December 19, 2025 • 39 mins
Believe it or not, heavier bowls, a pair of headphones, and an electronic lollipop can trick your mind grapes into making tasty food even tastier. But how? And why?! Plus, the legend of the PB-and-mayo sandwich, and one very cute pepper to avoid. Featuring Bob Holmes.
This episode originally aired on June 30, 2017.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will what's that mango? So I was watching
this old BBC clip online of an electronic lollipop. What
is that? So it's not actually a candy. The lollipop
is still being developed in labs. But it's this gentle
clamp that slides metal plates over the top and bottomy tongue.
I don't think it helps to call this clamp gentle.
That still doesn't sound that appealing. Well, here's what's cool
(00:21):
about it. So it sends currents through your tongue and
adjust the temperature on those plates, and the electronic lollipop
can actually trick your tongue into thinking it's tasting a
wide variety of flavors, like a lemony sour taste is
the easiest to pull off, and scientists can do reasonable
approximations of other flavors. But the application of all this
is really cool. Like imagine you're watching Iron Chef and
(00:42):
Bobby Flay is on there and he's just made the
most amazing eggplant spaghetti taco in the world, and you
can't figure out for the life of you what an
eggplant plus spaghetti and a taco shell should taste like,
And so you just take a lick of your lollipop
and suddenly you get a sense of that flavor.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I mean, that's kind of weird, but it is pretty cool.
Reminds me a little bit of smell vision, except for
your taste bud exactly. And you can see how this
might be used in online grocery shopping in the future
or checking out new recipes. It's totally fascinating. But what
I found most interesting in all of this are the limitations.
Because these currents are only playing with your tongue, they
can only create a set of basic flavors. But when
(01:19):
the scientists added technology that incorporates your nose, suddenly the
range of flavors expanded dramatically, and that got me thinking
what other tricks can we play on our tongue and
how much a flavor is really just something constructed in
our brain.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So that's what this episode is all about.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketer, and today I'm here to address
a big problem in the English language.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm pretty sure we were talking about starting sentences with
because because my second grade English teacher had the same
argument with me.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Wait, this was second grade. You got in trouble in
second grade for starting sentences.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Was because yeah, actually it was more of a thing
that she said we shouldn't do. And then I started
every sentence in a story with a word because it
was not a good strategy for going to recess that.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
All right, Well, at some point we'll do a whole
episode on grammar, so you can save your SOB stories
for then. But today I'm talking about how English speakers
use the words taste and flavor interchangeably, as though they
mean the same thing.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Wait, they don't mean the same thing.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I know, it's pretty crazy. So I've been reading this
new book called Flavor. It's by Bob Holmes, and it's
really good. As Holmes explains, taste is just one component
of flavor, and he writes, the best way to think
about flavor is that it's the sum of all the
sensations we get when we have food in the mouth.
So think about the weight of the bowl, the color
of the plate, the crunch of the potato chip. Even
(02:55):
the choice of background music can have a direct effect
on how we perceive flavor.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's funny because when I think of flavor, it seems
like such a specific thing, like popcorn flavor, jelly beans,
that's a flavor.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I think there might be some people who disagree with
you on this, but.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I know what you're saying is true. Like taste and
smell and touch and sound, they all play a role
in how much we appreciate food. I guess I've just
been using the wrong vocabulary.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
All right. Well, I'm not here to flavor Shandy, but
we do have Bob Holmes on the show today, which
is super exciting, and we'll be talking to him about
flavor and some of the fascinating studies and facts he
covered in his book. Speaking of which, do you have
a terrible quiz lined up for us today? Oh?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Of course I do. Sticking with the flavors theme, we're
playing real vintage recipe or gourmet cat food flavor. It's
a little harder than you think.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Awesome, all right, all right, Well, let's kick this off
by talking about taste. Even if it's not the same
thing as flavor, it's obviously an important thing, definitely so.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
In the English speaking world, psychologists have traditionally acknowledged four
different tastes. They're sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, and humans
have different receptors for each of these. And then more recently,
we've added a fifth taste, umami, which kind of just
sounds made up, so we need to talk about that.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, it did feel like a few years ago people
started talking about umami and it was like breaking news,
like did you hear about this umami flavor? And actually,
to be honest, I got confused. I was mixing it
up with the word unagi, which is the Japanese word
for fresh water eel, so I was trying to understand
why eel got to be a flavor of its own.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I love eel, but
(04:27):
it was still a little confusing.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, it was confusing to me because I thought we
were getting a brand new flavor, like you know that
apartment you have, did you know it's been hiding a
secret room all this time? Or like you're familiar with
the rainbow, guess what we're adding a new color exactly,
And instead it was like, you know, parmesan cheese or
soy sauce, those are umami. You just didn't have a
word for it, right, But umami is definitely distinct. Yeah,
(04:50):
it's a Japanese word meaning delicious flavor and linguists usually
translated as savory or maybe meaty, and his Homes explains
there are a few reasons why it takes a while
to rap your head around what umami is. First, is that,
unlike other tastes, you don't really experience umami as this
isolated thing. Think about it. You can bite into a
strawberry and immediately experience that as sweet, or lick a
(05:11):
French fry and no, that's kind of a salty taste.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I think we've talked about this. You've got to stop
licking your French fries. That's a little weird.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
They're just so good though. But anyway, you can experience
those tastes in a pretty pure and direct form. With umami,
it's more in combination with other things. Taste researcher Paul
Breslin also points out that the receptors for umami have
a pretty low maximum intensity compared to other tastes, which
prevents us from being able to note something as being
very umami, unlike how we might say something's very sweet
(05:42):
or very salty.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, and there's a much stronger cultural element than I realized.
I mean, I know the stereotypes of different cultures being
able to handle different levels of spice or things like that,
but I really didn't think about how that could be
applied to something like umami. But it turns out many
people in Asian countries have no problem identifying things as umami,
but they have the same ease that American children have
identifying things as sweet. It's really interesting how taste has
(06:06):
developed differently in different places around the world.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, let's back up for a minute and talk about
how these tastes would have developed from an evolutionary perspective.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, it's one thing for us to identify or talk
about these tastes when we cook at home or eat
at restaurants now, but for our ancestors, these tastes were
key to survival. So think about how a sweet taste
would have let someone know that they were getting sugars,
which are an important way to get calories for energy,
or tasting salt would be an indication of electrolytes, and
a mommy would have indicated the presence of proteins. Now,
(06:36):
on the negative side, our ancestors learned from bitter taste
that something might be toxic, or from sourness that a
fruit might have gone bad or just not be good
to eat.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, it's not hard to see how we'd be hardwired
to like sweet, salty, and a mommy. And it's equally
fascinating to see how other animals have evolved differently because
of their different nutritional needs. Like there was a cat study.
It's oh great, it's back. Well, a study was done
that showed cats, because their carnivores are unable to really
(07:04):
identify sweetness and it has no appeal for them. And pandas,
who are some serious bamboo eaters, don't really need to
identify umami, so they've lost the ability to taste it well.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
And even more extreme than that, vampire bat's love of
blood has caused them to lose the ability to taste
umami sweet and bitter. I'm actually curious why we don't
do a bad study like we do cat studies. Have
I mentioned I don't like cats. I think you've mentioned
that a few times, all right, I just wanted to
make sure. So back to how we've evolved, there's another
(07:35):
thing about taste that I think is just crazy interesting.
So just as we're discussing how flavor is much more
than just taste. Taste also happens to be more complex
than we thought. Did you know that there are taste
receptors in multiple places around our body, not just our mouth?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Sure, it's crazy, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Wait, so that means you do know about this. I'm
gonna quiz you. So, do we have taste receptors in
our lungs?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
What about our guts?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
What about it our brain? Yes? What about our forte?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Definitely no, we don't.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
We do not have taste receptors in our forehead. You
slum dog millionaireed me you should know about it. There's
no cheating on our quizzes. So this isn't exactly well
understood yet, but it's really fascinating. The ones in the gut,
for example, detective Mommy and sweet and let our brains
know that some yummy and nutritious food has arrived, and
if they taste something bitter, they let us know there
may be a problem and trigger a response of some kind.
(08:26):
So you can get the sense for why they're helpful.
But why do you think we need taste receptors in
our respiratory system?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So it's one way of letting our bodies know if
bacteria has arrived because bacteria have a communication chemical with
a bitter taste, and when the receptor is in our
respiratory system, notice this, they help our bodies mount response.
There's even some thinking among scientists that these bitter receptors
may have existed in other areas of our body, first
as a way of detecting infection and then moving to
(08:53):
our mouths.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yes, Holmes explains. If this is the case, we have
disease to thank for the flavor of coffee, beer, and broccoli.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's weird, right, all right. So I know in a
few minutes we're going to play a quiz, but before
we do that, I think we should find out whether
we're super tasters.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Super tasters Well.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
It's not as exciting as it sounds, because while it
does mean someone has a more intense sense of taste,
supertasters tend to be much more bland eaters because most
tastes tend to be that much more extreme for them.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Well, given the fact that the last time we ate
at the Chinese place downstairs, it looked to me like
you just ordered a plate of hot peppers, So I'm
guessing you're not a super taster.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, we had a joke in our family that our
dad served as so much spicy food that we burned
off our taste buds.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Let me show you how we test for this using
this filter paper. Each strip has a small amount of
a bitter compound on them. It's called prople thigh ORUSIL
or PROP. So we're going to put these on our
tongues and find out which of these three categories of
tasters we fall in. Non tasters will taste nothing, tasters
will notice the bitter taste but it's not a huge deal,
(09:56):
and super taste will have this super strong response to it.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
All right, I like this. We should also get some
other members of the PTG team in here.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
What do you say?
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Definitely?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
All right, so let's give this a shot. So we've
got two of our team members joining us. We've got
Noel Brown, you may know from stuff they don't want
you to know, also a supervising producer on the show,
and Jerry Roland, our executive producer. Here, guys, you guys
ready to give this a shot? Am I ever?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
All right, So we've all got these strips and on
the count of three, we're going to put them on
our tongues. We're going to see what happens now. As
a reminder, if you taste nothing, which may be the case,
you're a non taster. If you taste a little bit
of bitter, just some bitter, then you're a taster. And
if it tastes extremely better, then you are a super taster.
So ready, all right on the count of three, one, two, three.
(10:47):
I don't know it sides. You may have to flip
it out. Oh wait, you get something I got? I
got a hint of bitter. Uh huh. Mine is totally bitter.
It's like great fruit bitter. Oh nice, I have a
real paper taste, but I mean something completely different. We
can't talk about it. Might be fooling myself about this.
(11:08):
Oh Jerry, she's running away.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
She's always had great.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Is blown? I hate grapefruit, super taster. Okay, spicy food, Jerry,
I love spicy food. But you just like the torture.
I guess I'm not sure what's happening. Wow, oh man,
that's so disappointing. You've given us a lot to think
about it.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, I feel like I'm so cheated. Like not only
can I not see those like three D magic pictures,
but also I can't taste these people.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, this is the worse. Okay, that's a bummer. I
was getting. I think I was getting a slight taste
of bitter. Okay, here we go. Well, while we're having
so much fun, when you say we play a little quiz,
sounds good.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
All right.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
So who do we have on the line today, Mango.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We've got Sarah Fiddler, who's got one of the list
jobs in the world. She's a flavor guru at one
of my favorite ice cream companies, Ben and Jerry's.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
We are so excited to have you on. Welcome to
part time Genia.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Sarah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
So I'm really curious how you got this job. I mean,
what sort of training and schooling do you have to
have to become a Ben and Jerry's flavor guru.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
Well, personally, I have a degree in food science from
the University of Vermont and a degree in baking and
pastry from the Culinary Institute of America. There are a
group of us flavor gurus here, and everybody's got kind
of a mixed background, from chefs to food scientists, all
(12:40):
comes from different backgrounds.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
It's very cool, that's awesome. And how are flavors decided upon? Like,
how do you guys decide you have so many fun
and creative and awesome flavors, how do you guys come
up with these?
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Well, we start out by being very creative and kind
of playing around in our test kitchens, and then we
meet with our marketing team, our brand management team, sometimes
our social mission team and figure out which of our
crazy flavors makes the most sense to launch for the
(13:12):
next season.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
And so, how many flavors are you typically playing with?
Speaker 5 (13:16):
It could be arranged anywhere from maybe three to ten
at a time.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
That's pretty crazy. I heard that the Ben and Jerry's
staff takes a field trip every year to research new flavors.
Is that true?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Yeah. We go on what we call trend tracks. Pick
a city or area that seems to be filled with
really up and coming food places, sometimes cocktail places, farms,
and go as a group and eat as much as
(13:52):
we possibly can, and then come back and make ice
cream inspired by what we ate.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Cool, But where are some of the fun places you've
trekked to?
Speaker 5 (14:03):
Well, I'm relatively new to the company, so I have
yet to go on a track, but I've heard that
they've gone to San Francisco, Portland's I believe there was
a trip to Japan before I started.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Very cool.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Wow, I'm so jealous of this job. That sounds pretty great.
Now we also know about the flavor graveyard at Ben
and Jerry. So are there are there ceremonies when flavors
are buried there? And how does this work? How do
you pay your respects?
Speaker 5 (14:30):
I think for some of the flavors that were a
little bit more loved, they do ceremonies, and sometimes it's
more of a quiet affair.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
We won't get into that then. So that's pretty great.
All right, So manga, what game are we playing today
with Sarah?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's called do Me a Flavor? Mostly because I just
wanted to hear you say do me a flavor all things.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I really appreciate that. That's a pretty terrible title of
how do we play?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Basically, we're giving Sarah three popular flavors from an iconic
food or drink brand, and she just has to tell
us what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Okay, that sounds fun. All right, Sarah, are you ready
to play?
Speaker 5 (15:08):
I'm ready?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Okay. Question number one? This chip comes in cool Ranch,
Nacho cheese, and heat Wave flavors, So do me a
flavor and tell me what product we're talking about. Real yepah,
you got it for one, question number two. The most
popular flavors of this candy include very cherry and buttered popcorn,
though the blueberry flavor was particularly popular in the nineteen
(15:31):
eighties when it was created for Ronald Reagan. Do me
a flavor, Manger, are you gonna make me say?
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Do me a flavor?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Do me a flavor and tell me what brand we're.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Talking about jelly Belly.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
You got it two for two for two question number three.
This sports drink originally came in lemon, lime, and orange flavors.
It has since expanded to include rainberry, glacier freeze, and
cool blue. Do me a flavor and tell me what
beverage I'm talking about? Betray Yes, all right, she's three
for three. Let's see if she can get the last
(16:03):
two Question number four. While this O shaped breakfast cereal
does come in flavors like fruity and frosted, the most
popular varieties are still original and honeynut. Do me a
flavor and tell me what breakfast cereal I'm talking about? Curios. Okay,
we've saved the hardest for last. Good luck on this one. Okay,
question number five. This iconic ice cream brand has the
(16:25):
best punny flavors, including Fish Food, American Dream, and the
Tonight Dough. Do me a flavor and tell me what
really wonderful ice cream company we're talking about, Ben and Jerry.
All Right, that would have been kind of embarrassing if
she'd missed out.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Well, Sarah when an astounding five for five, which wins
her the grand prize, A hundred note from us to
her mom or boss, singing her praises.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So congratulations Sarah, and thank you so much for flaving.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
That's awesome. Congratulations Sarah, Thank you both. Please tell all
the people at Ben and Jerry's we say thank you
for making wonderful ice or even keep up the great work.
I will.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Guess what will?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
What's that mango?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm not
a super taste all right.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Well, lucky for you, we've been talking about the fact
that flavor is so much more than just.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Taste, and then we just talked about taste. But I
think it's time we backed that statement off and talk
about another key component of flavor, and that's smell, all.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Right, talk to me about smell.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Well, if you think taste is a complicated thing, it's
nothing compared to the complexity of smell. Think about the
millions upon millions of smells in the world and how
our noses have to make sense of them and help
us identify what things are. In fact, as Holmes points out,
the old faction researcher Joel Mainland estimates that they're about
twenty seven billion smelly molecules in the world.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And while that doesn't mean they're about twenty seven billion
smells because some might be identical, that still this incredible number.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Well, the other thing Holmes explains that I find so interesting,
and this goes back to your electric lollipop example, but
that's how different taste than smell are. So our sense
of taste is pretty easy to break down. We can
enjoy a dish of sweet and sour pork and understand
that it's sweet and sour, or have some ketch up
and know that it's sweet, sour, salty and umami. And
maybe we're not thinking about those things actively, but those
(18:29):
are all there and we can identify them. But smell
is different because you really can't break it down. Instead,
our brains take all the information from the smelly molecules
and create a single perception of smell. As Holmes writes,
if you combine ethyl isobutorate, which is a fruity odor,
ethyl maltol, it's just caramel like an allyl alpha ionine,
(18:50):
which is violet like in the proper proportions. For example,
what you smell is not caramel coated fruit on a
bed of violets, but pineapple.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And how much more complicated by the fact that in
English we really don't have the language to describe smells
in any significant way other than seeing what they smell like.
