Speaker 1: Guess what will what's that? Man? Go? So I was
Speaker 1: watching this old BBC clip online of an electronic lollipop.
Speaker 1: What is that? So it's not actually a candy. The
Speaker 1: lollipop is still being developed in labs, but it's this
Speaker 1: gentle plant that slides metal plates over the top and
Speaker 1: bodiy tongue. I don't think it helps to call this
Speaker 1: clamp gentle. That still doesn't sound that appealing. Well, here's
Speaker 1: what's cool about it. So it sends currents through your
Speaker 1: tongue and adjust the temperature on those plates, and the
Speaker 1: electronic lollipop can actually trick your tongue into thinking it's
Speaker 1: tasting a wide variety of flavors, like a lemony sour
Speaker 1: taste is the easiest to pull off, and scientists can
Speaker 1: do reasonable approximations of other flavors. But the application of
Speaker 1: all this is really cool. Like imagine you're watching Iron
Speaker 1: Chef and Bobby Flays on there and he's just made
Speaker 1: the most amazing eggplant spaghetti taco in the world, and
Speaker 1: you can't figure out for the life of you what
Speaker 1: an eggplant plus spaghetti and a taco shell should taste like,
Speaker 1: And so you just take a lick of your lollipop
Speaker 1: and suddenly you get a sense of that flavor. Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of weird, but it is. It
Speaker 1: is pretty cool. It minds me a little bit of
Speaker 1: smell vision, except for your taste, but exactly. And you
Speaker 1: can see how this might be used in online grocery
Speaker 1: shopping in the future or checking out new recipes. It's
Speaker 1: totally fascinating. But what I found most interesting in all
Speaker 1: of this are the limitations. Because these currents are only
Speaker 1: playing with your tongue, they can only create a set
Speaker 1: of basic flavors. But when the scientists added technology that
Speaker 1: incorporates your nose, suddenly the range of flavors expanded dramatically,
Speaker 1: and that got me thinking what other tricks can we
Speaker 1: play on our tongue and how much a flavor is
Speaker 1: really just something constructed in our brain. So that's what
Speaker 1: this episode is all about. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome
Speaker 1: to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesho Ticketer, and
Speaker 1: today I'm here to address a big problem in the
Speaker 1: English language. I'm pretty sure you're talking about starting sentences
Speaker 1: with because because my second grade English teacher had the
Speaker 1: same argument with me. Wait, this was second grade. You
Speaker 1: get in trouble in second grade for starting sentences with
Speaker 1: because yeah, actually it was more of a thing that
Speaker 1: she said we shouldn't do. And then I started every
Speaker 1: sentence in a story with the word because it was
Speaker 1: not a good strategy for going to recess that. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: at some point we'll do a whole episode on grammar,
Speaker 1: so you can save your SOB stories for them. But
Speaker 1: today I'm talking about how English speakers use the words
Speaker 1: taste and flavor interchangeably, as though they mean the same thing. Wait,
Speaker 1: they don't mean the same thing. I know, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: So I've been reading this new book called Flavor. It's
Speaker 1: by Bob Holmes, and it's really good. As Holmes explains,
Speaker 1: taste is just one component of flavor, and he writes,
Speaker 1: the best way to think about flavor is that it's
Speaker 1: the sum of all the sensations we get when we
Speaker 1: have food in the mouth. So think about the weight
Speaker 1: of the bowl, the color of the plate, the crunch
Speaker 1: of the potato chip. Even the choice of background music
Speaker 1: can have a direct effect on how we perceive flavor.
Speaker 1: That funny, because when I think of flavor, it seems
Speaker 1: like such a specific thing, like popcorn flavor, jelly beans,
Speaker 1: that's a flavor. I think there might be some people
Speaker 1: who disagree with you on this, but but I know
Speaker 1: what you're saying is true. Like taste and smell and
Speaker 1: touch and sound, they all play a role in how
Speaker 1: much we appreciate food. I guess I've just been using
Speaker 1: the wrong vocabulary. All right, Well, I'm not here to
Speaker 1: flavor sham you, but we do have Bob Homes on
Speaker 1: the show today, which is super exciting, and we'll be
Speaker 1: talking to him about flavor and some of the fascinating
Speaker 1: studies and facts he covered in his book. Speaking of which,
Speaker 1: do you have a terrible quiz lined up for us today?
Speaker 1: Of course I do. Sticking with the flavors theme, we're
Speaker 1: playing real vintage recipe or gourmet cat food flavor. It's
Speaker 1: a little harder than you think. Awesome, all right, all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's kick this off by talking about taste. Even if
Speaker 1: it's not the same thing as flavor, it's obviously an
Speaker 1: important thing, definitely so. In the English speaking world, psychologists
Speaker 1: have traditionally acknowledged four different tastes. They're sweet, sour, salty,
Speaker 1: and bitter, and humans have different receptors for each these.
Speaker 1: And then more recently, we've added a fifth taste, ou mommy,
Speaker 1: which kind of just sounds made up, so we need
Speaker 1: to talk about that. Yeah, it did feel like a
Speaker 1: few years ago people started talking about ummmy and it
Speaker 1: was like breaking news, like did you hear about this
Speaker 1: umami flavor? And actually, to be honest, I got confused.
