Arielle Johnson (Harvest)
WHAT makes roasted meats taste so good? In the 19th century, scientists thought the answer was a mysterious substance known as osmazome, found in the flesh and blood of animals. The influential theorist Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin described osmazome as 鈥渢he most meritorious ingredient of all good soups鈥�.
The science of flavour has come a long way. There can be few people better placed to bring us up to speed in 2024 than Arielle Johnson, a flavour scientist who has worked at the celebrated restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark, and advised top chefs on how to make things delicious. Her book Flavorama: A guide to unlocking the art and science of flavor is a comprehensive guide 鈥� from how our senses of taste and smell work to the techniques chefs use to create, transform, extract and concentrate flavours.
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So, were Brillat-Savarin and his contemporaries onto something with osmazome? They might have been talking about glutamate, a constituent of proteins, identified in 1908 as the trigger for the savoury taste we call umami. But despite the association with 鈥渕eatiness鈥�, most meats have surprisingly little free glutamate, says Johnson, unless they are cured or dry-aged. These processes allow protease enzymes to break down meat proteins over time, leading to the intense umami flavour of meats such as prosciutto. Bacterial enzymes similarly help generate the high levels of glutamate in aged cheeses such as parmesan and roquefort.
What meats do contain in spades are ribonucleotides, another kind of molecule that binds to the umami receptor in a different place to glutamate. When glutamate and ribonucleotides occur together, they have a synergistic effect, creating a much stronger umami sensation than either does alone.
Of course, a large part of the delicious flavour of cooked meat comes from reactions that occur during cooking, notably the Maillard reaction, described by Louis Camille Maillard in 1912. This can occur in any food containing sugars and amino acids, says Johnson, especially at temperatures over 120掳C (250掳F), and its flavoursome products may also have inspired the concept of osmazome.
Like Elizabeth Zott, the fictional chemist in the novel and TV series Lessons in Chemistry, Johnson wants us to become better cooks by understanding the science. But this will only get us so far, she writes. To cook creatively, we need to notice and name what we can taste and smell. Johnson can help here, too: she trains people to be analytical tasters for research studies, and the book explains how to improve your skills. 鈥淧alate is 99 per cent paying attention plus practice,鈥� she writes.
While our sense of taste responds to five particularly important kinds of chemical in food, we have 400 types of smell receptor that enable us to recognise perhaps as many as a trillion aromas. Johnson shows us how to navigate the vast world of flavour possibilities by thinking of them in groups, such as fruity, herbal, vegetal, spiced and meaty.
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Her passion and personality shine through in her writing (and her illustrations), not least in some elaborate metaphors. 鈥淭astes are the foundation and primary structural elements of a stone building like a cathedral,鈥� she writes, while 鈥渟mells are the stained glass 鈥� detailed, complex, varied, even narrative.鈥� Elsewhere, we learn why terpenes, a family of aroma molecules in herbs and spices, are like the films of Werner Herzog 鈥� but no spoilers here.
Johnson also gives us dozens of recipes. Many are simple but revelatory, like coffee-infused rum or smoke-infused oil made with lapsang souchong tea. Others are ambitious: try the vinegar, cr猫me fraiche and pumpkin seed miso. Whatever your skill level, Flavorama will help you raise your game.
