Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat

by John McQuaid

A fascinating and deeply researched investigation into the mysteries of flavor--from the first bite taken by our ancestors to scientific advances in taste and the current "foodie" revolution.
Taste has long been considered the most basic of the five senses because its principal mission is a simple to discern food from everything else. Yet it's really the most complex and subtle. Taste is a whole-body experience, and breakthroughs in genetics and microbiology are casting light not just on the experience of french fries and foie gras, but the mysterious interplay of body and brain.
With reporting from kitchens, supermarkets, farms, restaurants, huge food corporations, and science labs, "Tasty" tells the story of the still-emerging concept of flavor and how our sense of taste will evolve in the coming decades. "Tasty" explains the scientific research taking place on multiple how genes shape our tastes; how hidden taste perceptions weave their way into every organ and system in the body; how the mind assembles flavors from the five senses and signals from body's metabolic systems; the quest to understand why sweetness tastes "good" and its dangerous addictive properties; why something disgusts one person and delights another; and what today's obsessions with extreme tastes tell us about the brain.
Brilliantly synthesizing science, ancient myth, philosophy, and literature, "Tasty" offers a delicious smorgasbord of where taste originated and where it's going--and why it changes by the day.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Science, Health, Psychology, Audiobook, Cooking

361 pages, Hardcover

First published January 13, 2015

About the author

John McQuaid has written about city-destroying super-termites, the slow collapse of fishing communities, hurricane levee engineering, mountaintop removal coal mining, and the global flower business for various publications, including Smithsonian magazine, The Washington Post, Wired, Forbes.com and EatingWell magazine. His work has won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife, son and daughter. The struggle to satisfy and understand the kids' strange and contradictory food choices (the elder liked super-hot peppers and limes, the younger rice, pasta and cheese) was the inspiration for his book Tasty.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn't that fascinating, didn't give much new information, but it was a good way of passing the time driving down the mountain to work in the morning and back up again in the evening. I was interested in some of the science bits so three and a half star accurately reflects the level of enjoyment of the book. Rounded up.

Truth to be told I only read this in January and I thought I might review it properly at some point but it made so little impression on me, I've forgotten most of it. Don't you hate it when books just disappear from you like that?

[Judy Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A special thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

TASTY, The Art and Science of What We Eat, by John McQuaid, is an exploration of taste, mysteries of flavor, senses, and a blend of culinary history from our ancestors to today’s “foodie” revolution.

Taste is often dismissed as the most primitive of the senses, yet it’s really the most complex and subtle sense of them all. The author explores flavor and where it came from and where it is going.

Readers learn taste is a whole body experience, and breakthroughs in genetics and microbiology are casting light not only on the experience of French fries and foie gras, but on the mysterious interplay of body, brain, and mind.

Reporting from kitchens, supermarkets, farms, restaurants, food corporations, and science labs, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John McQuaid tells the story of the still emerging concept of flavor and how our sense of taste will evolve in the coming decades. The author also explores how deliberate manipulation of flavor influences virtually every aspect of the human experience.

I am very fascinated by foods, as have severe allergic reactions to many foods, additives and preservatives, so on a very strict diet. To the point, I am unable to drink wine, eat sugars, no processed foods, no meats, or gluten, or dairy; a strict vegan. In addition, am unable to dine out due to the preservatives in foods, highly sensitive to chemicals and allergic to most medications.

Was very intrigued, unlike smell, the sense of taste is less emotional than existential. The author compares the unity of taste and smell in flavor is like a good marriage. The differences are profound, but each partner has complementary strengths and weaknesses. Flavor is only one in its array of sophisticated cognitive responsibilities, which include decision making. It’s the brain’s food critic, connecting to areas governing emotions and judgment, and anatomically structured to process pleasure and aversion. Some of this may explain our tendency to rank favorite or most-hated foods; our brains are literally organized this way.