So we might say something smells fishy or like grass
or whatever. But this isn't the case everywhere, and especially
in places that depend much more on those smells for survival,
such as the remaining hunter gatherer tribes. Take the Jihai
(19:20):
tribe of Thailand. A research team set up a smell
test between a group of Jehai men and a group
of men from Texas, and when the Jahai men were
presented with certain smells, they had just an easy time
communicating what they smelled with very descriptive words, as they
did in describing colors, and the Texans, on the other hand,
were of course able to describe colors, but they struggled
when asked to describe smells.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
When there's one more reason why smell is just so
difficult for us to understand and talk about.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
What's not?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
All right? So humans have around four hundred odor receptors,
but the part that makes things complicated is that only
about half of those receptors work in pretty much everyone.
But then of the other half, there's this wide range
of which ones work in some piece and not in others.
So that leads to an incredibly wide range of smells
that humans are capable of processing. In fact, for the
(20:06):
most part, no two people have the same sense of smell,
which is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, but needless to say, our sense of smell makes
a huge contribution to the flavors we process.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And there's another biggie to add to taste and smell,
and that's the sense of touch. Think about the burn
of a chili pepper, or the chili feeling in your
mouth when you're chewing on a minty piece of gum,
or fizz in a carbonated drink. Oh man, that first
sip of a coke, how good is this first sip
of a coke?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
So good? I think I'll have one right now.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
All right to Atlanta. So it's interesting how little is
really understood about this component of flavor, at least how
few studies have been done on it. But we do
know that spicy hot, for example, is not a taste.
It's something you feel. And then we have specific receptors
that cause the heat sensation when we eat spicy things.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Speaking of spicy hot, do you know how the Scoville units,
which measure the heat of chili peppers got its start?
Speaker 3 (21:01):
How's that?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Well?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Apparently it goes back to this pharmacist and researcher, Wilbur Scoville.
Scoville came up with the scale back in nineteen twelve,
and it was a pretty smart way of doing it.
You figured out that you could create a scale based
on the amount of dilution required before the burn of
a chili could no longer be felt, so super hot
pepper would take much more dilution.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Oh, that is pretty smart.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, And now it's easier for scientists to just measure
the amount of capsaicin, which is the main ingredient that
makes a chili hot, and then just convert those into
Scoville units.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
It's pretty wild how hot some peppers can be. Take jalapenos,
for example, which we think of is pretty hot. They
come in about five thousand Scovill units. Cayennes are at
about forty thousand. The habban nio comes in at over
one hundred thousand, maybe even up to three hundred thousand.
But even the hobbin niro doesn't hold a candle to
the Carolina Reaper.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And how many Scoville units does that one have?
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Two point two million. It's unbelievable, it's crazy. That's basically
like police eat pepper spray. And there's a new contender
out there. It's called Dragon's Breath, which is a tiny
pepper that can possibly kill.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You, but it sounds so cute. So we have Noel
Brown here to test this out. Why would you even
make a pepper that hot.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well, it's so unbelievably hot that can actually numb your
skin to touch, and that makes it useful as an
anesthetic in areas without medical supplies. But let's leave the
hottest of the hot peppers aside for a minute. It's
interesting that we humans enjoy inflicting this burning pain on ourselves,
and we don't know exactly why this is. I mean,
I know, we know about the endorphin release that happens
(22:34):
when we eat spicy foods, but that still doesn't answer
the question of why that happened.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
You know, first we feast, does that chili head enthusiast show.
And I was reading an interview that said it's much
easier to get people to drop their inhibitions when they
eat a chili pepper because they're like sweating and it's
like they've just exercised. So instead of those awkward questions
you go through in the beginning of an interview, people
just skip past that by eating chilis Wow. Anyway. We
know humans like heat, but researchers have yet identify another
(23:00):
mammal that seeks the heat of chili peppers. I mean,
birds eat plenty of them, but they don't actually have
the receptors that would feel the heat of cupsason, so
there's no sensation at all for them even in eating
a super hot pepper. I wonder if birds enjoy the
first sip of a coke, oh man.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
To it while we savor our beverages. Why don't we
take a break for a quiz. Our guest today has
been a science writer and correspondent for New Scientist magazine
for over twenty years, and as the author of Flavor,
(23:37):
the brilliant book we've been talking about in this episode,
and for those who listen to our episode on How
Clean We Should Be, you know, I'm not surprised that
a New Scientist writer would produce such a great book.
Bob Holmes, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Bob. In Flavor, you mentioned that we can pretty much
do away with the idea that we have previously had
about taste maps, where different parts of our tongues helped
us experience different taste. So our taste maps really not
a thing we should think about anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
They really aren't, and it's pretty easy to demonstrate that.
All you have to do is take a cute tip
and dip it in salt water and rush it around
your tongue. You know, the taste map says that you
say it's salty. I think it's right at the tip
of your tongue, and you'll find that you can taste
the salt anywhere.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Huh. So how did this come about?
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I'm not sure. It turns out there are slight differences
in different parts of the tongue, and you've got a
few more bitter taste bud's right at the back and
a few more sweet at the front, and things like that,
but it's not enough to make much of a difference
at all.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
You also write the possibility of a sixth taste or
even more than that, and could you talk a little
bit about that?
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Sure, Yeah, I mean it's almost certainly at least it
tastes and maybe quite a few more. You know, we
all know about sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and most of
us know about umami, which is that fifth taste that's
sort of safe retaste, but almost certain. I think the
evidence is really good now that there is in fact
(25:06):
the taste for fat, or more specifically, for the fatty
acid breakdown products of fat. These are actually the nasties.
The researcher who demonstrated this is the easiest way to
think about what they taste like is to imagine old
rancid French fry oil. It's gone off, and that's what
(25:29):
fatty acids taste like. Yeah, I definitely know that it's
almost certainly one of those warning tastes to keep us
away from rancid.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Fats, and is there anything good that can be done
with it?
Speaker 4 (25:40):
A little bit of these nasty, fatty acids are part
of what makes aged cheese interesting, huh So yeah, and
probably also a little bit in aged meat and things
like that. Yeah, So in very small quantities, you know,
just like putting a little bit of cat in persum
actually is a good thing. You know, these nasties in
(26:05):
our food probably do add interest if there's little enough
of them.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
One of the other things that you explained that I
thought was super interesting is that humans get a bad
wrap for having an inferior sense of smell. So is
this really a myth?
Speaker 4 (26:19):
We have fewer odor receptors in our nose than it's
something like a dog does, so they probably are better
than us, but not nearly as much better than us
as we think. When people have looked, they found that
humans are actually pretty good at smelling stuff. A blindfolded
person can follow on a chocolate trail across a lawn
(26:43):
on their hands and he's sniffing to find where the
chocolate was d So, you know, most of the reason
that we think we're so bad at smell is that
our noses are way up in the air and all
the smells are down there on the ground. So if
we were to, if we were to explore our worlds
just like our dogs do, we'd find there were stuff
(27:04):
there we could smell. People can go into a into
a onto a bookshelf and pick out which book someone
has just handled by the smell alone.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
And at the other place, we're really good at smell. Actually,
it's in flavor. The shape of our heads mean that
means the flavors foods that are inside our mouths have
very quick access to the olfactory part of the nose,
and so we're probably way better than our dogs are
at appreciating flavor.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Mm hmm. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
That's so crazy. I mean, I feel like that totally
changes the truffle game, like the truffle hunting game, Like
you don't need a pig if you're on all four four.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
That's probably right, right, that some people don't smell the
key compound and truffles.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah, I'd probably do it for the right bar of chocolate. Yeah, yeah,
all right. Well, being an expert on flavor, we couldn't
let you go without putting you to the test on
an ultimate flavor quiz. So, mango, what what game do
we have? What game do we have Bob playing today?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
We're playing a game called vintage recipe or a gourmet
cat food flavor.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
That's right, So we'll be tossing you a delicious sounding item.
Delicious is in air quotes, which doesn't work quite as
well on podcasts. But you have to tell us if
it's a vintage recipe we found online or a gourmet
cat food flavor. So you ready to get started?
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Ready?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
All right?
Speaker 3 (28:32):
So the first one is ham and bananas, hollandais ham
and bananas Holland days? Is this a vintage recipe we
found online or a gourmet cat food flavor.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
I'm gonna go vintage.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, you would be right.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
It's a great way to make use of your leftover
bananas and ham apparently.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
All right, Okay. Number two Sea Bess in Seabas consumme.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
I'm gonna go cat slicks for that one.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, you're right, it's from Tiki Cats Hawaiian queen Emma
Luau line.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Of course, all right. Question number three liver sausage, pineapple.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
I can't imagine the cat eating pineapples. I'm gonna go
with vintage recipe.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, three for three. I really probably would have guessed
cat food on that though, just because the word liver
would have thrown me off. I think, all right, number
four lime cheese salad is he correct?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, you're right, it's a It was a recipe from
Jello and and it's a Yello bed with a seafood
salad plopped on top.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
I think I've had that Midwestern church suppers.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
All right, we've got two left. He's four for four
so far. Here we go. Ocean fish, tuna and cheese sauce.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
That sounds like it would appeal to a cat.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
All right, it is a gourmet coffee. I can't believe
there's cheese sauce in Yeah, it's from the Tasty Treasures line.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Right, some fancy cat food. All right, let's see if
you can get six for six spam and limas spam
and Lima's.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
No recipes.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Wow. Yeah, it was a promotional recipe from Hormel, and
it had a Spanish gravy and frozen lime of beans.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
That is incredible, So Bob, how has Bob done?
