How We Experience Flavor

Author Rowan Jacobsen is the guest on this introduction to how we experience flavor, and the implications when something changes that experience - for example, if we lose our sense of smell. 

Rowan's most recent book is Truffle Hound. If you want a primer in describing flavors, try his Apples of Uncommon Character as a study guide - it would be a nice companion to the apple chapter of Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire, which provided the passage on sweetness read during this episode.

If you want to learn more about Thanksgiving Dinner Candy Corn, the original Twitter thread was posted here.  I fact checked the review against a bag of said candy corn for accuracy. It's accurate.   

Before English Majors (or French Majors for that matter) complain about Proust, I realize that the novels have since had an updated translation and the new title is In Search of Lost Time and the quote we read was re-translated differently as well . . . really I just care about the madeleine. Which some scholars claim was actually toast.     

We mentioned sommeliers and their vocabulary of scent. If you want to read more about that, and what happened when COVID-19 arrived in wine and perfume country in France, the New York Times covered the topic in this September, 2021, article.   

Full season archive here. This podcast is part of the Food Access in Health Care program at Bi-State Primary Care Association. 

This season of Policy in Plainer English is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $189,892.00 with 0 percentage financed with non governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.