From flavor cultures, the tongue, the birth of flavor, to seduction, flavor sits at the intersection of all the sciences. “It is driven more by forces outside kitchens than in, but chefs and artisans do have one thing working for them: the mystery at the heart of flavor has never truly been cracked. Science has still not explained how flavor can encompass the whole range of human experience—pleasure, joy, disgust, pain, memory—continually hammering these into something new with each new dish, each sip.”

A very informative book and analysis of food production, DNA, flavor manipulations, and how such motivators and chemicals affect the brain and body, as well as our overall health.

Judith D. Collins Must Read Books

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This recipe is begins with archaeology with hints of human evolution and anthropology. Then add a dash of brain function, just a taste of genetics and, of course, a dollop of chemistry. But don't despair, the end product is a delightful and highly readable book exploring various aspects of taste including sweetness of sugars, the bitterness of broccoli, the bite of chili peppers and so much more. You'll have to read the book to find out about hakarl.

[Dave DeWitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consider a nonfiction book with no illustrations–just dense blocks of text, one after the other, broken only by the chapter divisions. The chapters, however, do have titles. But there are no subtitles or subchapters. This is why I call it a “throwback,” because the author and publisher are seemingly unaffected by the magazine and online writing styles that call for many illustrations–maybe even an embedded video–and constant reminders via headlines and subheads that follow the standard of “tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them.” However dense these blocks of text appear at first glance, once you start reading them, you forget about the style and lack of illustrations because the writing is so damned interesting. Consider this paragraph:

“There was no single ‘first’ alcoholic beverage, cheese, or any particular fermented food. Like cooking, these items were probably invented a number of times, in more than one place. But they were profoundly different from cooked food. The tools of civilization gave prehistoric peoples a level of control over nature, specifically microbiology, that never had been achieved before.”

In reality, the author, John McQuaid, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, is documenting the origin of processed foods by way of the invention of beer- and cheese-making, and this subject is of great importance as he analyzes and explores the history of the sensation of taste. This book is fascinating and despite those blocks of text, is easy to read. I highly recommend it to people interested in food and culinary history.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really 3 1/2 stars. Learned a lot about the sense of taste from this book, some of which I'd already read in the book Gulp (5 stars, highly recommended! :) )

Chapter titles
1 The tongue map
2 the birth of flavor in five meals
3 the bitter gene
4 flavor culture
5 the seduction
6 gusto and disgust
7 quest for fire
8 the great bombardment
9 the DNA of delicious

Loved learning about the history of fermentation, the quest for and science of hot peppers and why some of us (me) love bitter foods/drinks and some don't. I'll have to finish this review later as I off to lunch.

[Daniel E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting journey through our evolution and our transitory symbiosis with food. Our sense of taste and smell have guided our species (and others) to and away from foods that promote or diminish our survival. Of course, it’s an imperfect system that doesn’t always fit neatly into one box or another. Sometimes we are drawn to foods that do more harm than good and we often have a distaste for better choices. It’s all in the DNA and the author does a great job of establishing the links between our taste buds, our DNA and what’s for supper.

Recommended.

[Marta Veenhof · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and quick read with a few new concepts and ideas. Overall it was just okay but you definitely take away some things like the section about digital lollipops (last quote in this review). There was also something he mentioned about how he doesn't think that lab-grown meat will be expanding any time soon, however, I don't think we are that far off based on research today, especially with things like Beyond Meat - though not lab-grown meat, things are moving away from the direction of harvesting animals for food faster than ever before.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the book:

"Every taste bud is studded with five different receptor proteins, each tailored to detect molecules of one of the basic tastes."

"Carl Linnaeus [...] identified the basic tastes as sweet, acid, bitter, saline, astringent, sharp, viscous, fatty, insipid, aqueous, and nauseous."

