“Tasty” claims itself to be a “brief biography of flavor”
and indeed it is. McQuaid shows how taste was possibly the first sense to
develop in life- 500 million years ago, sea anemones, who are restricted to
eating whatever the water brings them, needed a way to tell food particles from
non-food particles. Whoever evolved a method of doing this first had a distinct
advantage over critters that didn’t have that ability. The sense of taste is
not just confined to our tongues we have taste receptors in other parts of our
bodies- including in our intestines. That wasn’t an image I wanted to dwell on.
Speaking of tongues, that diagram they show everyone in science class, with the
tongue divided into bitter, sweet, salty, and sour? It’s bogus, and they knew
it was almost as soon as it was made up, but somehow it just won’t die. Also,
there is a fifth flavor- umami- which is meaty and yummy and the epitome of it
is monosodium glutamate. Fat *may* be a sixth flavor.
Different people have different taste sensitivities. Some
people are very sensitive to bitter-the author posits that they might have been
able to detect poisonous foods back when humans were first learning what was
safe to eat. Other people enjoy a touch of bitter, and revel in broccoli,
coffee, and dark chocolate. Some have a much higher tolerance for capsaicin
than others. Everyone is born liking sugar, but other food preferences are
learned, like being able to tolerate that revolting (to most of us) rotten
shark that is eaten in Iceland. Flavors can be perceived differently depending
on things like the color of the plate the food is eaten off of. When a recipe
is put together, different flavors build together to create a sensation of
deliciousness that is greater than the sum of the parts.
This is a very good book that covers the subject well. It’s
well researched and well written. It’s written in terms that the average reader
can understand but isn’t dumbed down. It touches on both the science and
history of food and flavors. Interesting for both the foodie and the science
buff.
The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something, Amazon will give me a few pennies. This does not influence my review.
Have to read this one, your review is ringing all my bells.
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