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Summary
Summary
A fascinating and deeply researched investigation into the mysteries of flavor--from the first bite taken by our ancestors to scientific advances in taste and the current "foodie" revolution.
Taste has long been considered the most basic of the five senses because its principal mission is a simple one: to discern food from everything else. Yet it's really the most complex and subtle. Taste is a whole-body experience, and breakthroughs in genetics and microbiology are casting light not just on the experience of french fries and foie gras, but the mysterious interplay of body and brain.
With reporting from kitchens, supermarkets, farms, restaurants, huge food corporations, and science labs, Tasty tells the story of the still-emerging concept of flavor and how our sense of taste will evolve in the coming decades. Tasty explains the scientific research taking place on multiple fronts: how genes shape our tastes; how hidden taste perceptions weave their way into every organ and system in the body; how the mind assembles flavors from the five senses and signals from body's metabolic systems; the quest to understand why sweetness tastes good and its dangerous addictive properties; why something disgusts one person and delights another; and what today's obsessions with extreme tastes tell us about the brain.
Brilliantly synthesizing science, ancient myth, philosophy, and literature, Tasty offers a delicious smorgasbord of where taste originated and where it's going--and why it changes by the day.
Author Notes
John McQuaid is the author of Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat and his journalism has appeared in Smithsonian magazine, The Washington Post , Wired , Forbes.com, and Eating Well magazine. His science and environment reporting for The Times-Picayune anticipated Hurricane Katrina, explored the global fisheries crisis and the problems of invasive species. His work has won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. McQuaid is a graduate of Yale. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and two children.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this fascinating journey through the science of taste, McQuaid observes that "everyone lives in his own flavor world," and that taste is the most subjective of the senses. He explains how taste is formed and experienced as a result of one's genetic disposition and how flavor is perceived by the brain. The book will leave listeners with ample food for thought. Reader Perkins's performance of McQuaid's rich prose sounds lackadaisical. He's capable at conveying transitions and emphasis, and he shifts comfortably from complicated scientific language to literary references to anecdotes. Yet his energy never really captures listeners. The book is a rich exploration of the science of taste, but the audio edition leaves much to be desired for one of the other senses: sound. A Scribner hardcover. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
"Pleasure is never very far from aversion; this is a feature of our anatomy and behavior. In the brain, the two closely overlap." So writes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist McQuaid (Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms, 2006, etc.) in this provocative investigatory foray into the nature of taste.The author begins with a debunking of the still-practiced basic geography of the tongue that identifiesspuriouslyzones for the five basic tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami. As he notes, every taste bud has five receptors waiting to be tickled and "detect molecules of one of the basic tastes." Though eating is as important as reproducing, it has been significantly less studied in the scientific community, from isolating taste receptors to finding the genes in the genome that play critical roles. "Like other senses," writes the author, "[flavor is] programmed by genes; unlike them, it is also protean, molded by experience and social cues, changing over the course of a lifetime. This plasticity is wild and unpredictable." McQuaid examines flavor chemistry and perception, and he notes that our fields of taste are oddly individual, both within and without our communitiesthough availability obviously plays a role in diet. The author is especially interesting when noting certain oddments and curios: the berry that turns the tastes around in our mouth; the sugar trap; the creepy, brave new world of the bland milkshakelike drink that does it all, "Soylent" (created through research into "the human body's nutritional needs" to create "the perfect food, building it from first principles"); the advent of cooking; and the arrival of alcohol. McQuaid is an enthusiastic writer undisturbed by dead ends, and he provides an entertaining exploration of "the mystery at the heart of flavor," which "has never truly been cracked." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Remember the tongue map, with its cordoned-off areas of the tongue that sense salty, sweet, bitter, and sour flavors? Simple, elegant, and it turns out completely wrong. The biological and cultural underpinnings of how people experience these flavors (and the fifth taste of umami, or savoriness) are much richer, as McQuaid demonstrates in his thoroughly investigated work. Drawing on decades of scientific research, along with millennia of history, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist traces the evolution of taste and the surprising ways it has shaped the human brain. Along the way, he drinks a re-creation of an alcoholic beverage enjoyed by the population of a settlement in China about 9,000 years ago, braves eating a sliver of one of the world's hottest peppers, and explains the phenomenon of drunken monkeys. While this is a detailed, technical book intended for scientifically minded readers, McQuaid unpacks with appealing gusto the reasons for the wide variety of human reactions to taste. Those willing to embark on the strange and wonderful history will find that Tasty offers a full meal.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2015 Booklist
Choice Review
Award-winning science journalist McQuaid has assembled an excellent treatise ("a brief biography of flavor") on the wonderful and complex sense of taste, both scientific and sensual (in the fundamental sense of the word). He describes the evolution of taste in both animals and humans as well as the history of studies on taste. A fair amount of myth busting is presented, especially for the taste maps of the tongue. The classic four basic tastes have been expanded to five (umami) with possibly more to come. Taste and flavor are greatly influenced by aroma in both the nose and mouth. The physiology and psychology of flavor, especially the complicated and cultural aspects of deliciousness, are described in accessible terms. Bitterness, saltiness, and sweetness are extensively analyzed. The importance of cooking and the mysteries and dependence of fermentation on terroir (environmental provenance) are delved into, as is the developing field of molecular gastronomy. Other topics include the influence of appearance and presentation and the attraction of potato chips, hamburgers, and pizza. More scientific and better written than the contemporaneous The Dorito Effect (CH, Dec'15, 53-1810), this work will be of interest to food scientists, neurologists, chemists, cooks, psychologists, and the general public. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels. --Robert Edward Buntrock, independent scholar
Library Journal Review
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist McQuaid turns his talent to investigating why the sense of taste is so important to humans. Covering the history (and errors) of scientific research about taste, the anthropological perspective of what humans eat and why, and the genetic reasons why people like what they do, this informative book pre-sents a complex topic in an easily accessible format. Highlights include the history of the erroneous "tongue map," how taste is hereditary, and, most enlightening of all, why people inflict the pain of hot peppers upon themselves. Narrator Tom Perkins brings a perfect balance of authority and familiarity to the work, making listeners feel as if they are hearing their favorite uncle do a terrific job of explaining a potentially dry topic. -VERDICT Recommended for popular science listeners and foodies who are curious about why food tastes so good.-Donna Bachowski, Orange Cty. Lib. Syst., Orlando, FL © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.