"Flavor remains frustratingly paradoxical. Like other senses, it's programmed by genes; unlike them, it is also protean, molded by experience and social cues, changing over the course of a lifetime. This plasticity is wild and unpredictable: people can learn to like or dislike almost anything, which is why the range of flavors in the world is seemingly infinite, and why the old tongue map was useless."

"Today, a limited diet is a danger to long-term health, and in its most extreme form pickiness has been labeled an eating disorder, called food neophobia."

"Many bitter tastes had radically different anatomy from non-tasters, in that they had more fungiform papillae on their tongues. This meant they had more hardwired connections between the mouth and the brain: they perceived more intense taste sensations and more flavor information overall than other people. Some were ten thousand times more sensitive. She dubbed this group 'supertasters'."

"Today, only about 5% of northern Europeans are lactose intolerant. In parts of West Africa and Asia where dairying never caught on, most people remain lactose intolerant."

"Ranasinghe took a variant of the tongue electrodes used by Nestle's scientists and experimented with them to see if he could create tastes out of nothing but a mild electric current. He made a device he named the "digital lollipop": a small sphere containing one electrode rests on the tongue; a second electrode is in contact with the tongue's underside. By slightly adjusting the current's magnitude and frequency, along with temperature, he was able to induce sweet, salty, sour, and bitter sensations directly on the tongue (though not umami). These were crude, but Ranasinghe hoped to refine them and to develop the means to simulate aromas in hopes of one day creating fully realized virtual flavors. He made digital records of the "tastes." turning them into sequences of ones and zeroes that could be stored on a computer and transmitted over the Internet. Anyone with a digital lollipop device could download the file and "taste" it himself. As the technology improves, a chef may one day be able to create an entire meal, write its flavors to a digital format like a song or movie, and share it with the world."

[Prima Seadiva · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Audiobook, reader okay.
Okay seemed like a hodge podge of stuff, not connected well for me. Some of it seemed obvious. A large hot and spice chapter which since I have low tolerance for spice was dull.
Maybe it's not a good choice for audio. I fell asleep every time I listened and had to backtrack yet still can't say much in detail about the book except it was just ok.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Tasty” claims itself to be a “brief biography of flavor” and indeed it is. McQuaid shows how taste was possibly the first sense to develop in life- 500 million years ago, sea anemones, who are restricted to eating whatever the water brings them, needed a way to tell food particles from non-food particles. Whoever evolved a method of doing this first had a distinct advantage over critters that didn’t have that ability. The sense of taste is not just confined to our tongues we have taste receptors in other parts of our bodies- including in our intestines. That wasn’t an image I wanted to dwell on. Speaking of tongues, that diagram they show everyone in science class, with the tongue divided into bitter, sweet, salty, and sour? It’s bogus, and they knew it was almost as soon as it was made up, but somehow it just won’t die. Also, there is a fifth flavor- umami- which is meaty and yummy and the epitome of it is monosodium glutamate. Fat *may* be a sixth flavor.

Different people have different taste sensitivities. Some people are very sensitive to bitter-the author posits that they might have been able to detect poisonous foods back when humans were first learning what was safe to eat. Other people enjoy a touch of bitter, and revel in broccoli, coffee, and dark chocolate. Some have a much higher tolerance for capsaicin than others. Everyone is born liking sugar, but other food preferences are learned, like being able to tolerate that revolting (to most of us) rotten shark that is eaten in Iceland. Flavors can be perceived differently depending on things like the color of the plate the food is eaten off of. When a recipe is put together, different flavors build together to create a sensation of deliciousness that is greater than the sum of the parts.

This is a very good book that covers the subject well. It’s well researched and well written. It’s written in terms that the average reader can understand but isn’t dumbed down. It touches on both the science and history of food and flavors. Interesting for both the foodie and the science buff.