Speaker 1: I was mixing it up with the word unagi, which
Speaker 1: is the Japanese word for freshwater eel, so so I
Speaker 1: was trying to understand why eel got to be a
Speaker 1: flavor of its own. I mean, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I love eel, but it was still a little confusing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was confusing to meet because I thought we were
Speaker 1: getting a brand new flavor, like you know that apartment
Speaker 1: you have, did you know it's been hiding a secret
Speaker 1: room all this time? Or like you're familiar with the rainbow,
Speaker 1: guess what we're adding a new color, And instead it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, parmesan cheese or soy sauce, those
Speaker 1: are your mommy. You just didn't have a word for it, right,
Speaker 1: But umami is definitely distinct. Yeah, It's a Japanese word
Speaker 1: meaning delicious flavor and linguists usually translated as savory or
Speaker 1: maybe meaty, and his Homes explains there are a few
Speaker 1: reasons why it takes a while to rack your head
Speaker 1: around what U mommy is. First, is that, unlike other tastes,
Speaker 1: you don't really experience mummy as this isolated thing. Think
Speaker 1: about it. You can bite into a strawberry and immediately
Speaker 1: experience that as sweet, or lick a French fry and no,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a salty taste. I think we've talked
Speaker 1: about this. You've got to stop licking your French fry.
Speaker 1: That's a little weird. They're just so good though, But anyway,
Speaker 1: you can experience those tastes in a pretty pure and
Speaker 1: direct form With OU mommy, it's more in combination with
Speaker 1: other things. Taste researcher Paul Breslin also points out that
Speaker 1: the receptors for OU mommy have a pretty low maximum
Speaker 1: intensity compared to other taste which prevents us from being
Speaker 1: able to note something is being very umami, unlike how
Speaker 1: we might say something is very sweet or very salty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a much stronger cultural element than I realized.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know the stereotypes of different cultures being
Speaker 1: able to handle different levels of spice or things like that,
Speaker 1: but I really didn't think about how that could be applied.
Speaker 1: There's something like ou mommy. But it turns out many
Speaker 1: people in Asian countries have no problem identifying things as
Speaker 1: z mom, but they have the same ease that American
Speaker 1: children have identifying things as sweet. It's really interesting how
Speaker 1: taste has developed differently in different places around the world. Well,
Speaker 1: let's back up for a minute talk about how these
Speaker 1: tastes would have developed from an evolutionary perspective. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: one thing for us to identify or talk about these
Speaker 1: tastes when we cook at home or eat at restaurants now,
Speaker 1: but for our ancestors, these tastes were key to survival.
Speaker 1: So think about how a sweet taste would have let
Speaker 1: someone know that they were getting sugars, which are an
Speaker 1: important way to get calories for energy, or Tasting salt
Speaker 1: would be an indication of electrolytes, and a mommy would
Speaker 1: have indicated the presence of proteins. Now, on the negative side,
Speaker 1: our ancestors learned from bitter taste that something might be
Speaker 1: toxic or from sourness that a fruit might have gone
Speaker 1: bad or just not be good to eat. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not hard to see how we'd be hardwired to like sweet, salty,
Speaker 1: and mommy. And it's equally fascinating to see how other
Speaker 1: animals have evolved differently because of their different nutritional needs.
Speaker 1: Like there was a cat study. Oh great is back?
Speaker 1: Well a study was done that showed cats, because their
Speaker 1: carnivores are unable to really identify sweetness and it has
Speaker 1: no appeal for them, and pandas, who are some serious
Speaker 1: bamboo eaters, don't really need to identify you mommy, so
Speaker 1: they've lost the ability to taste it well. And even
Speaker 1: more extreme than that, vampire bats love of blood has
Speaker 1: caused them to lose the ability to taste ou mommy,
Speaker 1: sweet and bitter. I'm actually curious why we don't do
Speaker 1: a bad studies like we do cats studies. Have I
Speaker 1: mentioned I don't like cats. I think you've mentioned that
Speaker 1: a few times, alright, just wanted to make sure. So
Speaker 1: back to how we've evolved, there's another thing about taste
Speaker 1: that I think is just crazy interesting. So just as
Speaker 1: we're discussing how flavor is much more than just taste.
Speaker 1: Taste also happens to be more complex than we thought.
Speaker 1: Did you know that there are taste receptors in multiple
Speaker 1: places around our body, not just our mouth. Sure, it's crazy,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Wait, so that means you do know about this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quiz you, So, do we have taste receptors
Speaker 1: in our lungs? What about our guts? What about our brains?
Speaker 1: What about our for No, we don't. We do not
Speaker 1: have taste receptors in our forehead, you slum dogmillionaire, You
Speaker 1: should know better. There's no cheating on our quizzes. So
Speaker 1: this isn't exactly well understood yet, but it's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: The ones in the gut, for example, detected mommy and sweet,
Speaker 1: and let our brains know that some yummy and nutritious
Speaker 1: food has arrived, and if they taste something bitter, they
Speaker 1: let us know there may be a problem and trigger
Speaker 1: response of some kind. So you can get the sense
Speaker 1: for why they're helpful. But why do you think we
Speaker 1: need taste receptors in our respiratory system? So it's one
Speaker 1: way of letting our bodies know if bacteria has arrived,
Speaker 1: Because bacteria have a communication chemical with a bitter taste,
Speaker 1: and when the receptors in our respiratory system notice this,
Speaker 1: they help our bodies mount a response. There's even some
Speaker 1: thinking among scientists that these bitter receptors may have existed
Speaker 1: in other areas of our body, first as a way
Speaker 1: of detecting infection and then moving to our mouths. As
Speaker 1: Holmes explains, if this is the case, we have disease
Speaker 1: to thank for the flavor of coffee, beer, and brocc
Speaker 1: It's weird, right, all right? So I know in a
Speaker 1: few minutes we're going to play a quiz, but before
Speaker 1: we do that, I think we should find out whether
Speaker 1: we're super tasters super tastes. Well, it's not as exciting
Speaker 1: as it sounds, because while it does mean someone has
Speaker 1: a more intense sense of taste, supertasters tend to be
Speaker 1: much more bland eaters because most tastes tend to be
Speaker 1: that much more extreme for them. Well, given the fact
Speaker 1: that the last time we ate at the Chinese place downstairs,
Speaker 1: it looked to me like you just ordered a plate
Speaker 1: of hot peppers, So I'm guessing you're not a supertaster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a joke in our family that our dad
Speaker 1: served as so much spicy food that we burned off
Speaker 1: our taste butts. Let me show you how we test
Speaker 1: for this using this filter paper. Each strip has a
Speaker 1: small amount of a bitter compound on them. It's called
Speaker 1: prople thi osal or p r o P. So we're
Speaker 1: going to put these on our tongues and find out
Speaker 1: which of these three categories of tasters we fall in.
