It's a Matter of Taste...Buds

It's perplexing to me how some of the most simple flavors in life can be accepted and praised or rejected and despised by people depending on their taste buds. Take Dark Chocolate for instance. Some people (those with taste....) love it, and others find it bitter and unappealing (dead buds). :)  You can clearly see what side I fall on.

I've found that foods which I've tasted and find bland and boring are defined as flavorful and delicious by the next person.  Same dish, same day, same seasonings (or lack thereof ...thus the bland) but two different sets of buds and two very different resulting reviews.

They say we each experience food and flavor as uniquely as our DNA and fingerprints. That our chemical composition, and even the air we breathe can effect our sense of taste.

We each have levels of tolerance for sweet, for sour, for spicy. Our taste buds individually identify known compounds like fennel, garlic, pepper, thyme...etc.   We each are drawn to certain flavors and sometimes we don't even know why.  The fact is , if we truly understood the science behind some of the contributing ingredients to the flavors we love, we would NEVER even consider their consumption.

I won't spill the beans on all, but here are two I have shared before so its not like a secret. Many years ago, I worked for a food manufacturing company that  created and sold flavor additives to larger manufacturers.  They made candy flavors, drink flavors, and even microwave popcorn butter flavor additives. What are Microwave popcorn flavor additives you may ask? Well the easy answer is simply to explain it as that wonderful butter flavoring that coats the popcorn as you nuke it. Now.......for the little piece of science behind that flavor which will make you melt your own real butter in the future and pop your own kernals.  It's quite likely you may never eat another bag of microwave popcorn. That butter flavoring is manufactured in a lab and one of the key compounds it contains, Ketone, is derived from cat urine (I got it straight from the scientists mouth).  Did you also know that 'Bone Char' is used in the process of filtering and bleaching raw sugar (naturally brown in color) to that white we are all so accustomed to.  They say the bone char comes from cows which have died a "Natural" death. The bones are then dried, bleached, and ground into the char that is then used in the processing of the sugar.

Lesson here.....simple, flying blind is best. Ignorance is truly bliss.

I still love the exotic flavors of  Asian cuisines. I enjoy the spice in Indian food, and the scent of Mediterranean influenced dishes. I love a good old fashioned bar-b-que and nothing gets my day going like breakfast. I'm drawn to the salty side of taste, although  I still enjoy sweet, on occasion.

Texture may be a deciding factor, but flavor is where it all begins. We may not always see eye to eye on what we like, but part of the fun is the exploration and expanding of our boundaries. There is rarely a food I will not try, but there are always those I will go back for.  The trick is keeping me in the dark about the science behind the flavor.