[Trish Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I had no idea taste, or rather flavor, was so complicated. McQuaid has obviously researched this book thoroughly and synthesizes multiple scientific studies, all the while providing clear explanations of the technical details. One of my favorite chapters is "The Birth of Flavor in Five Meals," where he traces the history of flavor back to the first single-celled organisms and explains the various advances in sensory ability and ultimately brain capacity that accompany them. He makes a bold claim at the outset of this chapter about taste being a key driving force in evolution. As an anthropologist, I was very skeptical, but by the end of the chapter I was surprised to find myself convinced. However, "Tasty" is about more than science; McQuaid interweaves examples and commentary from art, literature, and general culture to make his points, really making the discussion relatable to a broad audience. Whether you are a foodie, a scientist, a chef, or just someone who likes food or understanding how the world works, this is a book you don't want to miss!

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

John McQuaid looks at our sense of taste. He examines it from a number of angles. He ties it to biology going all the way back to the history of humans. He looks at how things such as genetics and culture influence our sense of taste. He also examines how food is engineered to taste good. This was a much more comprehensive book than I was expecting when I picked it up. I thought it was going to be more about the food engineering aspects of why things taste good, but it's actually much more focused on the human body and how our own biology influences taste. It was a pretty fascinating look at one of our five senses.

[Brandy Cross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very fun if disorganized romp through a bit of food history and fact that would have 5 stars if it were the close to 2,000 pages that it would have to be to be anywhere near complete. However, as no one can fault the author for writing a book that is saleable rather than comprehensive, it's quite a nice book that dives into a variety of facts in food history and production (e.g., fermentation, brewing, modern science) without really going in depth beyond the social impacts. This is light reading and mostly a coffee-table book with fun things to share but it pulls off the approach quite well

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting look at flavor and all it encompasses, ranging from our prehistoric past to modern attempts to breed the hottest chili pepper and discover the microbiological processes that make delicious cheese. Quite "science-y", but science presented in a way that is understandable and not dumbed down. I found some overlap with Proof which I read recently but instead of being redundant I enjoyed reading another author's take on the research, stories, and studies. Very recommended.

*Children have strange tastes because they are bizarre creatures.*

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable meandering down the historic road of food and taste development in a civilized society. Learned many items that I had not considered before.

Most fascinating section for me was the one on the hot peppers, how they developed and why we love them so much. I can now understand why I order a 15 on a Thai BBQ scale of that is only published on the menu as 1-5.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book about the role of taste and how it has developed.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The human sense of taste is the red-haired stepchild of both aesthetics and science. Classical philosophers regarded the sense of taste as inferior to the senses of sight and hearing; sculpture and music were considered higher arts when compared to putting supper on the table. Flavour is inscrutable and difficult to quantify; scientists prefer to engage subjects which suit the measuring devices at hand. But Nature abhors a lacuna. There have been several thoughtful books written of late about the aesthetics of taste. There has been an effusion of scientific research about taste, since industry discovered that it could manipulate flavour scientifically. John McQuaid believes that there is a third good reason to study and discuss flavour; he thinks that the ability to taste actually drove human evolution. Very few books about flavour contain descriptions of a trilobite having a mudworm called Rusophycus multilineatus for lunch about 480 million years ago. McQuaid's thesis is that the ability to taste was essential to the survival of some species and the loss of many others. And so on, and so on, and so on, until humanity is left with strange genetic differences such as those who find fresh cilantro leaf delicious as opposed to those who find it soapy (due to a group of olfactory receptor genes called OR6A2). McQuaid can write; he has a Pulitzer to prove that. He also displays that knack of popular science writers to bridge many disciplines and many topics to produce an appetizing (sorry) result. He roams through history, genetics, food-production technology, psychobiology, culinary arts, neurology, and wild-ass speculation to guide the willing reader to a wider greater appreciation of taste. He is sensibly humble about the result; he says, "the mystery at the heart of flavor has never truly been cracked."

[Chandler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this book was pointless. While many people may find this interesting, I must say that I did not, not because it was terrible, but just because it seemed unorganized and scatterbrained in terms of topics.