Speaker 1 (30:29):
He ran the table. He did won an incredible six
for six, which wins him Today's grand prize, which is
our endless admiration.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Wow, congratulations, Bob.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
That is huge, Thank you kindly.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Yeah, well, Bob, thanks so much for writing a terrific
book and for joining us today on Part Time Genius.
All right, guess what I've got my pocket here? Mango?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh, that sounds so creepy.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Sorry, I should have I probably should have phrased that
a little differently. But guess what I have in my
pocket here? That rhymes with schmop blocks.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
That sounds even creepier. But you've got pop rocks, right.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I know we've talked about taste, smell, and touch and
that those are considered the flavor trinity, but we can't
leave out sound or other multisensory effects on how we
experience flavor.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Well, you're gonna crack open those bad boys or not?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
All right, let's do it. They are so good. Pop
Rocks reminded me of that, you know, that part in
the Eddie Hazard routine where he's talking about chiropractors and
how they live for the noise, and that chiropracting or
what do you call.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
It, chiropractice cracking bones.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Would be nothing if they didn't hear the sound. They're
just like I live for the noise, I crack your bones.
So anyway, all right, you remember how our friend and
former Mental Flaws editor, Ah, they pop rocks are still
just popular, like crazyhood. I don't think I've had one
of these since I was ten. I need more. Okay,
So you remember our friend and former Mental Flaws editor
jess and Collins used to talk about chip o'clock in
(32:14):
the office.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, for you listeners, there was a period in the
mid afternoon when the editorial staff and Mental Flaws used
to all go out for their afternoon snack and grab
a bag of chips. It made her crazy.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, while that sound may be difficult for the person
not eating the chips to listen to, for the people
eating chips, that sound likely increase their enjoyment. So papers
have shown that people rate chips is tastier if they
provide a louder crunch. It was even a study by
Charles Spence and Maxampinie that had people eat one hundred
and eighty pringles.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I'm so envious that people got to eat pringles for
sign I.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Mean, we did get to have pop rocks and I
kind of coke, and we got to watch Jerry have
that bitter taste. But as they did this, they wore
headphones that played back the sound of their crunch, so
as they work their way through the chips, the researchers
adjusted the volume level of the crunch feedback, and they
found that the louder crunching made them rate the chips
fifteen percent tastier than the softer crunching.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I still can't believe they got to eat sprinkles for sign.
I I know the sound of an expensive coffee maker
has been showed to increase how people rated a cup
of Joe, But I also loved the study where Spence
had a group of subjects eat oysters while listening to
different sounds. Some of them heard the sounds of waves
and seagulls, and some of them heard sounds from barnyards
like chickens clucking and cows mooing. And not only did
(33:30):
those who heard the sea sounds rate the oyster's tastier,
they also experienced them as saltier.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I love this stuff because it kind of feels like
food trickery. But I guess as we understand that all
our senses are involved in how we experience flavor, it's
really no more trickery than anything else we do to
enhance flavor. So let's talk about some of the other
multi sensory effects on flavor.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I love that music can affect how we experience flavor.
Like Holmes notes that really powerful music like Carl Orff's
Carmina Burana causes people to note the heavier flavors in
a red wine and what he describes as zingie music
actually brings out the brighter flavors and a white wine.
And with that in mind, I'd like to recommend after
the show we all listened to Holland Oates and neat
a bag of rollos. I bet that can only make
(34:12):
the experience of both better.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
And then we'll eat one of those Reese's Fast Break
bars and listen to Aya the Tiger.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, it's science and action, folks. We'll report back.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
But there's some other fun and funny results of experiments,
Like there was this Goldilock style experiments using three bowls
of yogurt. Yogurt was the same in all three bowls,
but the bulls weighed different amount.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
And how many bears were involved this is zero.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It wasn't published in our bear reviewed medical journals, but
people did note that they enjoyed the yogurt in the
heaviest bowl, most like, why should weight of a bowl
affect your enjoyment? And strawberry moose served on a white
plate was rated sweeter than the same dessert served on
a black plate.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
One of my favorite studies was the one on hockey
fans at Cornell, and researchers found that when the home
team won, fans actually found the ice cream to be sweeter,
and when they lost, they noted it as more sour.
How weird is that?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
That's almost as sciencey as our science.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, so if all these senses contribute to flavor, why
do we only associate flavor with the stuff happening in
our mouths?
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Well, that's the work of our brains. It takes all
that information smell, taste, texture, sound and combines it into
one experience, and then it tells us that experience is
happening in our mouths. So as a side note, many
food scientists now say that while foods obviously contain flavor molecules,
they believe the actual flavors themselves aren't created by the food,
(35:29):
but instead by our brains.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Which I guess would be a big part of the
reason why we all experience flavor differently.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
That's just weird, yes it is. But we are not
done with our weird facts for the day. You know
what time it is. It's time for the part time
genius factos, the part of the show where we share
some of the interesting facts we learned recently but didn't
get a chance to mention just yet.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
So Bill, why don't you start this round all right?
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Sure? So? If you read airline mages, you often see
that famous chefs pair up with airlines to improve the
n flight meals, but the odds are stacked against them.
According to a study commission by the German airline carrier Lufthansa,
between the elevation and the dryness that occurs in the cabin,
your sensitivity to sweet and salty foods decreases by about
thirty percent, which means the meal probably tastes a whole
(36:20):
lot better if you save it for after you land.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Do you know? Peanut butter and mayo sandwiches used to
be a popular thing like According to Garden and Gun magazine,
The sandwiches were a staple during the Depression and could
be fancied up by adding a few leaves of lettuce
and some pickles, and so the editors at food fifty
two this other site, also tried the sandwich on reader recommendation,
and their verdict was, if you wear a blindfold when
you take a bite, it almost tastes like a tuna sandwich.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
All right, why don't we just name a few odd
recipes we've found since we both looked them up. The
Betty Crocker recommended a tuna and jello pie, also known
as a summer.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Pie devoid the winter sales slump. Doctor Pepper Wren ads
that you should heat the soda in a saucepan and
then poured over a lemon. Gross which is why nothing
reminds me of Christmas more than a steaming mug of
Doctor Pepper.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Did you know that Johnny Walker makes a mustache wax
that enhances their drinks. The wax comes in three flavors, pepper, citrus,
and ginger, and it helps to apply a generous amount
to your stash.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So, I know, we talked about eating in texture today,
but I learned this isn't a completely new concept. In
the nineteen thirties, the Italian futurists played with food and
texture in a completely different way. Diners were clothed in
textured pajamas which they stroked with one hand in a
dark room while burying their face and vegful. What and
when they looked up for their plates, a waiter which
(37:41):
sprits them with perfume. For some reason, the movement didn't
take I.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Can't imagine why.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, futurists hated pasta, and they like to sculpt their meats.
And there was also one course where you ate salad
out of a tiny box with one hand and turned
a crank with the other. As long as you were
turning the crank, your waiter would dance for you.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
That is so good. I have to give you this one,
so you earned this week's fact Off. Speaking of which
we need to nominate as smarty pants to our Hall
of Genius. I'm thinking we should give it to William
Mitchell's family. Mitchell was a food inventor who grew up
on a farm, worked his way through college, and then
went on to invent cool whip, powdered egg whites for
cake mix, quickset, jello tang and.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
That's so many amazing things and what.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
And pop rocks. Apparently the candy was supposed to be
a carbonated drink mix, but it worked better as a
crazy kids treat.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
He's in William Mitchell's family. You'll be getting a certificate
in the mail and special thanks to our brilliant nonfiction
librarians over at the Hoover Public Library in Hoover, Alabama
for recommending the book Flavored by Bob Holmes. If you
like what you heard, be sure to pick up a
copy today. That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening.
(39:03):
Thanks again for listening to Part Time Genius. Be sure
to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
And because we're a brand new show, if you're feeling
extra generous, we'd love it if you give us a
rating on Apple Podcasts. Part Time Genius is produced by
some of our favorite geniuses. It's edited by Tristan McNeil,
theme song and audio mixing by Noel Brown. Our executive
producer is Jerry Rowland. Our research team is Gabe Lucier,
Lucas Adams, Autumn white Field, Madrano, Austin Thompson, and Meg Robbins.