Speaker 1: Non tasters will taste nothing, tasters will notice the bitter
Speaker 1: taste but it's not a huge deal, and supertaste will
Speaker 1: have the super strong response to it. All I like this.
Speaker 1: We should also get some other members of the PTG
Speaker 1: team in here. What are you say? Yeah? Definitely all right,
Speaker 1: So let's give this a shot. So we've got two
Speaker 1: of our team members joining us. We've got Noel Brown,
Speaker 1: you may know from stuff they don't want you to know,
Speaker 1: also a supervising producer on the show, and Jerry Rowland,
Speaker 1: our executive producer. Here. Guys, you guys ready to give
Speaker 1: this a shot? Boy? Am I ever? Okay? All right?
Speaker 1: So we've all got these strips and on the count
Speaker 1: of three, we're gonna put them on our tongues and
Speaker 1: we're gonna see what happens now. As a reminder, if
Speaker 1: you taste nothing, which may be the case, you're a
Speaker 1: non taster. If you taste a little bit of bitter,
Speaker 1: just some bitter, then you're a taster. And if it
Speaker 1: tastes extremely better than you are a super taster. So ready,
Speaker 1: all right on the count of three, one, two, three.
Speaker 1: I don't know what sides you may have to flip
Speaker 1: it out. You get something I got. I got a
Speaker 1: hint of bitter. Uh huh. Mine is totally bitter. It's
Speaker 1: like great fruit bitter. Oh nice, I have a real
Speaker 1: paper taste, but I mean something completely different. We can't
Speaker 1: talk about it, Jerry, she's running away. She's always had
Speaker 1: a great taste. Is blown? I hate great fruit, super taste. Kay,
Speaker 1: spicy food, Jerry, I love spicy food, but you just
Speaker 1: like the torture of I guess I'm not sure what's happening.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's so disappointing. You've given us a lot
Speaker 1: to think about. Yeah, I feel like I'm so cheated,
Speaker 1: Like not only can I not see those like three
Speaker 1: D magic pictures, but also I can't taste these people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the worst. Okay, that's a bummer I was
Speaker 1: getting I think I was getting a slight taste of bitter. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. Well, while we're having so much fun,
Speaker 1: what do you say we play a little quiz? Sounds good?
Speaker 1: All right? So who do we have on the line today, Mango,
Speaker 1: We've got Sarah Fiddler, who's got one of the list
Speaker 1: jobs in the world. She's a flavor guru at one
Speaker 1: of my favorite ice cream companies, Ben and Jerry's. We
Speaker 1: are so excited to have you on. Welcome to part
Speaker 1: time genius, Sarah. Thank you for having me. So I'm
Speaker 1: really curious how you got this job. I mean, what
Speaker 1: sort of training and schooling do you have to have
Speaker 1: to become a Ben and Jerry's flavor guru? Um? Well, personally,
Speaker 1: I have a degree in Food science UM from the
Speaker 1: University of Vermont and a degree in baking and pastry
Speaker 1: from the Culinary Institute of America. There are a group
Speaker 1: of us flavor gurus here, and everybody's got kind of
Speaker 1: a mixed background, from chefs to food scientists, all comes
Speaker 1: from different backgrounds. It's very cool. And and how are
Speaker 1: flavors decided upon? Like, how do you guys decide? You
Speaker 1: have so many fun and creative and awesome flavors. How
Speaker 1: do you guys come up with these? Well, we start
Speaker 1: out by being very creative and kind of playing around
Speaker 1: in our test kitchens, and then we meet with our
Speaker 1: marketing team or brand management team sometimes the social mission
Speaker 1: team and figure out which of our crazy flavors makes
Speaker 1: the most sense to launch for the next season. And
Speaker 1: so how many flavors are you typically playing with? It
Speaker 1: could be arranged anywhere from maybe three to ten at
Speaker 1: a time. That's that's a pretty crazy UM. I heard
Speaker 1: that the Ven and Jerry's staff takes a field trip
Speaker 1: every year to research new flavors. Is that true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we go on what we call trend tracks. UM take
Speaker 1: a city or area that seems to be filled with
Speaker 1: really up and coming food places, sometimes cocktail places, farms,
Speaker 1: and go as a group and eat as much as
Speaker 1: we possibly can, and then come back and make ice
Speaker 1: cream inspired by what we ate. That's so cool. Well,
Speaker 1: where are some of the fun places you've trecked to? UM? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm relatively new to the company, so I have yet
Speaker 1: to go on a truck, but I've heard that they've
Speaker 1: gone to San Francisco, Portland's UM I believe there was
Speaker 1: a trip to Japan before I started. Very cool. That's
Speaker 1: so jealous of this job. That sounds pretty great. Now
Speaker 1: we also know about the flavor graveyard at Ben and Jerry.