You see, the author has written for numerous different magazines and websites about food and it shows with this title. These chapters are just a smattering of food-related stories with a loose thread connecting them. On the one hand, this can be a good thing because the reader can be surprised by the topics that come up. For me however, I just found it to be incoherent and difficult to follow, as right as the stories would get interesting, the author would change to a new topic. This left me feeling unfulfilled.

Therefore, I am just going to give this a two out of five. You may enjoy this, but I did not.

[robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a LOT of scholarship here, and even some conversation starters. What sticks with me is the idea that there are so many potential combinations of flavor out there, and we experience so few of them. Let me not stand in the way of Pizza Friday or Taco Tuesday, BUT.

There's no need to even try a different cuisine outright, just experiment with some spices or citrus. Throw some anchovy in. Something new and strange. The bodies we're piloting are straight-up luxury models, capable of an extraordinary range of performance and sensory experience and for shame, when you think of how little we do with them.

You can start by opening the spice cabinet next time you cook.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Making a spider web graph of the elements of taste seems a revolution in mapping what we LIKE and how we got to like it.

This is the theme of Tasty.

The author does what seems impossible: describe the art of tasting to people who experience taste in a diverse set of ways.

He demonstrates this ART (practiced since 800 BC) with smidgeon of fMRI and lab Animal studies.

Add to the difficulty of this subject the fact that Michael Pollen has readily written many award winning books on the topic of senses and perception and, well, you’ll understand why the 3 star rating.

It’s merit comes as more of a solid reference piece than a magical mystery tour of the art and science of taste.

[Robert Hudder · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have read books on cooking and taste in the last fifteen years, most of what is in this book will not be too surprising. However, it is put together in an interesting way with some material that is up to date.

If you have been keeping up to date reading science and culinary magazines, then don't bother with this book. I enjoyed reading it. I haven't been reading as many magazines in the past decade, so there were a few new tidbits.

[queenie m. · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first, I was not that into this book as there are too many scientific terms used in this book and I was so lost reading it. Yet, the more you read, the more it started to dawn on you. Some of the information written based on modern culinary skills amazed me.

It’s not so much of a 4-star book but it actually rates more than a 3-star. If only I could give it a 3.5

[NathanM Meyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great survey of what we know about flavor, including:

- how taste and smell create what we call "flavor"
- how we sense taste and smell, and how they are handled in the brain
- the role of taste and smell in our evolutionary success
- current work by scientists and chefs to improve our understanding of and pleasure in flavor

[Kathleen McRae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting and readable book and I loved how the industry was developed for profit and forget about the health problems that ensued because of unhealthy additives and now I understand why the healthcare industry blamed people instead of the profiteers. It is relevant and equal to the Drug crisis.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Topic list felt a bit disjointed and disconnected, topics could have been written in much more engaging ways. I still learned some history and some names but overall a slog to read despite many interesting topics. Some topics had too much depth for an overview-type of book, some topics felt like they were just barely squeezed in…

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an all right read; there was some really interesting bits, like how tricolor vision came about to see fruit in the jungle, or some of the other applications of capsaicin. But it was kind of all over the place at times.

[yamiyoghurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting journey through the history and science of food and taste. I appreciate how the author tried to weave the topics into each other, rather than follow the simple and textbook classification of food topics.

[Kimbolimbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely delightful. Explained plausible scenarios for the creations and discoveries of the foundations to the foods we eat. It was like someone finally had a discussion with me about stuff I think about when I don't have anyone around to talk to.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimate nerd book about food and the culinary experience! Got a little boring at times, and was very much all over the place. I wish there were shorter chapter with specific topics rather than what felt like rambling from one idea to the next.

[Amber Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had some interest, but didn't hugely grab me right now. Good writing and interesting enough to finish.

[Da277 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book on taste. I had no idea that some people find broccoli bitter and learned why I love spicy food. Well written with some scientific data in it that was easy to understand.