Who knew that 95 percent of what we think is taste is actually smell?

I love producing QUEST stories because there’s so much I learn in the process. Who knew that 95 percent of what we think is taste is actually smell? Or that flavor is really a complex combination of all the senses mixed with our feelings and perceptions?

One element of the story that especially resonates for me is the piece about smell memories. I’ve always found smell to be very evocative, and so I asked our experts about smell and memory and emotion. Hildegard Heymann, the UC Davis sensory scientist who we feature in the piece had wonderful things to say about smell memories and why they can be so powerful. Our favorite smells may not be pleasant in the typical sense, but they can have a true therapeutic effect.

For example, one of Dr. Heymann’s favorite smells is the odor of skunk. In her interview she described it this way: “For me, the smell of skunks makes me intensely happy. I know, intellectually, exactly what is happening, but even though I know that, emotionally it never ceases to work. My husband will literally drive around to try and find the smell of skunk when I’m depressed. He gets me in the car and takes me there. Because it immediately makes me happy. Why? I grew up in South Africa where going to the beach at Christmas time, which is in the middle of the summer, we had to cross the sand dunes. And they had these little plants that when you break them, smell like skunk. So to me, skunk means Christmas, happy, vacation—all those things. And even 35, 40, 50 years later, it still works that way. So we all have them. You just need to figure out what your aromatherapy odorants are, and then hopefully they’re purchasable. Skunks aren’t!”

Personally. I love the smell of Italian delicatessens. My father had a passion for salty Italian meats, cheeses and olives, and I have distinct childhood memories of deli cases full of colorful antipasti, burlap sacks full of dried beans, and shelves lined with bottles of wine. My odor memory is a wonderful blend of ripe gorgonzola, fat rounds of parmesan, salty prosciutto, briny olives. This mélange also probably contains hints of burlap, cardboard, oil and vinegar infused wood floor, wine cork, and who knows what else. It’s a pretty pungent aroma, but I find it enormously comforting, not unlike Hildegard Heymann’s skunk.
On a final, flavorful note I want to share a wonderful poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. I found it in a book of food poems called O Taste and See. Even if you’re don’t like tomatoes, I think you’ll enjoy this evocative, colorful, delicious poem.

Ode to The Tomato

The street filled up with tomatoes, noon, summer, the light splits in two tomato halves and the juice runs down the streets. In December the tomato breaks loose, invading kitchens, stealing into lunches, lounging on sideboards and in between glasses, butter dishes, blue salt-shakers. It has its own light, benign majesty. We must, unfortunately, murder it: the knife sinks into its living flesh, it’s a red viscera, a cool sun, deep, limitless, it fills the salads of Chile, marrying happily the bright onion, and to celebrate, we let oil, child and essence of the olive, pour down over its open hemispheres, pepper adds its fragrance, salt its magnetism: these are the weddings of the day, parsley raises its flags, potatoes boil vigorously, roasting meat bangs on the door with its aroma, it’s time! let’s eat! and on the table, on the waist of summer the tomato, astro of the earth, fertile, ever multiplying star, reveals to us its orbits, its canals, the distinguished plenitude and boneless, heartless, armorless abundance, brings to us the gift of its fiery color and the integrity of its freshness.

Watch The Science Of Taste tv story online.

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Bring it on! A healthy dose of epicatechin, serotonin, caffeine, theobromine, phenylethylamine, and polyphenols

As seen in our QUEST story, "The Sweet Science of Chocolate," UCSF’s Mary Engler conducted a clinical trial that showed that a plant-based flavonoid, epicatechin, helped to promote healthy blood flow in healthy patients.

Other researchers in the late ‘90’s, such as Adam Drenowski at the University of Washington, found that chocolate helps trigger the release of endorphins, while Daniele Piomelli of UC Irvine, conducted research on cannabinoids found in chocolate.

And recent research suggested that chocolate could even be good for your memory. There are other compounds present in chocolate which may have beneficial effects on your mind and body, such as serotonin, caffeine, theobromine, phenylethylamine, and polyphenols. Who knows what future chocolate research may yield, but in the meantime– no joke here– you might even be pumping chocolate-based fuels into your gas tank!

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Is this you in the kitchen?

Last year, I stumbled across a new series of lectures on Food Ethics & Environment at Stanford University. Headlining the series was the incomparable Michael Pollan, who led an interactive discussion on the evolution of food culture in the U.S. I was amazed at the level of passion in the audience and moreover the knowledge level of the audience. I left inspired to take my time with food and eat a little healthier (that worked for about a week).

This year, Stanford again delivers a stellar lineup. Over the next few weeks and months– there will be discussions ranging from water, the affect of global warming on our food, fair trade coffee, and even a conversation with a organic farmer (it's Joel Salatin, one of the heroes from the "Omnivore's Dilemma").

So before you give thanks next week, consider a heaping serving of food science.

All events are free. They take place at the Annenberg Auditorium on the Stanford University Campus. The events are usually held on Thursday nights at 7pm. For more info, check out the Stanford Ethics Website.

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