Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Taste and Flavor

My first rotation this time around is a class called "Taste and Flavor". It includes a wine class and a nutrition class, which is more of a food science class, along with a lab in which we explore what we learn during our lectures. The basis of the class is the 5 basic tastes: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami (a Japanese word meaning savory or meaty). These basic tastes are all sensed by the receptor cells on our tongue. We've learned how they affect each other, for instance salt increases umami and reduces sour, bitter, and sweet. Well, if something is both sweet and sour or sweet and bitter, salt then reduced the bitter or the sour making us able to perceive more sweet.

All of this will eventually get us to a place where we are better able to make adjustments to "balance" tastes on a plate.

Flavor is actually taste + texture + aroma. We aren't really allowed to use this word in class. The chef instructor calls this the "f" word. I've noted that he as used it several times, but I still am bridling my tongue. We are to be specific when describing food in terms of the taste, texture and aroma. I will have a prototype of my final dish which I will complete on Monday. I have not a clue what I'm doing and won't even be able to think about it until Thursday when I sample and am assigned a wine to serve with said dish. YIKES!

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Day Trip to Stowe

Originally uploaded by mzones.
Yesterday my roommate and I took a day trip to Stowe, VT. It's only about a 15 mile drive from Montpelier, for for some reason I never made it over there during my first year at NECI. It's a cute little town. The Von Trapp family, of Sound of Music fame, moved to Vermont and settled in Stowe in 1938. The Trapp Family Lodge there draws a lot of visitors, but I didn't bother to go see it.