Speaker 1: So are there are there ceremonies when flavors are buried there?
Speaker 1: And how does this work? How do you pay your
Speaker 1: respects um? I think for some of the flavors that
Speaker 1: were a little bit more love, uh, they do ceremonies
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's more of a quiet affair. You won't
Speaker 1: get into that then. So that's pretty great. All right,
Speaker 1: So ango, what game are we playing today with Sarah?
Speaker 1: It's called do Me a Flavor? Mostly because I just
Speaker 1: wanted to hear you say do me a flavor things.
Speaker 1: I really, I really appreciate that. That's a pretty terrible t.
Speaker 1: I don't know. How do we play? Basically, we're giving
Speaker 1: Sarah three popular flavors from an iconic food or drink
Speaker 1: brant and she just has to tell us what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Okay, that sounds fun. All right, Sarah? You
Speaker 1: ready to play? I'm ready? Okay. Question number one? This
Speaker 1: chip comes in cool Ranch, nacho, cheese, and heat wave flavors.
Speaker 1: So do me a flavor and tell me what product
Speaker 1: we're talking about. You Yeah, you got it for one
Speaker 1: Question number two. The most popular flavors of this candy
Speaker 1: include very cherry and buttered popcorn, though the blueberry flavor
Speaker 1: was particularly popular in the nineteen eighties when it was
Speaker 1: created for Ronald Reagan. Do me a flavor, manger A,
Speaker 1: you're gonna make me say. Do me a flavor and
Speaker 1: tell me what brand we're talking about for two question
Speaker 1: number three. This sports drink originally came in lemon, lime,
Speaker 1: and orange flavors. It has since expanded to include rainberry,
Speaker 1: glacier freeze, and cool blue. Do me a flavor and
Speaker 1: tell me what beverage I'm talking about. Yes, sorry, she's
Speaker 1: three for three. Let's see if she can get the
Speaker 1: last two question number four. While this O shaped breakfast
Speaker 1: cereal does come in flavors like fruity and frosted, the
Speaker 1: most popular varieties are still original and honey nut. Do
Speaker 1: me a flavor and tell me what breakfast cereal I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. Okay, we've saved the hardest for last. Good
Speaker 1: luck on this one. Okay, Question number five. This iconic
Speaker 1: ice cream brand has the best puny flavors, including Fish Food,
Speaker 1: American Dream, and the Tonight Dough. Do me a flavor
Speaker 1: and tell me what really wonderful ice cream company we're
Speaker 1: talking about? All right? That would have been kind of
Speaker 1: embarrassing if she missed out. Well, Sarah when an astounding
Speaker 1: five for five, which wins her the grand prize, a
Speaker 1: handwritten note from us to her mom or boss singing
Speaker 1: her praises. So, congratulations Sarah, and thank you so much
Speaker 1: for playing. That's awesome. Congratulations Sarah. Please tell all the
Speaker 1: people that Ben and Jerry's we say thank you for
Speaker 1: making wonderful ice or even keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: I guess what will? What's that mango? I'm coming to
Speaker 1: terms with the fact that I'm not a super taste
Speaker 1: al right. Well, lucky for you, we've been talking about
Speaker 1: the fact that flavor is so much more than just taste,
Speaker 1: and then we just talked about taste. But I think
Speaker 1: it's time we backed that statement up and talk about
Speaker 1: another key component of flavor, and that smell. All right,
Speaker 1: talk to me about smell. Well, if you think taste
Speaker 1: is a complicated thing, it's nothing compared to the complexity
Speaker 1: of smell. Think about the millions upon millions of smells
Speaker 1: in the world and how our noses have to make
Speaker 1: sense of them and help us identify what things are.
Speaker 1: In fact, as Holmes points out, the old faction researcher
Speaker 1: Joel Mainland estimates that they're about twenty seven billion smelling
Speaker 1: molecules in the world. And while that doesn't mean they're
Speaker 1: about billion smells because some might be identical, that's still
Speaker 1: this incredible number. Well, the other thing, Holmes explains that
Speaker 1: I find so interesting, and this goes back to your
Speaker 1: electric lollipop example, but that's how different taste and smell are.
Speaker 1: So our sense of taste is pretty easy to break down.
Speaker 1: We can enjoy a dish of sweet and sour pork
Speaker 1: and understand that it's sweet and sour, or have some
Speaker 1: catch up and know that it's sweet, sour, salty and
Speaker 1: new mommy. And maybe we're not thinking about those things actively,
Speaker 1: but those are all there and we can identify them.
Speaker 1: So but smell is different because you really can't break
Speaker 1: it down. Instead, our brains take all the information from
Speaker 1: the smelly molecules and create a single perception of smell.
Speaker 1: As Holmes writes, if you combine ethyl isobuterate which is
Speaker 1: a fruity odor ethyl maltall it's just caramel like an
Speaker 1: allyl alpha ionine, which is violet like in the proper proportions.
Speaker 1: For example, what you smell is not caramel coated fruit
Speaker 1: on a bed of violets, but pineapple. And it's made
Speaker 1: much more complicated by the fact that in English we
Speaker 1: really don't have the language to describe smells in any
Speaker 1: significant way other than seeing what they smell like. So
Speaker 1: we might say something smells fishy or like grass or whatever.
