Advertisement
Food & Drink

Attention food science nerds: new study explains why Asian food tastes so different from Western food

We don’t pretend to fully understand all the technical details, but the latest issue of Scientific Reports (a division of Nature) includes a somewhat mind-bending study that takes all the recipes from Epicurious, Allrecipes.com and Menupan (a Korean site), and throws them in a blender with a computational model of food chemistry (don’t ask) to arrive at (something like) the fundamental difference between North American cuisine and East Asian cuisine. Whereas North American cooking tends to pair ingredients that share a lot of flavour compounds (like butter and vanilla), Asian cooking tends to do the opposite, pairing ingredients that don’t taste a whole lot like one another (like soy sauce and scallion). Confused? The paper has all sorts of fancy visualizations to explain things. Read the entire story [Scientific Reports] »

NEVER MISS A TORONTO LIFE STORY

Sign up for Table Talk, our free newsletter with essential food and drink stories.

By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.
You may unsubscribe at any time.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Big Stories

Quality Trash: Meet director Ron Oliver, Hallmark’s king of schmaltz
Deep Dives

Quality Trash: Meet director Ron Oliver, Hallmark’s king of schmaltz