Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Diane Fresquez, Nero, $24.99.
Taste, flavour, texture are so important when it comes to food, but the science links are just as fascinating. How does memory fit into the scheme of things?
What’s more, do men and women experience taste and smell differently? What do apple trees have in common with humans? What happens when you eat a meal in complete darkness?
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Diane Fresquez embarked on a year-long journey to investigate the links between taste, memory and the molecular building blocks of what we eat, seeking out scientists and entrepreneurs who are trying to reveal the secrets of flavour. Diane was moved by a death in the family to recreate the dishes her mother prepared in her childhood home.
“If I was going to dissect and better understand the secrets of flavor, I wanted to learn by doing, tasting, and being surrounded by good company. Flavor is enormously complex subject influenced not only by our ability to taste and smell, but by the sight, texture, temperature, sound, mood, ambiance, age nationality, and gender, among other factors. It also involves a great many chemical, genetic and other processes that occur in food as it’s grown, preserved or cooked.”
“Focusing on the basics – how new flavors are developed and how flavor gets into food in the first place – I also wanted to explore many new obsession, flavor and memory.”
In this weird and wonderful exploration of the world of sensory science, Fresquez meets a brewery owner who’s developed a banana-flavored beer designed to appeal to young women, and an entrepreneur who won’t rest until he develops the perfect mead, the ancient liquor considered the ancestor of all fermented drinks. She encounters a young mother and PhD student whose research shows that what a mother eats can influence the flavour of her breast milk and a scientist in the Netherlands who researches flavour and memory at an Orwellian university lab called ‘The Restaurant of the Future’.
The Taste of Home should please foodies and scientists alike.
