ISSUE 37, TASTES, Part 3: McQuaid's Tasty
John McQuaid’s Tasty, The Art & Science of What We Eat
Thoughts on a good book.
A lot of research winds up circulating around academic circles, failing to pass into public understanding. So any work that makes an efficient effort to communicate knowledge in language that interested non-specialists can read deserves applause. John McQuaid's Tasty is one such good book. It tries to clear away the bogus fake science that has long dominated the popular picture of how taste buds operate. It presents the new picture of how taste is a whole body experience. It discusses some important points in Nuerogastronomy, such as the genetics behind the widely different responses that people around the world have to tasting bitter things.
Tasty also meditates upon the relation of psychological responses to flavors (sweetness) particularly, and its relation to addiction. We are introduced to the "bliss point"--that physiological capacity to sense sweet (or another flavor) as a positive, beyond which chemically any excess leads to a degradation of experience. We also learn about how heat is experienced--not by the tastebuds--but by the body's pain receptors, and how it incorporates into the sense of eating. And we are introduced to the methods of food industrialists who are making foods that carry spice, sugar, heat, caffeine, salt, and fat with the intention of inducing craving. All higher order creatures identify what is edible and good for one in one's environment through taste; so it is good to know just how your sense of taste works. This is a smart guide.
It does leave questions. Can a culture’s saturation with sugar, for instance, push the bliss point upward? At what point does one’s taste preferences map onto addiction? Can cultures lose a sense of delicacy in taste?