rant: fine dining

[slide_into_first]

Jicama is underrated as a Mexican food

[lukethedrifter]

Ate at Annie Gunns for the first time the other night. Since I'd had a strip steak the night before I thought I'd try the special, confit'd ribs. Meh.

[slide_into_first]

If you get a McRib extra value meal you can get a second McRib sandwich for a dollar.

[Molly]

Hold the cilantro por favor

First time I ever tasted that [expletive], I literally spit my food out on the plate and couldn't eat another bite! It tasted just like soap.

[Arthur Dent]

Hold the cilantro por favor

First time I ever tasted that [expletive], I literally spit my food out on the plate and couldn't eat another bite! It tasted just like soap.

That's not uncommon. There is something of a split in how people perceive the taste of cilantro:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html

The published studies of cilantro aroma describe individual aldehydes as having both cilantrolike and soapy qualities. Several flavor chemists told me in e-mail messages that they smell a soapy note in the whole herb as well, but still find its aroma fresh and pleasant.

So the cilantro aldehydes are olfactory Jekyll-and-Hydes. Why is it only the evil, soapy side that shows up for cilantrophobes, and not the charming one?

I posed this question to Jay Gottfried, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies how the brain perceives smells.

Dr. Gottfried turned out to be a former cilantrophobe who could speak from personal experience. He said that the great cilantro split probably reflects the primal importance of smell and taste to survival, and the brain’s constant updating of its database of experiences.

The senses of smell and taste evolved to evoke strong emotions, he explained, because they were critical to finding food and mates and avoiding poisons and predators. When we taste a food, the brain searches its memory to find a pattern from past experience that the flavor belongs to. Then it uses that pattern to create a perception of flavor, including an evaluation of its desirability.

If the flavor doesn’t fit a familiar food experience, and instead fits into a pattern that involves chemical cleaning agents and dirt, or crawly insects, then the brain highlights the mismatch and the potential threat to our safety. We react strongly and throw the offending ingredient on the floor where it belongs.

“When your brain detects a potential threat, it narrows your attention,” Dr. Gottfried told me in a telephone conversation. “You don’t need to know that a dangerous food has a hint of asparagus and sorrel to it. You just get it away from your mouth.”

But he explained that every new experience causes the brain to update and enlarge its set of patterns, and this can lead to a shift in how we perceive a food.

“I didn’t like cilantro to begin with,” he said. “But I love food, and I ate all kinds of things, and I kept encountering it. My brain must have developed new patterns for cilantro flavor from those experiences, which included pleasure from the other flavors and the sharing with friends and family. That’s how people in cilantro-eating countries experience it every day.”

I've never experienced the soap taste, so I love it.

[Maclowery]

Wow, I had no idea cilantro was such a divider. I love it.

[Molly]

Hold the cilantro por favor

First time I ever tasted that [expletive], I literally spit my food out on the plate and couldn't eat another bite! It tasted just like soap.

That's not uncommon. There is something of a split in how people perceive the taste of cilantro:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html

The published studies of cilantro aroma describe individual aldehydes as having both cilantrolike and soapy qualities. Several flavor chemists told me in e-mail messages that they smell a soapy note in the whole herb as well, but still find its aroma fresh and pleasant.

So the cilantro aldehydes are olfactory Jekyll-and-Hydes. Why is it only the evil, soapy side that shows up for cilantrophobes, and not the charming one?

I posed this question to Jay Gottfried, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies how the brain perceives smells.

Dr. Gottfried turned out to be a former cilantrophobe who could speak from personal experience. He said that the great cilantro split probably reflects the primal importance of smell and taste to survival, and the brain’s constant updating of its database of experiences.

The senses of smell and taste evolved to evoke strong emotions, he explained, because they were critical to finding food and mates and avoiding poisons and predators. When we taste a food, the brain searches its memory to find a pattern from past experience that the flavor belongs to. Then it uses that pattern to create a perception of flavor, including an evaluation of its desirability.

