WASHINGTON — Some sweetened tangerine juice. A little soy protein. A blender. Voila: A trendy, frothy dessert becomes a lesson in kitchen chemistry.
It turns out the chef who whips up pies for the president is also a bit of a scientist — calling on knowledge of how to help bubbles hold their shape and how crystals affect chocolate and salt in the quest for healthier goodies.
You wouldn’t think taste tests would be on the menu, er, agenda when the American Association for the Advancement of Science assembles some of the world’s leading molecular biologists and geneticists and astronomers for a once-a-year look at exciting discoveries.
But White House pastry chef Bill Yosses exchanged his white apron for a bow tie Saturday to talk with scientists about how chefs are changing perceptions of taste. He brought samples — chocolates that gleamed, and that tangerine foam that held up spoonfuls of juicy berries for about an hour.
His point: Texture plays a huge role in taste.
All in moderation
Consider chocolate mousse with its sumptuous mouth feel, caused largely by added cream that, Yosses notes, also clogs arteries. He substitutes water and gelatin for cream to deliver that feel with less fat.
Or take that tangerine foam. The soy protein helps form structures around the air bubbles from Yosses’ blender. Look, he said as he spooned a plateful: “It’s just tangerine juice, but we can fill the whole plate.”
Maximize texture to maximize a taste, Yosses said, and suddenly people are happy with fewer bites — a message that goes hand in hand with the healthy-eating mantra of his bosses, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. Dessert in moderation, he said, can be part of a healthy balanced diet.
“What chefs want to achieve with modern cooking is a kind of fascination with food” that also is “able to move people toward a healthier approach to eating,” Yosses told the researchers.
Twists and turns of taste
In fact, the science of taste is a booming field. It tells us that taste is incredibly complicated, an interaction of the tongue, the nose, psychological cues and exposure to different flavors.
Kraft Foods research scientist Jane Leland brought samples too — yellow jelly beans.
Pinch your nose closed, she told the crowd. Now take a few chews of a jelly bean. It tastes sweet, from taste receptors on the tongue.
OK, release the nose and chew some more. Whoa, now lemon flavor bursts forth. Aroma molecules move through the back of the mouth to the nasal cavity and reach the olfactory bulb, she explained.
Now back to the texture lesson from the White House’s Yosses. Sodium is sodium whether it is in the fine grains of the typical salt shaker or large chunks of trendy sea salt, he said.
But larger crystals melt more slowly on the tongue, so sea salt can be “very satisfying,” he said. That is why he uses that type for salted caramel.
“It really is texture as taste. But if you’re going to do that, you have to reduce it (sodium) somewhere else,” he said.
