Blueberries and More from the Taste Makers

Remember blueberry snowcones? A hot summer afternoon and the refreshing cold of shaved ice flavored with bright blue sweet syrup? We knew that blueberries didn't taste this "blue" but that was okay. Reading "The Taste Makers" in the November 23, 2009 issue of the New Yorker makes you realize how the flavor business has evolved into ever greater illusions of taste and sight. Raffi Khatchadourain follows and profiles Michelle Hagen, a flavorist at the Cincinnati labs of Givaudan, a Swiss company that is the largest manufacturer of flavors and fragrances in the world.

I put some fresh blueberries on my cereal this morning - they are kind of yellowish on the inside and the flavor is quite subtle, nothing like the blueberry pomegranate sports drink in my refrigerator. But as Hagen says about creating a flavor, "It's not like you are getting judged on how close you are to the real fruit. At the end of the day you are getting judged by how good the flavor tastes." Unless of course we're talking about energy drinks like Red Bull - which have what is called an "unbalanced" energy note, which is best described as a spiky note. "So when I build energy flavors with our client it has got to taste bad".

What's interesting is that many of the flavors are "natural" in that they are derived from essential oils from lemon, orange and lime peels. So, even if chemically reproduced, they can often be listed as natural flavors on the product label.

Aside from the explosion of different soft drink flavors, there are essentially two sides to flavor research - make cheap junk food with questionable ingredients seem "delicious" - or mask a reduction in sugar, salt or trans fat, things that are are harmful in excess, which is a good thing.

A case of the former - the example of an unnamed company working on a tasteless "slurry" consisting largely of starch, oil and salt, which a client was hoping to transform into a marketable product. The client has the company's in-house chef prepare dips such as guacamole, using fresh ingredients and then have the company's flavorists mimic them chemically...injecting...the slurry....
I think I'll have to pass on the "guacamole" now available at various fast food restaurants on foot longs and as taco sides.