(39:28):
Jason Hope is our chief cheerleader.
Guess what will what's that mango? So I was watching
this old BBC clip online of an electronic lollipop. What
is that? So it's not actually a candy. The lollipop
is still being developed in labs. But it's this gentle
clamp that slides metal plates over the top and bottomy tongue.
I don't think it helps to call this clamp gentle.
That still doesn't sound that appealing. Well, here's what's cool
(00:21):
about it. So it sends currents through your tongue and
adjust the temperature on those plates, and the electronic lollipop
can actually trick your tongue into thinking it's tasting a
wide variety of flavors, like a lemony sour taste is
the easiest to pull off, and scientists can do reasonable
approximations of other flavors. But the application of all this
is really cool. Like imagine you're watching Iron Chef and
(00:42):
Bobby Flay is on there and he's just made the
most amazing eggplant spaghetti taco in the world, and you
can't figure out for the life of you what an
eggplant plus spaghetti and a taco shell should taste like,
And so you just take a lick of your lollipop
and suddenly you get a sense of that flavor.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I mean, that's kind of weird, but it is pretty cool.
Reminds me a little bit of smell vision, except for
your taste bud exactly. And you can see how this
might be used in online grocery shopping in the future
or checking out new recipes. It's totally fascinating. But what
I found most interesting in all of this are the limitations.
Because these currents are only playing with your tongue, they
can only create a set of basic flavors. But when
(01:19):
the scientists added technology that incorporates your nose, suddenly the
range of flavors expanded dramatically, and that got me thinking
what other tricks can we play on our tongue and
how much a flavor is really just something constructed in
our brain.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So that's what this episode is all about.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketer, and today I'm here to address
a big problem in the English language.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm pretty sure we were talking about starting sentences with
because because my second grade English teacher had the same
argument with me.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Wait, this was second grade. You got in trouble in
second grade for starting sentences.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Was because yeah, actually it was more of a thing
that she said we shouldn't do. And then I started
every sentence in a story with a word because it
was not a good strategy for going to recess that.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
All right, Well, at some point we'll do a whole
episode on grammar, so you can save your SOB stories
for then. But today I'm talking about how English speakers
use the words taste and flavor interchangeably, as though they
mean the same thing.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Wait, they don't mean the same thing.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I know, it's pretty crazy. So I've been reading this
new book called Flavor. It's by Bob Holmes, and it's
really good. As Holmes explains, taste is just one component
of flavor, and he writes, the best way to think
about flavor is that it's the sum of all the
sensations we get when we have food in the mouth.
So think about the weight of the bowl, the color
of the plate, the crunch of the potato chip. Even
(02:55):
the choice of background music can have a direct effect
on how we perceive flavor.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's funny because when I think of flavor, it seems
like such a specific thing, like popcorn flavor, jelly beans,
that's a flavor.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I think there might be some people who disagree with
you on this, but.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I know what you're saying is true. Like taste and
smell and touch and sound, they all play a role
in how much we appreciate food. I guess I've just
been using the wrong vocabulary.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
All right. Well, I'm not here to flavor Shandy, but
we do have Bob Holmes on the show today, which
is super exciting, and we'll be talking to him about
flavor and some of the fascinating studies and facts he
covered in his book. Speaking of which, do you have
a terrible quiz lined up for us today? Oh?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Of course I do. Sticking with the flavors theme, we're
playing real vintage recipe or gourmet cat food flavor. It's
a little harder than you think.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Awesome, all right, all right, Well, let's kick this off
by talking about taste. Even if it's not the same
thing as flavor, it's obviously an important thing, definitely so.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
In the English speaking world, psychologists have traditionally acknowledged four
different tastes. They're sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, and humans
have different receptors for each of these. And then more recently,
we've added a fifth taste, umami, which kind of just
sounds made up, so we need to talk about that.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, it did feel like a few years ago people
started talking about umami and it was like breaking news,
like did you hear about this umami flavor? And actually,
to be honest, I got confused. I was mixing it
up with the word unagi, which is the Japanese word
for fresh water eel, so I was trying to understand
why eel got to be a flavor of its own.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I love eel, but
(04:27):
it was still a little confusing.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, it was confusing to me because I thought we
were getting a brand new flavor, like you know that
apartment you have, did you know it's been hiding a
secret room all this time? Or like you're familiar with
the rainbow, guess what we're adding a new color exactly,
And instead it was like, you know, parmesan cheese or
soy sauce, those are umami. You just didn't have a
word for it, right, But umami is definitely distinct. Yeah,
(04:50):
it's a Japanese word meaning delicious flavor and linguists usually
translated as savory or maybe meaty, and his Homes explains
there are a few reasons why it takes a while
to rap your head around what umami is. First, is that,
unlike other tastes, you don't really experience umami as this
isolated thing. Think about it. You can bite into a
strawberry and immediately experience that as sweet, or lick a
(05:11):
French fry and no, that's kind of a salty taste.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I think we've talked about this. You've got to stop
licking your French fries. That's a little weird.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
They're just so good though. But anyway, you can experience
those tastes in a pretty pure and direct form. With umami,
it's more in combination with other things. Taste researcher Paul
Breslin also points out that the receptors for umami have
a pretty low maximum intensity compared to other tastes, which
prevents us from being able to note something as being
very umami, unlike how we might say something's very sweet
(05:42):
or very salty.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, and there's a much stronger cultural element than I realized.
I mean, I know the stereotypes of different cultures being
able to handle different levels of spice or things like that,
but I really didn't think about how that could be
applied to something like umami. But it turns out many
people in Asian countries have no problem identifying things as umami,
but they have the same ease that American children have
identifying things as sweet. It's really interesting how taste has
(06:06):
developed differently in different places around the world.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, let's back up for a minute and talk about
how these tastes would have developed from an evolutionary perspective.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, it's one thing for us to identify or talk
about these tastes when we cook at home or eat
at restaurants now, but for our ancestors, these tastes were
key to survival. So think about how a sweet taste
would have let someone know that they were getting sugars,
which are an important way to get calories for energy,
or tasting salt would be an indication of electrolytes, and
a mommy would have indicated the presence of proteins. Now,
(06:36):
on the negative side, our ancestors learned from bitter taste
that something might be toxic, or from sourness that a
fruit might have gone bad or just not be good
to eat.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, it's not hard to see how we'd be hardwired
to like sweet, salty, and a mommy. And it's equally
fascinating to see how other animals have evolved differently because
of their different nutritional needs. Like there was a cat study.
It's oh great, it's back. Well, a study was done
that showed cats, because their carnivores are unable to really
(07:04):
identify sweetness and it has no appeal for them. And pandas,
who are some serious bamboo eaters, don't really need to
identify umami, so they've lost the ability to taste it well.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
And even more extreme than that, vampire bat's love of
blood has caused them to lose the ability to taste
umami sweet and bitter. I'm actually curious why we don't
do a bad study like we do cat studies. Have
I mentioned I don't like cats. I think you've mentioned
that a few times, all right, I just wanted to
make sure. So back to how we've evolved, there's another
(07:35):
thing about taste that I think is just crazy interesting.
So just as we're discussing how flavor is much more
than just taste. Taste also happens to be more complex
than we thought. Did you know that there are taste
receptors in multiple places around our body, not just our mouth?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Sure, it's crazy, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Wait, so that means you do know about this. I'm
gonna quiz you. So, do we have taste receptors in
our lungs?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
What about our guts?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
What about it our brain? Yes? What about our forte?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Definitely no, we don't.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
We do not have taste receptors in our forehead. You
slum dog millionaireed me you should know about it. There's
no cheating on our quizzes. So this isn't exactly well
understood yet, but it's really fascinating. The ones in the gut,
for example, detective Mommy and sweet and let our brains
know that some yummy and nutritious food has arrived, and
if they taste something bitter, they let us know there
may be a problem and trigger a response of some kind.
(08:26):
So you can get the sense for why they're helpful.
But why do you think we need taste receptors in
our respiratory system?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So it's one way of letting our bodies know if
bacteria has arrived because bacteria have a communication chemical with
a bitter taste, and when the receptor is in our
respiratory system, notice this, they help our bodies mount response.
