How Flavor Works

Other Resources

Books on Flavor Perception

• The Physiology of Taste OR Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
• Neurogastronomy by Gordon Shepherd
• Flavor by Bob Holmes
• Gulp by Mary Roach

Notable Studies Referenced in this Discussion

• Conditioned Flavor Aversion (Israeli Study)
• Paul Rozin’s Work on Benign Masochism and Different Cultural Attitudes Toward Food
• Cross Modal Correspondences between Visual Shapes and Tastes
• The Study that Fooled a Bunch of French Wine Experts
• Human Scent Tracking Studies

Flavor/Smell Training Resources

• Nez du Vin
• Scratch & Sniff Whiskey Book
• Flavor Wheels!

Some Vocab Terms We Drop in this Episode

• Olfaction/Olfactory – Refers to the human sense of smell and how our noses and our brains work together to process odors and flavors in the environment.
• Sensory Modality – A fancy way of referring to any one of the five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing).
• Retronasal – The smell perception pathway that begins at the back of the mouth and carries smell molecules activated by chewing up the back of the throat to the smell receptors deep in the nose.
• Orthonasal – The smell perception pathway that starts at the nostrils and moves airborne smell molecules up through the nose to the smell receptors.
• The Proust Effect – A situation in which a smell or a flavor can activate a strong autobiographical memory in the person who perceives it. This effect was famously described by the French author Marcel Proust, who wrote of such a memory being triggered by the smell of baking madeleine pastries.
• Flavor Aversions – Individual negative reactions we have to certain flavors, often triggered by a particularly bad (or “aversive”) experience in which that flavor was associated with severe discomfort or pain. These aversions can by non-rational and last a lifetime.
• Benign Masochism – The idea that we like certain painful experiences (like bitter or spicy tastes), but only when we know that we can engage in them without serious or permanent harm.
• Cross-Modal Correspondences – When perceptual tendencies from one modality, like vision, affect our perception of characteristics in another modality, like flavor. (e.g. when the color of a beverage affects our flavor perception of that beverage).
• Cassis – A French term for “Blackcurrant,” which is a tart, flavorful berry.