A journey into the surprising science behind our flavor senses. Can you describe how the flavor of halibut differs from that of red snapper? How the taste of a Fuji apple differs from a Spartan? For most of us, this is a difficult task: flavor remains a vague, undeveloped concept that we don’t know enough about to describe—or appreciate—fully. In this delightful and compelling exploration of our most neglected sense, veteran science reporter Bob Holmes shows us just how much we’re missing. Considering every angle of flavor from our neurobiology to the science and practice of modern food production, Holmes takes readers on a journey to uncover the broad range of factors that can affect our appreciation of a fine meal or an exceptional glass of wine. He peers over the shoulders of some of the most fascinating food professionals working today, from cutting-edge chefs to food engineers to mathematicians investigating the perfect combination of pizza toppings. He talks with flavor and olfactory scientists, who describe why two people can experience remarkably different sensations from the same morsel of food, and how something as seemingly unrelated as cultural heritage can actually impact our sense of smell. Along the way, even more surprising facts are revealed: that cake tastes sweetest on white plates; that wine experts’ eyes can fool their noses; and even that language can affect our sense of taste. Flavor expands our curiosity and understanding of one of our most intimate sensations, while ultimately revealing how we can all sharpen our senses and our enjoyment of the things we taste. Certain to fascinate everyone from gourmands and scientists to home cooks and their guests, Flavor will open your mind—and palette—to a vast, exciting sensory world.

“Part travelogue and part culinary adventure . . . a quirky, entertaining ramble through the many ways wood lends its flavor to food” (Bob Holmes, author of Flavor). Most people don’t expect wood to flavor their food beyond the barbecue, and gastronomists rarely discuss the significance of wood in the realm of taste. But trees have a far greater influence over our plate and palate than you might think. Over the centuries, it has been used in cooking, distilling, fermenting, and even perfume creation to produce a unique flavor and smell. In The Flavor of Wood, food communications expert Artur Cisar-Erlach embarks on a global journey to understand how trees infuse the world’s most delectable dishes through their smoke, sap, roots, and bark. His exploration covers everything from wooden barrels used to age scotch in Austria to the wood-burning pizza ovens of Naples to Canadian maple syrup producers—as well as cheese, tea, wine, blue yogurt, and more. Brimming with fascinating characters, unexpected turns, beautiful landscapes, scientific discoveries, and historic connections, The Flavor of Wood is the story of a passionate flavor hunter, and offers readers unparalleled access to some of the world’s highest quality cuisine and unknown tree flavors.

Multisensory Flavor Perception: From Fundamental Neuroscience Through to the Marketplace provides state-of-the-art coverage of the latest insights from the rapidly-expanding world of multisensory flavor research. The book highlights the various types of crossmodal interactions, such as sound and taste, and vision and taste, showing their impact on sensory and hedonic perception, along with their consumption in the context of food and drink. The chapters in this edited volume review the existing literature, also explaining the underlying neural and psychological mechanisms which lead to crossmodal perception of flavor. The book brings together research which has not been presented before, making it the first book in the market to cover the literature of multisensory flavor perception by incorporating the latest in psychophysics and neuroscience. - Authored by top academics and world leaders in the field - Takes readers on a journey from the neurological underpinnings of multisensory flavor perception, then presenting insights that can be used by food companies to create better flavor sensations for consumers - Offers a wide perspective on multisensory flavor perception, an area of rapidly expanding knowledge

Leading neuroscientist Gordon M. Shepherd embarks on a paradigm-shifting trip through the "human brain flavor system," laying the foundations for a new scientific field: neurogastronomy. Challenging the belief that the sense of smell diminished during human evolution, Shepherd argues that this sense, which constitutes the main component of flavor, is far more powerful and essential than previously believed. Shepherd begins Neurogastronomy with the mechanics of smell, particularly the way it stimulates the nose from the back of the mouth. As we eat, the brain conceptualizes smells as spatial patterns, and from these and the other senses it constructs the perception of flavor. Shepherd then considers the impact of the flavor system on contemporary social, behavioral, and medical issues. He analyzes flavor's engagement with the brain regions that control emotion, food preferences, and cravings, and he even devotes a section to food's role in drug addiction and, building on Marcel Proust's iconic tale of the madeleine, its ability to evoke deep memories. Shepherd connects his research to trends in nutrition, dieting, and obesity, especially the challenges that many face in eating healthily. He concludes with human perceptions of smell and flavor and their relationship to the neural basis of consciousness. Everyone from casual diners and ardent foodies to wine critics, chefs, scholars, and researchers will delight in Shepherd's fascinating, scientific-gastronomic adventures.