Speaker 1: But this isn't the case everywhere, and especially in places
Speaker 1: that depend much more on those smells for survival, such
Speaker 1: as the remaining hunter gatherer tribes. Take the Jehi tribe
Speaker 1: of Thailand. A research team set up a smell test
Speaker 1: between a group of Jehi men and a group of
Speaker 1: men from Texas, and when the Jehi men were presented
Speaker 1: with certain smells, they had just an easy time communicating
Speaker 1: what they smelled with very descriptive words, as they did
Speaker 1: in describing colors. And the Texans, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: were of course able to describe colors, but they struggled
Speaker 1: when asked to describe smells. When there's one more reason
Speaker 1: why smell is just so difficult for us to understand
Speaker 1: and talk about what's not alright, So humans have around
Speaker 1: four hundred odor receptors. But the part that makes things
Speaker 1: complicated is that only about half of those receptors work
Speaker 1: and pretty much everyone. But then of the other half,
Speaker 1: there's this wide range of which one's work and some
Speaker 1: p bowl and not in others. So that leads to
Speaker 1: an incredibly wide range of smells that humans are capable
Speaker 1: of processing. In fact, for the most part, no two
Speaker 1: people have the same sense of smell, which is pretty crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but needless to say, our sense of smell and makes
Speaker 1: a huge contribution to the flavors we process. And there's
Speaker 1: another biggie to add to taste and smell, and that's
Speaker 1: the sense of touch. Think about the burn of a
Speaker 1: chili pepper, or the chili feeling in your mouth when
Speaker 1: you're chewing on a menty piece of gum, or visit
Speaker 1: a carbonated drink. Oh man, that first sip of a coke?
Speaker 1: How good is this first sip of a coke? So good?
Speaker 1: I think I'll have one right now, all right to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting how little is really understood about this
Speaker 1: component of flavor at least how few studies have been
Speaker 1: done on it, but we do know that spicy hot,
Speaker 1: for example, is not a taste. It's something you feel,
Speaker 1: and that we have specific receptors that cause the heat
Speaker 1: sensation when we eat spicy things. Speaking the spicy hot.
Speaker 1: Do you know how the Scoville units, which measure or
Speaker 1: the heat of chili peppers got its start. Well, apparently
Speaker 1: it goes back to this pharmacist and researcher Wilbur Scoville.
Speaker 1: Scoville came up with a scale back in and it
Speaker 1: was a pretty smart way of doing it. You figured
Speaker 1: out that you could create a scale based on the
Speaker 1: amount of dilution required before the burn of a chili
Speaker 1: could no longer be felt, So super hot pepper would
Speaker 1: take much more dilution. Oh, that is pretty smart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now it's easier for scientists to just measure the
Speaker 1: amount of capt sasan, which is the main ingredient that
Speaker 1: makes a chili hot, and then just convert those into
Speaker 1: Scoville units. It's pretty wild how hot some peppers can be.
Speaker 1: Take halapinos, for example, which we think of is pretty hot.
Speaker 1: They come in about five thousand Scoville units. Cayans are
Speaker 1: at about forty thousand. The Habbaniro comes in it over
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand, maybe even up to three hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: But even the Habbaniro doesn't hold a candle to the
Speaker 1: Carolina Reaper. And how many Scoville units does that one have?
Speaker 1: Two point two millions and unbelievable. That's basically like police
Speaker 1: aid pepper spray. And there's a new contender out there.
Speaker 1: It's called Dragon's Breath, which is a tiny pepper that
Speaker 1: can possibly kill you, but it sounds so cute. So
Speaker 1: we have no old Brown here to test this. Why
Speaker 1: would you even make a pepper that hot. Well, it's
Speaker 1: so unbelievably hot that can actually numb your skin to touch,
Speaker 1: and that makes it useful as an anesthetic in areas
Speaker 1: without medical supplies. But let's leave the hottest of the
Speaker 1: hot peppers aside for a minute. It's interesting that we
Speaker 1: humans enjoy inflicting this burning pain on ourselves and we
Speaker 1: don't know exactly why this is. I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: we know about the endorphin release that happens when we
Speaker 1: eat spicy foods, but that still doesn't answer the question
Speaker 1: of why that happens. You know, first we feast does
Speaker 1: that chili head enthusiast show. And I was reading an
Speaker 1: interview that said it's much easier to get people to
Speaker 1: drop their inhibitions when they eat a chili pepper because
Speaker 1: they're like sweating and it's like they've just exercised. So
Speaker 1: instead of those awkward questions you go through in the
Speaker 1: beginning of an interview, people just get past that by
Speaker 1: eating chilies. Anyway, we know humans like heat, but researchers
Speaker 1: have yet to identify another mammal that seeks the heat
Speaker 1: of chili peppers. I mean, birds eat plenty of them,
Speaker 1: but they don't actually have the receptors that would feel
Speaker 1: the heat of kept sastion, so there's no sensation at
Speaker 1: all for them even in eating a super hot pepper.
Speaker 1: I wonder if birds enjoy the first sip of a coke.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Alright, while we savor our beverages, why don't
Speaker 1: we take a break for a quiz. Our guest today
Speaker 1: has been a science writer and correspondent for New Scientist
Speaker 1: magazine for over twenty years, and as the author of Flavor,
Speaker 1: the brilliant book we've been talking about in this episode,
Speaker 1: and for those who listen to our episode on how
Speaker 1: Clean We Should Be. You know, I'm not surprised that
Speaker 1: a new scientist writer would produce such a great book.
Speaker 1: Bob Holmes, Welcome to Part Time Genius. Thanks for having me,
Speaker 1: Bob and Flavor. You mentioned that we can pretty much
Speaker 1: do away with the idea that we have previously had
Speaker 1: about taste maps, where different parts of our tongues helped
Speaker 1: us experience different taste. So our taste maps really not
Speaker 1: a thing we should think about anymore. They really aren't,
Speaker 1: And it's it's pretty easy to demonstrate that. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is take a que tip and dip
Speaker 1: it in salt water and brush it around your tongue.
