237. The Science Of Taste feat. John McQuaid

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

In the last 30 years, there has been an explosion in the diversity of cuisine. But while there are more diverse and healthier food choices available than ever before, and people are becoming more aware of what they are actually eating, the science of taste is still underdeveloped compared to our other senses.

John McQuaid, is a journalist and author, most recently of the book "Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat," which explores the biology and history of flavor from the origin of life to the modern food system. While working for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, he was the lead reporter on a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper series about market-driven fisheries collapses around the world and co-writer of a series that anticipated the city’s near-demise by Hurricane Katrina. He has also written for other publications including Smithsonian magazine, The Washington Post, and Scientific American.

John and Greg talk about the interplay of the natural, genetic and neurological aspects of taste and how this sense has evolved in our culture in the last decades. They also discuss the limitations of industrial manufacturing and artificial flavors and the obstacles to using machine intelligence to come up with new recipes.

Episode Quotes:

Food is a product of a particular time and place

28:36: Food is very much a product of particular time and place. And to experiment radically with it is both exciting, somewhat dangerous; if you do it right, can be a real revolution. And so that's a lot of what's going on now. In flavor, they're starting to manipulate these processes, which have cultural roots, but nobody really understands how it works in terms of the flavors it produces because flavors are so complicated. Just the biochemical makeup of them, in addition to how we experience them, is very poorly understood.

12:02: Over time, we learned to integrate and create more complicated experiences around food that could turn bitterness into something that was a plus rather than a minus.

Can we use machine intelligence to come up with new recipes?

44:15: To create new cuisine, you need to build on existing traditions and experiment, and it's a constant, never-ending process that's underway. And it's a live process. It requires human beings trying different things and tasting different things. And they might get some clues from looking at how computers would suggest putting certain flavors together. But until you actually do that in a kitchen, you're not really going to know what works and what doesn't.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• “Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat” Book by John McQuaid

Guest Profile:

• Professional Profile at the Wilson Center
• John McQuaid’s Website
• John McQuaid on LinkedIn
• John McQuaid on Twitter

His Work:

• Articles on Scientific American
• Articles on Forbes
• Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat
• Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms