THE TASTE MAKER

THE SECRET WORLD OF FLAVOURS

The consumption of food flavorings is one of the modern era’s most profound collective acts of submission to illusion.

I had the privilege of following an intensive 3.5 year training program in Switzerland and The Netherlands with Givaudan International, a flavour industry giant. I was one out of approximately 100 candidates who made it through rigorous organoleptic tests and panel interviews. It turned out I had an acute sense of taste and smell.

Smell is more subtle and emotive, it is evident in the way the human brain is arranged.

Our sense of smell plays a much larger role in defining flavour than our sense of taste does. Taste receptors on the tongue are primarily limited to the detection of saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and umami—a Japanese term for the brothiness that one encounters when tasting MSG (naturally found in some foods like tomatoes and cheese).

Smell is more subtle and emotive, it is evident in the way the human brain is arranged. There are three hundred or so olfactory receptors in the nose. When we taste or see or hear something, the information must pass through the thalamus, a kind of relay station in the brain that allows us to attend to different aspects of perception. Smells, for the most part, are fed directly from the nose to a part of the brain where cognition does not occur, but where emotions are processed. The bypassing of the thalamus may be one reason why smells can be so hard to describe in detail, and also why aromas stimulate such powerful feelings.

Once you begin to consider the natural world at a molecular level, the boundaries that separate one fruit from another begin to seem like a modern form of alchemy.

Flavourist, use a heady mix of art and science to create and recreate cherished flavours. In this industry having impeccable taste is part of the job.