Speaker 1: You know, the taste map says that he tastes salty.
Speaker 1: I think it's right at the tip of your tongue,
Speaker 1: and you'll find that you can taste the salt anywhere.
Speaker 1: So how did this come about? I'm not sure. It
Speaker 1: turns out there are slight differences in different parts of
Speaker 1: the tongue, and you've got a few more bitter taste
Speaker 1: buds right at the back and a few more sweets
Speaker 1: at the front. Things like that. But it's it's not
Speaker 1: enough to make much of a difference at all. You
Speaker 1: also write the possibility of a sixth taste or even
Speaker 1: more than that, and could you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that? Sure, Yeah, I mean it's almost certainly at
Speaker 1: least like the taste and made quite a few more. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we all know about sweet, salty, sower, bitter,
Speaker 1: and most of us know about mommy, which is a
Speaker 1: fifth taste that's sort of safe retaste. But almost certainly.
Speaker 1: I think the evidence is really good now that there
Speaker 1: is in fact a taste for for fat, or more specifically,
Speaker 1: for the fatty acid breakdown products of fat. And these
Speaker 1: are actually the nasties. The researcher who demonstrated this is
Speaker 1: the easiest way to think about what they taste like
Speaker 1: is to imagine old ransoid French fry oil. It's gone off,
Speaker 1: and that's what fatty acids taste like. Yeah, I definitely
Speaker 1: know that, almost certainly one of those warning tastes to
Speaker 1: keep us away from rancid fats. And is there anything
Speaker 1: good that can be done with it? A little bit
Speaker 1: of these nasty fatty acids are part of what makes
Speaker 1: aged cheese interesting. So yeah, and probably also a little
Speaker 1: bit in aged meat and things like that, So in
Speaker 1: very small quantities, you know, just like putting a little
Speaker 1: bit of cappy, I persume actually is a good thing.
Speaker 1: You know, these nasties in our food probably do add
Speaker 1: interest if there's little enough of them. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the other things that you explained that I thought
Speaker 1: was was super interesting is that humans get a bad
Speaker 1: rap for having an inferior sense of smell. So is
Speaker 1: this really a myth? We have fewer odor receptors in
Speaker 1: our nose than something like a dog does, so they
Speaker 1: probably are better than us, but not nearly as much
Speaker 1: better than us as we think. Uh. When people have looked,
Speaker 1: they found that that humans are actually pretty good at
Speaker 1: smelling stuff. But a blindfolded person can follow a chocolate
Speaker 1: trail across the lawn on their hands and he's sniffing
Speaker 1: to find where the chocolate was ding. Uh. So you know,
Speaker 1: most of the reason that we think we're so bad
Speaker 1: at smell is that our noses are way up in
Speaker 1: the air and all the smells are done there on
Speaker 1: the ground. So if we were too, if we were
Speaker 1: to explore our worlds just like our dogs do, we
Speaker 1: find there were stuff there we could smell. People can
Speaker 1: go into a into a into a bookshelf and pick
Speaker 1: out which book someone has just handled by the smell alone.
Speaker 1: And the other place we're really good at smell actually
Speaker 1: is in flavor. You know, the shape of our heads
Speaker 1: mean that the flavors foods that are inside our mouth
Speaker 1: has very quick access to to the olfactory part of
Speaker 1: the nose, and so we're probably way better than our
Speaker 1: dogs are at appreciating flavor. M that's really interesting, that's
Speaker 1: so crazy. I mean, I feel like that totally changes
Speaker 1: the truffle game, like the truffle hunting game, Like you
Speaker 1: don't need a pig if you're on all four four
Speaker 1: that's probably right, But some people don't smell the key
Speaker 1: compounded truffles. Yeah, I'd probably do it for the right
Speaker 1: bar of chocolate. Yeah, alright, Well, being an expert on flavor,
Speaker 1: we couldn't let you go without putting you to the
Speaker 1: test on an ultimate flavor quiz. So, Mango, what what
Speaker 1: game do we have? What game do we have Bob playing? Today?
Speaker 1: We're playing a game called Vintage Recipe or gourmet cat
Speaker 1: food Flavor. That's right, So we'll be tossing you a
Speaker 1: delicious sounding item delicious is in air quotes, which doesn't
Speaker 1: work quite as well on podcasts. But you have to
Speaker 1: tell us if it's a vintage recipe we found online
Speaker 1: or a gourmet cat food flavor. So you're ready to
Speaker 1: get started, all right. So the first one is ham
Speaker 1: and bananas hollandaise, Ham and bananas hollandaise. Is this a
Speaker 1: vintage recipe we found online or a gourmet cat food flavor?
Speaker 1: I'm going to go vintage recite. Yeah, you would be right.
