Week 11: Spicy, Piquant, and Pungent Foods: Biocultural Perspective Flashcards
What influences what we eat?
How is eating a social activity?
How is sense of taste developed?
Children have no preconceived notions of food and look at toddlers they stick everything in their mouths. But when about 3-6 years of age they start to reject certain foods or flavour they have not be exposed to. By around age of 7 they experience food neophobia - fear of new foods (or flavours)
How do children learn about the food flavours of their family and culture?
Even before they are born they know about the flavours and foods they will be exposed to. Amniotic fluid in placenta carries both the aromas and the flavours of foods consumed by their mother - fetus swallows amniotic fluid so has appreciation for food mother consumes. If baby is breastfed they continue to have awareness of flavour and aroma of mothers diet. What a women consumes can flavour breast milk and give it smell.
Can we overcome innate taste aversions?
Young children prefer sweetness. Infants and children tend to reject foods that are bitter which serves purpose biologically because plant alkaloids which are toxins are bitter so maybe in past in prevented humans from eating those plants. But not all bitter tasting food are bad - unsweetened chocolate, coffee - through exposure to taste children learn to like foods they would have rejected when young. Children will start to enjoy taste of highly pungent hot foods
Cilantro terminology
Why does cilantro and coriander taste different
Where is cilantro used most often?
What gives the soapy taste in cilantro for some people?
Aldehydes give the soapy smell/ taste - some people have highly sensitive olfactory receptors
Chilli peppers
- Introduced as part of the Colombian exchange - taken up and embraced. Sensation is unpleasant unless familiar yet culture who didn’t have previously started incorporating it like crazy
What does capsaicin inhibit?
Capsicum inhibits growth of bacteria and fungus so when brought over they were readily adopted into tropical areas
Grow better in hot countries as well
spicy
essentially anything that gives flavour
Piquant
Gives sharp flavour but no oral burning of mouth
Pungent
burning sensation in nose and mouth which can be unpleasant
Chemesthetic sensation of heat
when capsaicin binds to receptors it essentially tells the brain you are on fire
Heat intensity (pungency)
Hits assigned to particular paper is amount of extract that has to be diluted with sugar water to dilute the heat - the more you have to use to dilute the higher the unit
