Well it’s been ages since I’ve done a proper pastry. Seeing as how it’s Derby week I think it’s appropriate. I’ve had a few requests for some specific components that I can work into it. Specifically a shiny chocolate “lacquer” glaze from Japan that isn’t made of tempered chocolate but a far easier gelatin base. Some sort of chocolate bombe would be fun, I’m thinking. Any and all ideas for fillings/layers are welcome.
READ ONReader Chris from Down Under writes:
So Joe… taste and smell go hand in nose. So you say… so explain: the delicious durian! There’s a smell you don’t want to taste…
All I can say, Chris, is that if you doubt the human capacity to “educate one’s taste buds”, witness the durian. I’ve only seen these things in New York City markets but have never had the courage to open one. Just how smelly are they? If you have a strong stomach you can have a look at this nasty video from the good folks at Brainiac. Now THAT’s science!
READ ONThere are big doings in Louisville this week with the approach of the Kentucky Derby. One of them will be a Taste of Derby cooking demo featuring Cat Cora of Iron Chef fame. For those who are in — or are planning to be in — the Louisville area this week, the event will be held at Macy’s in Oxmoor Mall tomorrow evening, May 2nd at 7 PM. Tell her Joe said hello!
READ ONReader Linda writes in with this very interesting comment:
READ ONYou’ve talked about taste from our body’s perception of it, but what about from the cook/baker’s creative side of it? I have never understood if there is a rule of thumb when to contrast or when to complement flavors in a dish you are creating. When I read restaurant menus I am often totally mystified by some of the combinations – ‘how on earth did they ever think those flavors would go together’ is my usual reaction. Are there in fact guidelines for pairings or groupings of flavors or is it just based on whatever you intuitively feel like throwing together? If the latter, I don’t seem to have that intuition.
My quip about monosodium glutamate last week earned me several emails. Readers have been commenting that if MSG is so darn happy-making, why does it cause people to feel ill, itchy, depressed, nervous or hyperactive, and cause headaches, rashes, ADD, asthma, redness of the face, chest pains, seizures, anaphylactic shock, strokes and brain tumors. The answer, painful as it will be for some out there to hear, is that the overwhelming scientific evidence is that MSG does none of those things.
Now I want all of you who are about to send me articles about “independent studies” that link MSG to irritable bowel syndrome and fibromyalgia to push away from your keyboards and take some deep breaths.
READ ONRegular contributor (and frequent critic) Jim Chevallier has a new bread book out, this time on the subject of the baguette. It’s packed full of Jim’s usual insight and erudition, and is available for a song (I’d actually say a ditty) here.
READ ONReader Erika poses a very interesting question:
READ ONSo as we get older and find we need to add more hot sauce, more seasonings, etc, is it because we have killed off our taste buds or desensitized them? And if it is desensitizing- is that the same phenomenon as the “sophisticated” palate mentioned earlier?
There is such a thing as the opposite of a supertaster. It’s a person with up to 50% fewer taste buds on their tongues than the rest of us average folks. These people are called, rather uncreatively, “non-tasters.” I guess it goes to show that for every superpower there’s a foil. Bizarro World had its evil anti-version of Superman. In our own world we’ve got “non-tasters” which are, admittedly, a whole lot less interesting.
READ ONNo, it’s Supertaster! A man — or woman — with up to 100% more taste buds on his or her tongue than a typical mortal!
There is such a thing. In fact there are lots of them…living among us, existing in a flavor universe that’s up to twice as intense as our own. It’s thought that up to 35% of women and 15% of men are so-called “supertasters”, their super power being their ability to perceive flavors — especially those in the bitter family — at a much higher level of intensity than the rest of us.
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