Speaker 1: It's a great way to make use of your leftover
Speaker 1: bananas and ham apparently. All right, Okay. Number two sea
Speaker 1: beast in seas consume a I'm gonna got for that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. It's from Tiki Cats Hawaiian Queen Emma lul Line,
Speaker 1: of course. Alright. Question number three liver sausage pineapple. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine the cat eating pineapples. I'm gonna go with
Speaker 1: intoe recipe three for three. I really probably would have
Speaker 1: guessed cat food on that though, just because the word
Speaker 1: liver would have thrown me off. I think. Alright. Number
Speaker 1: four lime cheese salad recipe is correct. Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: it's a um it was a recipe from Jello and
Speaker 1: and uh it's a Jello bed with a seafood salad
Speaker 1: plopped on top. I think I've got that Midwestern church. Alright,
Speaker 1: we've got two lefties. Four for four so far. Here
Speaker 1: we go. Ocean fish, tuna and cheese sauce. That sounds
Speaker 1: like it will appeal to a cat. And you're right,
Speaker 1: it is a gort. I can't believe there's cheese sauce.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's from the Teeth Treasurers line. Right, fancy
Speaker 1: cat food. All right, let's see if you can get
Speaker 1: six for six spam in Lima's Spam and Lima's hip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a promotional recipe from hormel Um and it
Speaker 1: had a Spanish gravy and frozen line of beans. That
Speaker 1: is incredible. So, Bob, how has Bob done? He ran
Speaker 1: the table. He went an incredible six for six, which
Speaker 1: wins him today's grand prize, which is our endless admiration. Wow,
Speaker 1: congratulations Bob. That is huge. Yeah, well, Bob, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for writing a terrific book and for for joining
Speaker 1: us today on part time genius. Guess what I've got
Speaker 1: my pocket here? Mango? That sounds so creepy. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: should have I probably should have phrased that a little differently.
Speaker 1: But guess what I have in my pocket here that
Speaker 1: rhymes with schmock blocks. That sounds even creepy here, But
Speaker 1: you've got pop rocks, right. I know we've talked about taste, smell,
Speaker 1: and touch, and that those are considered the flavor trinity,
Speaker 1: but we can't leave out sound or other multisensory effects
Speaker 1: on how we experience flavor. Well, you're gonna crack open
Speaker 1: those bad boys are not? All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: They are so good. Pop rocks reminded me of that.
Speaker 1: You know that part in um the Eddieizard routine where
Speaker 1: he's talking about chiropractors and how they live for the noise,
Speaker 1: and that chiropracticing or what do you call it, chiropractic
Speaker 1: cracking bones would be nothing if they didn't hear the sounds,
Speaker 1: or just like I live for the noise, I crack
Speaker 1: your bones anyway. All right? You remember how our friend
Speaker 1: and former Mental Flaws editor O the pop rocks are
Speaker 1: still just popping like crazy. I don't think I've had
Speaker 1: one of these since I was ten. I need more. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you remember our friend and former Mental Flaws editor
Speaker 1: Jesson Collins used to talk about chip o'clock in the office. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for your listeners. There was a period in the mid
Speaker 1: afternoon when the editorial staff and Mental Flaws used to
Speaker 1: all go out for their afternoon snack and grab a
Speaker 1: bag of chips. It made her crazy. Well, while that
Speaker 1: sound may be difficult for the person not eating the
Speaker 1: chips to listen to, for the people eating chips, that
Speaker 1: sound likely increase their enjoyment. So papers have shown that
Speaker 1: people rate chips his taste here if they provide a
Speaker 1: louder crunch. There was even a study by Charles Spence
Speaker 1: and Max m peeny that had people eat a hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty pringles. I'm so envious that people got to
Speaker 1: eat pringles for Scion. I mean, we did get to
Speaker 1: have pop rocks coke and we got to watch Jerry
Speaker 1: have that bitter taste. So, but as they did this,
Speaker 1: they wore headphones that played back the sound of their crunch.
Speaker 1: So as they work their way through the chips, the
Speaker 1: researchers adjusted the volume level of the crunch feedback, and
Speaker 1: they found that the louder crunching made them rate the
Speaker 1: chips fifteen percent tastier than the softer crunching. I still
Speaker 1: can't believe they got to eat sprinkles for signing. I
Speaker 1: know the sound of an expensive coffee maker has been
Speaker 1: showed to increase how people rated a cup of Joe,
Speaker 1: But I also loved the study where Spence had a
Speaker 1: group of subjects eat oysters while listening to different sounds.
Speaker 1: Some of them heard the sounds of waves and seagulls,
Speaker 1: and some of them heard sounds from barnyards like chickens
Speaker 1: clucking and cow's moving. And not only did those who
Speaker 1: heard the c sounds rate the oysters taste here, they
Speaker 1: also experienced them as saltier. I love this stuff because
Speaker 1: it kind of feels like food trickery. But I guess
Speaker 1: as we understand that all our senses are involved in
Speaker 1: how we experience flavor, it's really no more trickery than
Speaker 1: anything else we do to enhance flavor. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about some of the other multi sensory effects on flavor.
Speaker 1: I love that music can affect how we experienced flavor,
Speaker 1: like homes notes that really powerful music like Carl Orff's
Speaker 1: Carmina Burana causes people to note the heavier flavors in
Speaker 1: a red wine and what he describes as zingi music
Speaker 1: actually brings out the brighter flavors and a white wine.
Speaker 1: And with that in mind, I'd like to recommend after
Speaker 1: the show we all listen to Hall and Notes and
Speaker 1: need a bag of rollos. I bet that can only
Speaker 1: make the experience of both better. And then we'll eat
Speaker 1: one of those Reese's fast break bars and listen to
Speaker 1: Ayah the Tiger. Yeah, it's science and action. Folks will
Speaker 1: will report back. But there's some other fun and funny
Speaker 1: results of experiments, Like there was this Goldilocks style experiments
Speaker 1: using three bowls of yogurt. The yogurt was the same
Speaker 1: in all three bowls, but the bowls weighed different amount
Speaker 1: and how many bears were involved this is is zero.