An NRC Handelsblad Book of the Year “Offers rich discussions of olfactory perception, the conscious and subconscious impacts of smell on behavior and emotion.” —Science Decades of cognition research have shown that external stimuli “spark” neural patterns in particular regions of the brain. We think of the brain as a space we can map: here it responds to faces, there it perceives a sensation. But the sense of smell—only recently attracting broader attention in neuroscience—doesn’t work this way. So what does the nose tell the brain, and how does the brain understand it? A. S. Barwich turned to experts in neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, and perfumery in an effort to understand the mechanics and meaning of odors. She discovered that scents are often fickle, and do not line up with well-defined neural regions. Upending existing theories of perception, Smellosophy offers a new model for understanding how the brain senses and processes odors. “A beguiling analysis of olfactory experience that is fast becoming a core reference work in the field.” —Irish Times “Lively, authoritative...Aims to rehabilitate smell’s neglected and marginalized status.” —Wall Street Journal “This is a special book...It teaches readers a lot about olfaction. It teaches us even more about what philosophy can be.” —Times Literary Supplement

As seen in Food52, Los Angeles Times, and Bloomberg Two masters of composition—a chef and a perfumer—present a revolutionary new approach to creating delicious food. Michelin two-star chef Daniel Patterson and celebrated natural perfumer Mandy Aftel are experts at orchestrating ingredients. Yet even in a world awash in cooking shows and food blogs, they noticed, home cooks get little guidance in the art of flavor. In this trailblazing guide, they share the secrets to making the most of your ingredients via an indispensable set of tools and principles: • The Four Rules for creating flavor • A Flavor Compass that points the way to transformative combinations • The flavor-heightening effects of cooking methods • “Locking,” “burying,” and other aspects of cooking alchemy • The Seven Dials that let you fine-tune a dish With more than eighty recipes that demonstrate each concept and put it into practice, The Art of Flavor is food for the imagination that will help cooks at any level to become flavor virtuosos.

“A rich, engrossing, and deeply intelligent story….This is a book I won’t soon forget.” —Molly Wizenberg, bestselling author of A Homemade Life “Fresh, smart, and consistently surprising. If this beautifully written book were a smell, it would be a crisp green apple.” —Claire Dederer, bestselling author of Poser Season to Taste is an aspiring chef’s moving account of finding her way—in the kitchen and beyond—after a tragic accident destroys her sense of smell. Molly Birnbaum’s remarkable story—written with the good cheer and great charm of popular food writers Laurie Colwin and Ruth Reichl—is destined to stand alongside Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia as a classic tale of a cooking life. Season to Taste is sad, funny, joyous, and inspiring.

From a simple matcha latte, to ice cream, infused salt, smoothie bowls, tea loaves and homemade beauty recipes, The Matcha Cookbook explores the history, health benefits and 50 delicious recipes using this super healthy ingredient. As an ingredient, matcha is growing in popularity with health foodies and wellness seekers, with over 2.7 million posts on Instagram. Research shows that matcha can reduce the risk of cancer, improve heart health, aid recovery from exercise and help prevent ageing; the traditional matcha tea alone contains the nutritional equivalent of 10 cups of regular green tea, with 137 times more antioxidants, acting as the body's defence agents. Recipes include: Creamed corn & egg on sourdough Matcha bliss balls Summer rolls with matcha dipping sauce Seared rib eye steak with matcha dressed greens Matcha lemon posset

At the tips of our forks and on our dinner plates, a buffet of botanical dalliance awaits us. Sex and food are intimately intertwined, and this relationship is nowhere more evident than among the plants that sustain us. From lascivious legumes to horny hot peppers, most of humanity’s calories and other nutrition come from seeds and fruits—the products of sex—or from flowers, the organs that make plant sex possible. Sex has also played an arm’s-length role in delivering plant food to our stomachs, as human handmade evolution (plant breeding, or artificial selection) has turned wild species into domesticated staples. In Sex on the Kitchen Table, Norman C. Ellstrand takes us on a vegetable-laced tour of this entire sexual adventure. Starting with the love apple (otherwise known as the tomato) as a platform for understanding the kaleidoscopic ways that plants can engage in sex, successive chapters explore the sex lives of a range of food crops, including bananas, avocados, and beets, finally ending with genetically engineered squash—a controversial, virus-resistant vegetable created by a process that involves the most ancient form of sex. Peppered throughout are original illustrations and delicious recipes, from sweet and savory tomato pudding to banana puffed pancakes, avocado toast (of course), and both transgenic and non-GMO tacos. An eye-opening medley of serious science, culinary delights, and humor, Sex on the Kitchen Table offers new insight into fornicating flowers, salacious squash, and what we owe to them. So as we sit down to dine and ready for that first bite, let us say a special grace for our vegetal vittles: let’s thank sex for getting them to our kitchen table.

In November 2005, Bonnie Blodgett was whacked with a nasty cold. After a quick shot of a popular nasal spray up each nostril, the back of her nose was on fire. With that, Blodgett—a professional garden writer devoted to the sensual pleasures of garden and kitchen—was launched on a journey through the senses, the psyche, and the sciences. Her olfactory nerve was destroyed, perhaps forever. She had lost her sense of smell. Phantosmia—a constant stench of “every disgusting thing you can think of tossed into a blender and pureed”—is the first disorienting stage. It’s the brain’s attempt, as Blodgett vividly conveys, to compensate for loss by conjuring up a tortured facsimile. As the hallucinations fade and anosmia (no smell at all) moves in to take their place, Blodgett is beset by questions: Why are smell and mood hand-in-hand? How are smell disorders linked to other diseases? What is taste without flavor? Blodgett’s provocative conversations with renowned geneticists, smell dysfunction experts, neurobiologists, chefs, and others ultimately lead to a life-altering understanding of smell, and to the most transformative lesson of all: the olfactory nerve, in ways unlike any other in the human body has the extraordinary power to heal.