh and it has to be made with these things. Yes. Now, I don't know who gets arrested if you don't follow the law, right? If there are a bread police in France that goes after with it. 6 a.m., the street of Paris. I bite the baguette, but the tastes are not so fresh. Alert the precinct.

14:51Jonquilyn Hill:What makes the country say we got to have a law that standardizes our bread? Well, the best I can tell is by the 1980s, three made breads are starting to take over the market, and that's unfrench.

15:07And so we're going to pass a law that says our sort of national patrimony, what we consider to be, you know, that French baguette that you see in the movies.

15:21That's us in France. And by law, if you're going to sell it in a boulangerie, it's got to meet these criteria.

15:29Jonquilyn Hill:Meanwhile, in the U.S., you know, I can walk into the grocery store right now and I will find so many bagged loaves. What's the story behind the type of bread that's more common here in American grocery stores? Yeah, so 6 ,000 years we're making bread. Nobody knew what made bread rise. It was just magic. You put this glop called sourdough starter into a dough and like magic, it rises. By the 1870s, 1880s, Louis Pasteur discovers that yeast are living things. They consume the starches, really the sugars in bread, exhale carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide makes the bread rise. And once we know that yeast is a thing, you can make bread much faster than with sourdough.

16:22Sourdough takes two days. But from a capitalist's perspective, and here's where America excels, it makes sense if you're a baker to bake a lot of bread very, very quickly. And as the 1920s, 1930s roll around... Wonder bread fresh at your grocers today. Because wonder soft whipped bread is made from batter, not dough. It has no holes. Picture this, the dough is mixed in a machine that can hold 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 pounds of flour and water. There are blades on the inside that will mix that flour and water in about three minutes. And to keep the dough, to modify the dough so it can withstand that kind of intensity, you need to add dough stretchers, dough elasticizers, dough conditioners, dough de -stickers that keep it from sticking.

17:17So we have modified food production to be bread chemistry. So from beginning to end, you could have dough on one side and a bread in a bag in the other in under four hours. We're all about speed and convenience in America. And there's really a fifth ingredient that's in sourdough bread and, I would argue, the bread in your French boulangerie. Thyme. Thyme is, during that fermentation process, if it's slow and methodical, flavors develop, aromas develop. You just need your nose to know this has flavors that speedy bread doesn't have.

18:04Jonquilyn Hill:Do we have any laws in the U.S. on the books about bread? I mean, this food quality was so important to France that they're like, all right, let's regulate this. Do we have anything similar that we're regulating? Oh, this is fascinating. If you look, the first ingredient on your loaf of bread is called enriched white flour, right? And enriched white flour has five things added. Thiamine, niacin, riboflavin, iron, and folic acid. Here's why. In the 1920s, 1930s, we were making the transition from whole wheat flour, heavy dense breads, to white bread, which has the germ and all the dark parts removed, which contain the vitamins that the plants provided.

18:52Always buy Wonder Bread. Wonder Bread. By 1942, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. Army was seeing so many potential recruits who were suffering from vitamin deficiencies that they had pellagra and beriberity and anemia. So in 1942, the Army says, all of the flour we buy to feed all of our soldiers who are going to go fight for us in World War II has to be enriched. Here's the kicker. By law, countries all around the world require their flour to be enriched. The law in the U.S. says if your label says that your bread flour is enriched, it must be enriched. It's a label law, not a flour law.

19:42Jonquilyn Hill:It seems more like a law that's about truth and advertising than it is about the actual bread itself. Worse than that, it's every public health official will tell you that you need to have enriched flour if you're going to have a healthy population. Homemade sourdough bread really has hit the zeitgeist, I think, especially during the pandemic. Is there a bread renaissance on the horizon? Inside the sourdough world, what's circulating like crazy is that Taylor Swift has become sourdough obsessed.

20:19Sourdough bread. So I've made you some bread. You made me some bread. Every time she appears on a late night talk show, she brings a sourdough. Everybody's excited about the bread. She made a loaf that was good enough to show up in one of her videos. This one I've been workshopping for the girls because they love everything rainbow.

20:34Jonquilyn Hill:Funfetti sourdough. Oh my gosh. But then commercial bread has taken over. They've filled shelves with something called funfetti bread. Wow, capitalism sure does jump in, doesn't it? So fast, right? So fast. Do you think people will ever rave about the bread in America the way they do about France? Oh, that's a tough one. It's going to take a revolution of sorts, and I'm a big believer that food and bread is the place to start in reshaping and rethinking our cultural attitudes to who we are and what we prioritize. we would be different people if we took time and put it back into the ingredient list of our foods.

21:31Jonquilyn Hill:Up next, you know those uniquely American priorities that have given us less than stellar bread? Well, they're also part of the reason why you may not actually know what a tomato tastes like.

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23:27Jonquilyn Hill:Okay, you guys, I have a confession to make. There's nothing ickier to me than a raw tomato. It's always been that way. They're mushy. The flavor is not good. They're beautiful on a plate, but I just really do not get the appeal. But after hearing Kate's question, I started to wonder if maybe I'm not the problem here. Maybe the tomato is the problem. It turns out that kind of is the case, at least according to Mark Schatzker. I am the writer-in-residence at the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center, which is based at McGill University. And I'm the author of three books, Steak, The Dorito Effect, and The End of Craving.

24:06Jonquilyn Hill:Tell us a little bit about our tomatoes. You know, we have, they're big, they're red, they're juicy. That's what we get at American grocery stores. How far is this from its original ancestor, the tomato? It's very far. The original tomatoes are from South America. They're small. I've read they're the size of a pea, maybe a little bit larger. They can come in various colors. And I've never experienced tasting them. But what I've read is that the taste is very intense, can be bitter, can be very vegetal, not as sweet as our tomatoes. That said, the big, beautiful red tomato that we all think of is also a very bland tomato.