If the flavor doesn’t fit a familiar food experience, and instead fits into a pattern that involves chemical cleaning agents and dirt, or crawly insects, then the brain highlights the mismatch and the potential threat to our safety. We react strongly and throw the offending ingredient on the floor where it belongs.

“When your brain detects a potential threat, it narrows your attention,” Dr. Gottfried told me in a telephone conversation. “You don’t need to know that a dangerous food has a hint of asparagus and sorrel to it. You just get it away from your mouth.”

But he explained that every new experience causes the brain to update and enlarge its set of patterns, and this can lead to a shift in how we perceive a food.

“I didn’t like cilantro to begin with,” he said. “But I love food, and I ate all kinds of things, and I kept encountering it. My brain must have developed new patterns for cilantro flavor from those experiences, which included pleasure from the other flavors and the sharing with friends and family. That’s how people in cilantro-eating countries experience it every day.”

I've never experienced the soap taste, so I love it.

Very interesting. When I was young I told a joke w/a dirty word w/in ear shot of my mom. She proceeded to grab the Ivory and put the entire bar in my mouth.

[planet planet]

Hold the cilantro por favor

First time I ever tasted that [expletive], I literally spit my food out on the plate and couldn't eat another bite! It tasted just like soap.

That's not uncommon. There is something of a split in how people perceive the taste of cilantro:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html

The published studies of cilantro aroma describe individual aldehydes as having both cilantrolike and soapy qualities. Several flavor chemists told me in e-mail messages that they smell a soapy note in the whole herb as well, but still find its aroma fresh and pleasant.

So the cilantro aldehydes are olfactory Jekyll-and-Hydes. Why is it only the evil, soapy side that shows up for cilantrophobes, and not the charming one?

I posed this question to Jay Gottfried, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies how the brain perceives smells.

Dr. Gottfried turned out to be a former cilantrophobe who could speak from personal experience. He said that the great cilantro split probably reflects the primal importance of smell and taste to survival, and the brain’s constant updating of its database of experiences.

The senses of smell and taste evolved to evoke strong emotions, he explained, because they were critical to finding food and mates and avoiding poisons and predators. When we taste a food, the brain searches its memory to find a pattern from past experience that the flavor belongs to. Then it uses that pattern to create a perception of flavor, including an evaluation of its desirability.

If the flavor doesn’t fit a familiar food experience, and instead fits into a pattern that involves chemical cleaning agents and dirt, or crawly insects, then the brain highlights the mismatch and the potential threat to our safety. We react strongly and throw the offending ingredient on the floor where it belongs.

“When your brain detects a potential threat, it narrows your attention,” Dr. Gottfried told me in a telephone conversation. “You don’t need to know that a dangerous food has a hint of asparagus and sorrel to it. You just get it away from your mouth.”

But he explained that every new experience causes the brain to update and enlarge its set of patterns, and this can lead to a shift in how we perceive a food.

“I didn’t like cilantro to begin with,” he said. “But I love food, and I ate all kinds of things, and I kept encountering it. My brain must have developed new patterns for cilantro flavor from those experiences, which included pleasure from the other flavors and the sharing with friends and family. That’s how people in cilantro-eating countries experience it every day.”

I've never experienced the soap taste, so I love it.

Seriously, you just had that article at your fingertips? LOL

I also love cilantro, one of the few fresh herbs I have on hand at all times. I love fresh herbs, but for just the two of us, I'm lucky if I use it in a particular dish even once before it goes bad.

[JL21]

Wow, I had no idea cilantro was such a divider. I love it.

I prefer stuff without cilantro in general, but it's not a deal-breaker for me as long as it doesn't overpower everything else.

[slide_into_first]

The Monti Teo thread brings up for me a question about catfish in restaurants- are farmed catfish preferable to wild assuming they are fed a cleaner diet?