Speaker 1: It wasn't published in our bear reviewed medical journals, but
Speaker 1: people did note that they enjoyed the yogurt in the
Speaker 1: heaviest bowl, most like why should weight of a bowl
Speaker 1: infect your enjoyment? And strawberry moose served on a white
Speaker 1: plate was rated sweeter than the same dessert served on
Speaker 1: a black plate. One of my favorite studies was the
Speaker 1: one on hockey fans at Cornell and researchers found that
Speaker 1: when the home team won, fans actually found the ice
Speaker 1: cream to be sweeter, and when they lost, they knowed
Speaker 1: it as more sour. How weird, that's almost as science,
Speaker 1: he is. Okay, So if all these senses contribute to flavor,
Speaker 1: why do we only associate flavor with the stuff happening
Speaker 1: in our mouths. Well, that's the work of our brains.
Speaker 1: It takes all that information smell, taste, texture, sound and
Speaker 1: combines it into one experience, and then it tells us
Speaker 1: that experience is happening in our mouths. So it's a side,
Speaker 1: don't Many food scientists now say that while foods obviously
Speaker 1: contain flavor molecules, they believe the actual flavors themselves aren't
Speaker 1: created by the food, but instead by our brains, which
Speaker 1: I guess would be a big part of the reason
Speaker 1: why we all experienced flavor differently. That's just weird, Yes
Speaker 1: it is. But we are not done with our weird
Speaker 1: facts for the day. You know what time it is.
Speaker 1: It's time for the part time Genius fact on the
Speaker 1: part of the show where we share some of the
Speaker 1: interesting facts we learned recently but didn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to mention just yet, So well, why don't you start
Speaker 1: this round? All right? Sure? So, if you read airline magazines,
Speaker 1: you often see that famous chefs pair up with airlines
Speaker 1: to improve the end flight meals, but the odds are
Speaker 1: stacked against them. According to a study commissioned by the
Speaker 1: German airline carrier Lutanza, between the elevation and the dryness
Speaker 1: that occurs in the cabin, your sensitivity to sweet and
Speaker 1: salty foods decreases by about thirty which means the meal
Speaker 1: probably tastes a whole lot better if you save it
Speaker 1: for after you land. Do you know peanut butter and
Speaker 1: mayo sandwiches used to be a popular thing like According
Speaker 1: to Garden and Gun magazine, the sandwiches were a staple
Speaker 1: during the depression and could be fancied up by adding
Speaker 1: a few leaves of lettuce and some pickles. And so.
Speaker 1: The editors at Food fifty two this other site also
Speaker 1: tried the sandwich on reader recommendation, and their verdict was,
Speaker 1: if you wear a blindfold when you take a bite,
Speaker 1: it almost tastes like a tuna sandwich. All right, why
Speaker 1: don't we just name a few odd recipes we've found
Speaker 1: since we both looked them up. The Betty Crocker recommended
Speaker 1: a tuna and jello pie, also known as a summer
Speaker 1: pie devoid. The winter sales slump. Dr Pepper wren as
Speaker 1: that you should heat the soda in a saucepan and
Speaker 1: then poured over a lemon gross, which is why nothing
Speaker 1: reminds me of Christmas more than a steaming mug of
Speaker 1: Dr Pepper. Did you know that Johnny Walker makes a
Speaker 1: mustache wax that enhances their drinks. The wax comes in
Speaker 1: three flavors, pepper, citrus, and ginger, and it helps to
Speaker 1: apply a generous amount to your stash. So I know
Speaker 1: we talked about eating and texture today, but I learned
Speaker 1: this isn't a completely new concept. In the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: the Italian futurists played with food and texture in a
Speaker 1: completely different way. Diners were clothed and textured pajamas, which
Speaker 1: they stroked with one hand in a dark room while
Speaker 1: burying their face in bank and when they looked up
Speaker 1: for their plates a waiter, it splits them with perfume.
Speaker 1: For some reason, the movement didn't take off. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine why. Yeah, futurists hated pasta, and they like to
Speaker 1: sculpt their meats. And there was also one course where
Speaker 1: you ate salad out of a tiny box with one
Speaker 1: hand and turned a crank with the other. As long
Speaker 1: as you were turning the crank, your waiter would dance
Speaker 1: for you. Call that is so good. I have to
Speaker 1: give you this one, so you earned this week's fact off.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, we need to nominate a smarty pants
Speaker 1: to our Hall of Genius. I'm thinking we should give
Speaker 1: it to William Mitchell's family. Mitchell was a food inventor
Speaker 1: who grew up on a farm, worked his way through college,
Speaker 1: and then went on to invent cool whip, powdered egg
Speaker 1: whites for cake mix, quick set jello tang and that's
Speaker 1: so many amazing things and what and pop rocks. Apparently
Speaker 1: the candy was supposed to be a carbonated drink mix,
Speaker 1: but it worked better as a crazy kids treat. He's
Speaker 1: in William Mitchell's family. You'll be getting a certificate in
Speaker 1: the mail and special thanks to our brilliant nonfiction librarians
Speaker 1: over at the Hoover Public Library and Hoover, Alabama for
Speaker 1: recommending the book Flavored by Bob Holmes. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard, be sure to pick up a coffee today.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening to Part Time Genius. Be sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your podcast. And because we're a
Speaker 1: brand new show, if you're feeling extra generous, we'd love
Speaker 1: it if you give us a rating on Apple Podcast.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is produced by some of our favorite geniuses.
Speaker 1: It's edited by Tristan McNeil, theme song and audio mixing
Speaker 1: by Noel Brown. Our executive producer is Jerry Rowland. Our
Speaker 1: research team is Gave Lozier, Lucas Adams, Autumn Whitefield in
Speaker 1: the Toronto Austin Thompson, and Meg Robbins. Jason Hope is
Speaker 1: our chief cheerleader.