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By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer
Sat Feb 19, 3:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON Some sweetened tangerine juice. A little soy protein. A blender.
Voila: A trendy, frothy dessert becomes a lesson in kitchen chemistry.
It turns out the chef who whips up pies for the president is also a bit of a
scientist calling on knowledge of how to help bubbles hold their shape and
how crystals affect chocolate and salt, in the quest for healthier goodies.
You wouldn't think taste tests would be on the menu, er, agenda when the
American Association for the Advancement of Science assembles some of the
world's leading molecular biologists and geneticists and astronomers for a
once-a-year look at exciting discoveries.
But White House pastry chef Bill Yosses exchanged his white apron for a bow tie
Saturday to talk with scientists about how chefs are changing perceptions of
taste. He brought samples chocolates that gleamed, and that tangerine foam
that held up spoonfuls of juicy berries for about an hour.
His point: Texture plays a huge role in taste.
Consider chocolate mousse with its sumptuous mouth feel, caused largely by
added cream that, Yosses notes, also clogs arteries. He substitutes water and
gelatin for cream to deliver that feel with less fat.
Or take that tangerine foam. The soy protein helps form structures around the
air bubbles from Yosses' blender. Look, he said as he spooned a plateful: "It's
just tangerine juice, but we can fill the whole plate."
Maximize texture to maximize a taste, Yosses said, and suddenly people are
happy with fewer bites a message that goes hand in hand with the
healthy-eating mantra of his bosses, President Barack Obama and first lady
Michelle Obama. Dessert in moderation, he said, can be part of a healthy
balanced diet.
"What chefs want to achieve with modern cooking is a kind of fascination with
food" that also is "able to move people toward a healthier approach to eating,"
Yosses told the researchers.
In fact, the science of taste is a booming field. It tells us that taste is
incredibly complicated, an interaction of the tongue, the nose, psychological
cues and exposure to different flavors.
Kraft Foods research scientist Jane Leland brought samples, too yellow jelly
beans. Pinch your nose closed, she told the crowd. Now take a few chews of a
jelly bean. It tastes sweet, from taste receptors on the tongue.
OK, release the nose and chew some more. Whoa, now lemon flavor bursts forth.
Aroma molecules move through the back of the mouth to the nasal cavity and
reach the olfactory bulb, she explained.
For all its cellular commonalities, taste is incredibly individual and our
earliest exposures to different foods helps determine the flavors we like and
dislike, said Gary Beauchamp of the nonprofit Monell Chemical Senses Center in
Philadelphia.
Components of flavor can transmit in amniotic fluid, Beauchamp said, citing a
study that gave carrot juice to women in the last trimester of pregnancy. At
age 6 months, babies drank carrot juice for the first time, and those who'd
been exposed in the womb liked it more than babies who hadn't been exposed.
A different study examined how babies react to a special hydrolized-protein
formula that may help them digest but that Beauchamp said tastes "just awful."
Babies given it before they're 3 months old don't mind; they suck down bottles
with gusto. But if they don't taste it until they're older? A video showed a
tot's whole face screw up in a grimace as he pushed the bottle away.
Infants similarly develop a preference for saltier foods the earlier they taste
them, he said, and that's important because Americans eat more than double the
amount of salt necessary for good health.
That brings us back to the texture lesson from the White House's Yosses. Sodium
is sodium whether it's in the fine grains of the typical salt shaker or large
chunks of trendy sea salt, he said.
But larger crystals melt more slowly on the tongue, so sea salt can be "very
satisfying," he said. That's why he uses that type for salted caramel.
"It really is texture as taste. But if you're going to do that, you have to
reduce it (sodium) somewhere else," he said.
In the same way, the quality of chocolate depends on how its sugar crystals
line up, Yosses said. The best literally shines and causes "a nice crack when
you bite." That crunch lets Yosses get away with thin layers of chocolate in a
dessert "that's more satisfying even though it's small."