There's even some thinking among scientists that these bitter receptors
may have existed in other areas of our body, first
as a way of detecting infection and then moving to
(08:53):
our mouths.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yes, Holmes explains. If this is the case, we have
disease to thank for the flavor of coffee, beer, and broccoli.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's weird, right, all right. So I know in a
few minutes we're going to play a quiz, but before
we do that, I think we should find out whether
we're super tasters.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Super tasters Well.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
It's not as exciting as it sounds, because while it
does mean someone has a more intense sense of taste,
supertasters tend to be much more bland eaters because most
tastes tend to be that much more extreme for them.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Well, given the fact that the last time we ate
at the Chinese place downstairs, it looked to me like
you just ordered a plate of hot peppers, So I'm
guessing you're not a super taster.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, we had a joke in our family that our
dad served as so much spicy food that we burned
off our taste buds.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Let me show you how we test for this using
this filter paper. Each strip has a small amount of
a bitter compound on them. It's called prople thigh ORUSIL
or PROP. So we're going to put these on our
tongues and find out which of these three categories of
tasters we fall in. Non tasters will taste nothing, tasters
will notice the bitter taste but it's not a huge deal,
(09:56):
and super taste will have this super strong response to it.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
All right, I like this. We should also get some
other members of the PTG team in here.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
What do you say?
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Definitely?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
All right, so let's give this a shot. So we've
got two of our team members joining us. We've got
Noel Brown, you may know from stuff they don't want
you to know, also a supervising producer on the show,
and Jerry Roland, our executive producer. Here, guys, you guys
ready to give this a shot? Am I ever?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
All right, So we've all got these strips and on
the count of three, we're going to put them on
our tongues. We're going to see what happens now. As
a reminder, if you taste nothing, which may be the case,
you're a non taster. If you taste a little bit
of bitter, just some bitter, then you're a taster. And
if it tastes extremely better, then you are a super taster.
So ready, all right on the count of three, one, two, three.
(10:47):
I don't know it sides. You may have to flip
it out. Oh wait, you get something I got? I
got a hint of bitter. Uh huh. Mine is totally bitter.
It's like great fruit bitter. Oh nice, I have a
real paper taste, but I mean something completely different. We
can't talk about it. Might be fooling myself about this.
(11:08):
Oh Jerry, she's running away.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
She's always had great.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Is blown? I hate grapefruit, super taster. Okay, spicy food, Jerry,
I love spicy food. But you just like the torture.
I guess I'm not sure what's happening. Wow, oh man,
that's so disappointing. You've given us a lot to think
about it.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, I feel like I'm so cheated. Like not only
can I not see those like three D magic pictures,
but also I can't taste these people.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, this is the worse. Okay, that's a bummer. I
was getting. I think I was getting a slight taste
of bitter. Okay, here we go. Well, while we're having
so much fun, when you say we play a little quiz,
sounds good.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
All right.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
So who do we have on the line today, Mango.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We've got Sarah Fiddler, who's got one of the list
jobs in the world. She's a flavor guru at one
of my favorite ice cream companies, Ben and Jerry's.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
We are so excited to have you on. Welcome to
part time Genia.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Sarah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
So I'm really curious how you got this job. I mean,
what sort of training and schooling do you have to
have to become a Ben and Jerry's flavor guru.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
Well, personally, I have a degree in food science from
the University of Vermont and a degree in baking and
pastry from the Culinary Institute of America. There are a
group of us flavor gurus here, and everybody's got kind
of a mixed background, from chefs to food scientists, all
(12:40):
comes from different backgrounds.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
It's very cool, that's awesome. And how are flavors decided upon? Like,
how do you guys decide you have so many fun
and creative and awesome flavors, how do you guys come
up with these?
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Well, we start out by being very creative and kind
of playing around in our test kitchens, and then we
meet with our marketing team, our brand management team, sometimes
our social mission team and figure out which of our
crazy flavors makes the most sense to launch for the
(13:12):
next season.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
And so, how many flavors are you typically playing with?
Speaker 5 (13:16):
It could be arranged anywhere from maybe three to ten
at a time.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
That's pretty crazy. I heard that the Ben and Jerry's
staff takes a field trip every year to research new flavors.
Is that true?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Yeah. We go on what we call trend tracks. Pick
a city or area that seems to be filled with
really up and coming food places, sometimes cocktail places, farms,
and go as a group and eat as much as
(13:52):
we possibly can, and then come back and make ice
cream inspired by what we ate.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Cool, But where are some of the fun places you've
trekked to?
Speaker 5 (14:03):
Well, I'm relatively new to the company, so I have
yet to go on a track, but I've heard that
they've gone to San Francisco, Portland's I believe there was
a trip to Japan before I started.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Very cool.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Wow, I'm so jealous of this job. That sounds pretty great.
Now we also know about the flavor graveyard at Ben
and Jerry. So are there are there ceremonies when flavors
are buried there? And how does this work? How do
you pay your respects?
Speaker 5 (14:30):
I think for some of the flavors that were a
little bit more loved, they do ceremonies, and sometimes it's
more of a quiet affair.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
We won't get into that then. So that's pretty great.
All right, So manga, what game are we playing today
with Sarah?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's called do Me a Flavor? Mostly because I just
wanted to hear you say do me a flavor all things.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I really appreciate that. That's a pretty terrible title of
how do we play?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Basically, we're giving Sarah three popular flavors from an iconic
food or drink brand, and she just has to tell
us what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Okay, that sounds fun. All right, Sarah, are you ready
to play?
Speaker 5 (15:08):
I'm ready?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Okay. Question number one? This chip comes in cool Ranch,
Nacho cheese, and heat Wave flavors, So do me a
flavor and tell me what product we're talking about. Real yepah,
you got it for one, question number two. The most
popular flavors of this candy include very cherry and buttered popcorn,
though the blueberry flavor was particularly popular in the nineteen
(15:31):
eighties when it was created for Ronald Reagan. Do me
a flavor, Manger, are you gonna make me say?
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Do me a flavor?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Do me a flavor and tell me what brand we're.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Talking about jelly Belly.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
You got it two for two for two question number three.
This sports drink originally came in lemon, lime, and orange flavors.
It has since expanded to include rainberry, glacier freeze, and
cool blue. Do me a flavor and tell me what
beverage I'm talking about? Betray Yes, all right, she's three
for three. Let's see if she can get the last
(16:03):
two Question number four. While this O shaped breakfast cereal
does come in flavors like fruity and frosted, the most
popular varieties are still original and honeynut. Do me a
flavor and tell me what breakfast cereal I'm talking about? Curios. Okay,
we've saved the hardest for last. Good luck on this one. Okay,
question number five. This iconic ice cream brand has the
(16:25):
best punny flavors, including Fish Food, American Dream, and the
Tonight Dough. Do me a flavor and tell me what
really wonderful ice cream company we're talking about, Ben and Jerry.
All Right, that would have been kind of embarrassing if
she'd missed out.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Well, Sarah when an astounding five for five, which wins
her the grand prize, A hundred note from us to
her mom or boss, singing her praises.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So congratulations Sarah, and thank you so much for flaving.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
That's awesome. Congratulations Sarah, Thank you both. Please tell all
the people at Ben and Jerry's we say thank you
for making wonderful ice or even keep up the great work.
I will.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Guess what will?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
What's that mango?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm not
a super taste all right.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Well, lucky for you, we've been talking about the fact
that flavor is so much more than just.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Taste, and then we just talked about taste. But I
think it's time we backed that statement off and talk
about another key component of flavor, and that's smell, all.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Right, talk to me about smell.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Well, if you think taste is a complicated thing, it's
nothing compared to the complexity of smell. Think about the
millions upon millions of smells in the world and how
our noses have to make sense of them and help
us identify what things are. In fact, as Holmes points out,
the old faction researcher Joel Mainland estimates that they're about
twenty seven billion smelly molecules in the world.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And while that doesn't mean they're about twenty seven billion
smells because some might be identical, that still this incredible number.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Well, the other thing Holmes explains that I find so interesting,
and this goes back to your electric lollipop example, but
that's how different taste than smell are. So our sense
of taste is pretty easy to break down. We can
enjoy a dish of sweet and sour pork and understand
that it's sweet and sour, or have some ketch up
and know that it's sweet, sour, salty and umami. And
maybe we're not thinking about those things actively, but those
(18:29):
are all there and we can identify them. But smell
is different because you really can't break it down. Instead,
our brains take all the information from the smelly molecules
and create a single perception of smell. As Holmes writes,
if you combine ethyl isobutorate, which is a fruity odor,
ethyl maltol, it's just caramel like an allyl alpha ionine,
(18:50):
which is violet like in the proper proportions. For example,
what you smell is not caramel coated fruit on a
bed of violets, but pineapple.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And how much more complicated by the fact that in
English we really don't have the language to describe smells
in any significant way other than seeing what they smell like.
