All in the best possible taste, an Ig Nobel approach to food
Event review: Len Fisher provides some entertaining food for thought
 On 15 May 2008, the Cambridge
and Great Eastern Regional Group
held an interesting and highly
entertaining lecture on the Science
of Food and Flavour. Speaker Dr Len
Fisher from the University of
Bristol (pictured, with apple) is one of very few scientists
to have won an ‘Ig Nobel prize’
for work that could or should
never be repeated. Dr Fisher won
his prize for work done on the
science behind dunking a biscuit.
He is also credited with inventing
flammable jelly and with deducing
the optimum width of cheese
in a sandwich.
| Other experiments that
you could try at home include
eating dark chocolate followed
by tonic water, and then eating
more chocolate |
The audience was treated to a
selection of food stuffs to taste
throughout the lecture. Examples
included Polo mints – have you
ever wondered why cold water
tastes cooler after eating a mint?
Or why red wine tastes smoother
if you eat something salty before
drinking it? The answers to these
and other questions were presented
to the enthralled audience.
Other experiments that
you could try at home include
eating dark chocolate followed
by tonic water and then eating
more chocolate. The theory
goes that the bitter receptacles
in your mouth become overloaded
after the tonic water,
rendering the overarching bitter
taste in dark chocolate defunct.
This means that all that
is sensed is the texture of the
chocolate; an oddly unpleasant
experience, not dissimilar to
eating a candle!
Aside from the practical elements
of the lecture, Dr Fisher
presented some very interesting
facts about food science. He believes
that in food science we
are somewhere between Galileo
and Newton in our understanding.
Very little is known as to
why things taste as they do and
why certain things affect our
taste and smell. Aside from pH
level, flavour intensity, and
food quantity, the brain can
also affect taste, he observed.
| If you chew gum for long enough, the flavour appears to fade. In fact, the brain just stops detecting
it |
If you chew gum for long
enough, the flavour appears to
fade. Scientists at the University
of Nottingham attached a gas
chromatography-mass spectrometry
machine to monitor
an individual’s exhaling breath.
The detected compounds from
this experiment suggested that
even after the individual felt
the flavour had dissipated, the
level of flavour given out from
the gum remained the same.
This indicated that the gum
had not actually lost flavour,
the brain had just stopped detecting
it. Oddly, the flavour
can be restored through drinking
a glass of sugary water.
In a packed lecture theatre,
this talk captivated the audience
with truly fascinating information,
interspersed with
humour and hands-on science.
David Cosway, SCI Membership
Communications on behalf of
SCI Cambridge and Great Eastern
Regional Group
|