So we might say something smells fishy or like grass
or whatever. But this isn't the case everywhere, and especially
in places that depend much more on those smells for survival,
such as the remaining hunter gatherer tribes. Take the Jihai
(19:20):
tribe of Thailand. A research team set up a smell
test between a group of Jehai men and a group
of men from Texas, and when the Jahai men were
presented with certain smells, they had just an easy time
communicating what they smelled with very descriptive words, as they
did in describing colors, and the Texans, on the other hand,
were of course able to describe colors, but they struggled
when asked to describe smells.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
When there's one more reason why smell is just so
difficult for us to understand and talk about.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
What's not?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
All right? So humans have around four hundred odor receptors,
but the part that makes things complicated is that only
about half of those receptors work in pretty much everyone.
But then of the other half, there's this wide range
of which ones work in some piece and not in others.
So that leads to an incredibly wide range of smells
that humans are capable of processing. In fact, for the
(20:06):
most part, no two people have the same sense of smell,
which is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, but needless to say, our sense of smell makes
a huge contribution to the flavors we process.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And there's another biggie to add to taste and smell,
and that's the sense of touch. Think about the burn
of a chili pepper, or the chili feeling in your
mouth when you're chewing on a minty piece of gum,
or fizz in a carbonated drink. Oh man, that first
sip of a coke, how good is this first sip
of a coke?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
So good? I think I'll have one right now.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
All right to Atlanta. So it's interesting how little is
really understood about this component of flavor, at least how
few studies have been done on it. But we do
know that spicy hot, for example, is not a taste.
It's something you feel. And then we have specific receptors
that cause the heat sensation when we eat spicy things.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Speaking of spicy hot, do you know how the Scoville units,
which measure the heat of chili peppers got its start?
Speaker 3 (21:01):
How's that?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Well?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Apparently it goes back to this pharmacist and researcher, Wilbur Scoville.
Scoville came up with the scale back in nineteen twelve,
and it was a pretty smart way of doing it.
You figured out that you could create a scale based
on the amount of dilution required before the burn of
a chili could no longer be felt, so super hot
pepper would take much more dilution.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Oh, that is pretty smart.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, And now it's easier for scientists to just measure
the amount of capsaicin, which is the main ingredient that
makes a chili hot, and then just convert those into
Scoville units.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
It's pretty wild how hot some peppers can be. Take jalapenos,
for example, which we think of is pretty hot. They
come in about five thousand Scovill units. Cayennes are at
about forty thousand. The habban nio comes in at over
one hundred thousand, maybe even up to three hundred thousand.
But even the hobbin niro doesn't hold a candle to
the Carolina Reaper.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And how many Scoville units does that one have?
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Two point two million. It's unbelievable, it's crazy. That's basically
like police eat pepper spray. And there's a new contender
out there. It's called Dragon's Breath, which is a tiny
pepper that can possibly kill.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You, but it sounds so cute. So we have Noel
Brown here to test this out. Why would you even
make a pepper that hot.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well, it's so unbelievably hot that can actually numb your
skin to touch, and that makes it useful as an
anesthetic in areas without medical supplies. But let's leave the
hottest of the hot peppers aside for a minute. It's
interesting that we humans enjoy inflicting this burning pain on ourselves,
and we don't know exactly why this is. I mean,
I know, we know about the endorphin release that happens
(22:34):
when we eat spicy foods, but that still doesn't answer
the question of why that happened.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
You know, first we feast, does that chili head enthusiast show.
And I was reading an interview that said it's much
easier to get people to drop their inhibitions when they
eat a chili pepper because they're like sweating and it's
like they've just exercised. So instead of those awkward questions
you go through in the beginning of an interview, people
just skip past that by eating chilis Wow. Anyway. We
know humans like heat, but researchers have yet identify another
(23:00):
mammal that seeks the heat of chili peppers. I mean,
birds eat plenty of them, but they don't actually have
the receptors that would feel the heat of cupsason, so
there's no sensation at all for them even in eating
a super hot pepper. I wonder if birds enjoy the
first sip of a coke, oh man.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
To it while we savor our beverages. Why don't we
take a break for a quiz. Our guest today has
been a science writer and correspondent for New Scientist magazine
for over twenty years, and as the author of Flavor,
(23:37):
the brilliant book we've been talking about in this episode,
and for those who listen to our episode on How
Clean We Should Be, you know, I'm not surprised that
a New Scientist writer would produce such a great book.
Bob Holmes, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Bob. In Flavor, you mentioned that we can pretty much
do away with the idea that we have previously had
about taste maps, where different parts of our tongues helped
us experience different taste. So our taste maps really not
a thing we should think about anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
They really aren't, and it's pretty easy to demonstrate that.
All you have to do is take a cute tip
and dip it in salt water and rush it around
your tongue. You know, the taste map says that you
say it's salty. I think it's right at the tip
of your tongue, and you'll find that you can taste
the salt anywhere.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Huh. So how did this come about?
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I'm not sure. It turns out there are slight differences
in different parts of the tongue, and you've got a
few more bitter taste bud's right at the back and
a few more sweet at the front, and things like that,
but it's not enough to make much of a difference
at all.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
You also write the possibility of a sixth taste or
even more than that, and could you talk a little
bit about that?
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Sure, Yeah, I mean it's almost certainly at least it
tastes and maybe quite a few more. You know, we
all know about sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and most of
us know about umami, which is that fifth taste that's
sort of safe retaste, but almost certain. I think the
evidence is really good now that there is in fact
(25:06):
the taste for fat, or more specifically, for the fatty
acid breakdown products of fat. These are actually the nasties.
The researcher who demonstrated this is the easiest way to
think about what they taste like is to imagine old
rancid French fry oil. It's gone off, and that's what
(25:29):
fatty acids taste like. Yeah, I definitely know that it's
almost certainly one of those warning tastes to keep us
away from rancid.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Fats, and is there anything good that can be done
with it?
Speaker 4 (25:40):
A little bit of these nasty, fatty acids are part
of what makes aged cheese interesting, huh So yeah, and
probably also a little bit in aged meat and things
like that. Yeah, So in very small quantities, you know,
just like putting a little bit of cat in persum
actually is a good thing. You know, these nasties in
(26:05):
our food probably do add interest if there's little enough
of them.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
One of the other things that you explained that I
thought was super interesting is that humans get a bad
wrap for having an inferior sense of smell. So is
this really a myth?
Speaker 4 (26:19):
We have fewer odor receptors in our nose than it's
something like a dog does, so they probably are better
than us, but not nearly as much better than us
as we think. When people have looked, they found that
humans are actually pretty good at smelling stuff. A blindfolded
person can follow on a chocolate trail across a lawn
(26:43):
on their hands and he's sniffing to find where the
chocolate was d So, you know, most of the reason
that we think we're so bad at smell is that
our noses are way up in the air and all
the smells are down there on the ground. So if
we were to, if we were to explore our worlds
just like our dogs do, we'd find there were stuff
(27:04):
there we could smell. People can go into a into
a onto a bookshelf and pick out which book someone
has just handled by the smell alone.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
And at the other place, we're really good at smell. Actually,
it's in flavor. The shape of our heads mean that
means the flavors foods that are inside our mouths have
very quick access to the olfactory part of the nose,
and so we're probably way better than our dogs are
at appreciating flavor.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Mm hmm. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
That's so crazy. I mean, I feel like that totally
changes the truffle game, like the truffle hunting game, Like
you don't need a pig if you're on all four four.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
That's probably right, right, that some people don't smell the
key compound and truffles.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah, I'd probably do it for the right bar of chocolate. Yeah, yeah,
all right. Well, being an expert on flavor, we couldn't
let you go without putting you to the test on
an ultimate flavor quiz. So, mango, what what game do
we have? What game do we have Bob playing today?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
We're playing a game called vintage recipe or a gourmet
cat food flavor.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
That's right, So we'll be tossing you a delicious sounding item.
Delicious is in air quotes, which doesn't work quite as
well on podcasts. But you have to tell us if
it's a vintage recipe we found online or a gourmet
cat food flavor. So you ready to get started?
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Ready?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
All right?
Speaker 3 (28:32):
So the first one is ham and bananas, hollandais ham
and bananas Holland days? Is this a vintage recipe we
found online or a gourmet cat food flavor.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
I'm gonna go vintage.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, you would be right.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
It's a great way to make use of your leftover
bananas and ham apparently.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
All right, Okay. Number two Sea Bess in Seabas consumme.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
I'm gonna go cat slicks for that one.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, you're right, it's from Tiki Cats Hawaiian queen Emma
Luau line.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Of course, all right. Question number three liver sausage, pineapple.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
I can't imagine the cat eating pineapples. I'm gonna go
with vintage recipe.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, three for three. I really probably would have guessed
cat food on that though, just because the word liver
would have thrown me off. I think, all right, number
four lime cheese salad is he correct?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, you're right, it's a It was a recipe from
Jello and and it's a Yello bed with a seafood
salad plopped on top.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
I think I've had that Midwestern church suppers.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
All right, we've got two left. He's four for four
so far. Here we go. Ocean fish, tuna and cheese sauce.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
That sounds like it would appeal to a cat.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
All right, it is a gourmet coffee. I can't believe
there's cheese sauce in Yeah, it's from the Tasty Treasures line.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Right, some fancy cat food. All right, let's see if
you can get six for six spam and limas spam
and Lima's.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
No recipes.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Wow. Yeah, it was a promotional recipe from Hormel, and
it had a Spanish gravy and frozen lime of beans.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
That is incredible, So Bob, how has Bob done?
Speaker 1 (30:29):
He ran the table. He did won an incredible six
for six, which wins him Today's grand prize, which is
our endless admiration.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Wow, congratulations, Bob.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
That is huge, Thank you kindly.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Yeah, well, Bob, thanks so much for writing a terrific
book and for joining us today on Part Time Genius.
All right, guess what I've got my pocket here? Mango?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh, that sounds so creepy.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Sorry, I should have I probably should have phrased that
a little differently. But guess what I have in my
pocket here? That rhymes with schmop blocks.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
That sounds even creepier. But you've got pop rocks, right.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I know we've talked about taste, smell, and touch and
that those are considered the flavor trinity, but we can't
leave out sound or other multisensory effects on how we
experience flavor.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Well, you're gonna crack open those bad boys or not?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
All right, let's do it. They are so good. Pop
Rocks reminded me of that, you know, that part in
the Eddie Hazard routine where he's talking about chiropractors and
how they live for the noise, and that chiropracting or
what do you call.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
It, chiropractice cracking bones.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Would be nothing if they didn't hear the sound. They're
just like I live for the noise, I crack your bones.
So anyway, all right, you remember how our friend and
former Mental Flaws editor, Ah, they pop rocks are still
just popular, like crazyhood. I don't think I've had one
of these since I was ten. I need more. Okay,
So you remember our friend and former Mental Flaws editor
jess and Collins used to talk about chip o'clock in
(32:14):
the office.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, for you listeners, there was a period in the
mid afternoon when the editorial staff and Mental Flaws used
to all go out for their afternoon snack and grab
a bag of chips. It made her crazy.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, while that sound may be difficult for the person
not eating the chips to listen to, for the people
eating chips, that sound likely increase their enjoyment. So papers
have shown that people rate chips is tastier if they
provide a louder crunch. It was even a study by
Charles Spence and Maxampinie that had people eat one hundred
and eighty pringles.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I'm so envious that people got to eat pringles for
sign I.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Mean, we did get to have pop rocks and I
kind of coke, and we got to watch Jerry have
that bitter taste. But as they did this, they wore
headphones that played back the sound of their crunch, so
as they work their way through the chips, the researchers
adjusted the volume level of the crunch feedback, and they
found that the louder crunching made them rate the chips
fifteen percent tastier than the softer crunching.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I still can't believe they got to eat sprinkles for sign.
I I know the sound of an expensive coffee maker
has been showed to increase how people rated a cup
of Joe, But I also loved the study where Spence
had a group of subjects eat oysters while listening to
different sounds. Some of them heard the sounds of waves
and seagulls, and some of them heard sounds from barnyards
like chickens clucking and cows mooing. And not only did
(33:30):
those who heard the sea sounds rate the oyster's tastier,
they also experienced them as saltier.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I love this stuff because it kind of feels like
food trickery. But I guess as we understand that all
our senses are involved in how we experience flavor, it's
really no more trickery than anything else we do to
enhance flavor. So let's talk about some of the other
multi sensory effects on flavor.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I love that music can affect how we experience flavor.
Like Holmes notes that really powerful music like Carl Orff's
Carmina Burana causes people to note the heavier flavors in
a red wine and what he describes as zingie music
actually brings out the brighter flavors and a white wine.
And with that in mind, I'd like to recommend after
the show we all listened to Holland Oates and neat
a bag of rollos. I bet that can only make
(34:12):
the experience of both better.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
And then we'll eat one of those Reese's Fast Break
bars and listen to Aya the Tiger.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, it's science and action, folks. We'll report back.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
But there's some other fun and funny results of experiments,
Like there was this Goldilock style experiments using three bowls
of yogurt. Yogurt was the same in all three bowls,
but the bulls weighed different amount.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
And how many bears were involved this is zero.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It wasn't published in our bear reviewed medical journals, but
people did note that they enjoyed the yogurt in the
heaviest bowl, most like, why should weight of a bowl
affect your enjoyment? And strawberry moose served on a white
plate was rated sweeter than the same dessert served on
a black plate.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
One of my favorite studies was the one on hockey
fans at Cornell, and researchers found that when the home
team won, fans actually found the ice cream to be sweeter,
and when they lost, they noted it as more sour.
How weird is that?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
That's almost as sciencey as our science.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, so if all these senses contribute to flavor, why
do we only associate flavor with the stuff happening in
our mouths?
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Well, that's the work of our brains. It takes all
that information smell, taste, texture, sound and combines it into
one experience, and then it tells us that experience is
happening in our mouths. So as a side note, many
food scientists now say that while foods obviously contain flavor molecules,
they believe the actual flavors themselves aren't created by the food,
(35:29):
but instead by our brains.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Which I guess would be a big part of the
reason why we all experience flavor differently.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
That's just weird, yes it is. But we are not
done with our weird facts for the day. You know
what time it is. It's time for the part time
genius factos, the part of the show where we share
some of the interesting facts we learned recently but didn't
get a chance to mention just yet.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
So Bill, why don't you start this round all right?
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Sure? So? If you read airline mages, you often see
that famous chefs pair up with airlines to improve the
n flight meals, but the odds are stacked against them.
According to a study commission by the German airline carrier Lufthansa,
between the elevation and the dryness that occurs in the cabin,
your sensitivity to sweet and salty foods decreases by about
thirty percent, which means the meal probably tastes a whole
(36:20):
lot better if you save it for after you land.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Do you know? Peanut butter and mayo sandwiches used to
be a popular thing like According to Garden and Gun magazine,
The sandwiches were a staple during the Depression and could
be fancied up by adding a few leaves of lettuce
and some pickles, and so the editors at food fifty
two this other site, also tried the sandwich on reader recommendation,
and their verdict was, if you wear a blindfold when
you take a bite, it almost tastes like a tuna sandwich.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
All right, why don't we just name a few odd
recipes we've found since we both looked them up. The
Betty Crocker recommended a tuna and jello pie, also known
as a summer.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Pie devoid the winter sales slump. Doctor Pepper Wren ads
that you should heat the soda in a saucepan and
then poured over a lemon. Gross which is why nothing
reminds me of Christmas more than a steaming mug of
Doctor Pepper.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Did you know that Johnny Walker makes a mustache wax
that enhances their drinks. The wax comes in three flavors, pepper, citrus,
and ginger, and it helps to apply a generous amount
to your stash.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So, I know, we talked about eating in texture today,
but I learned this isn't a completely new concept. In
the nineteen thirties, the Italian futurists played with food and
texture in a completely different way. Diners were clothed in
textured pajamas which they stroked with one hand in a
dark room while burying their face and vegful. What and
when they looked up for their plates, a waiter which
(37:41):
sprits them with perfume. For some reason, the movement didn't
take I.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Can't imagine why.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, futurists hated pasta, and they like to sculpt their meats.
And there was also one course where you ate salad
out of a tiny box with one hand and turned
a crank with the other. As long as you were
turning the crank, your waiter would dance for you.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
That is so good. I have to give you this one,
so you earned this week's fact Off. Speaking of which
we need to nominate as smarty pants to our Hall
of Genius. I'm thinking we should give it to William
Mitchell's family. Mitchell was a food inventor who grew up
on a farm, worked his way through college, and then
went on to invent cool whip, powdered egg whites for
cake mix, quickset, jello tang and.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
That's so many amazing things and what.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
And pop rocks. Apparently the candy was supposed to be
a carbonated drink mix, but it worked better as a
crazy kids treat.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
He's in William Mitchell's family. You'll be getting a certificate
in the mail and special thanks to our brilliant nonfiction
librarians over at the Hoover Public Library in Hoover, Alabama
for recommending the book Flavored by Bob Holmes. If you
like what you heard, be sure to pick up a
copy today. That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening.
(39:03):
Thanks again for listening to Part Time Genius. Be sure
to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
And because we're a brand new show, if you're feeling
extra generous, we'd love it if you give us a
rating on Apple Podcasts. Part Time Genius is produced by
some of our favorite geniuses. It's edited by Tristan McNeil,
theme song and audio mixing by Noel Brown. Our executive
producer is Jerry Rowland. Our research team is Gabe Lucier,
Lucas Adams, Autumn white Field, Madrano, Austin Thompson, and Meg Robbins.
(39:28):
Jason Hope is our chief cheerleader.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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