the columbia science review spring 2004 1 an excerpt from the book proposal for The Body Electric, the Shared Truths of Art and Science the taste of protein What is it about denatured protein, the taste of life past, that we fi nd so inexplicably appealing? by Jonah Lehrer ...After all, Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote verse about codifi ed the recipe. Before Escoffi er, the best way to chemistry experiments, the magic tricks of their day. make veal stock lay cloaked in mystery; cooking was Darwin was infl uenced in his idea of a continual creation th like alchemy, a semi-mystical endeavor. But Escoffi er by Milton. As recently as the 19 century, our two came of age during the zenith of positivism, a time cultures dared to share their knowledge and assimilate their when knowledge, some of it true, some of it false, was refl ections. This dialogue of art and science is essential. All being made public at a dizzying rate. Encyclopedia’s systems of truth should be interrogated by their antonym. were the book of the day. And Escoffi er wanted to do To be meaningful, to be more than a mere physiological for fancy food what Lavosier had done for chemistry. detail, the scientifi c molecule must be juxtaposed against And so a man who began his cooking career as an 8 the feeling, returned to its source. Despite the disparity year old dishwasher ended up forever changing the of their languages, our separate cultures exist congruently, way we eat. each requiring the other for completion... At the heart of Escoffi er’s insight (and the source of more than a few heart failures) was his use the taste of protein of stock. He put it in everything. He reduced to a gelatinous jello, made it the base of pureed soups, ight is the newest of our senses. In the boiled meats in it and enriched it with butter and booze vast terms of evolutionary time, it is for sauces. But most importantly, Escoffi er deglazed Sa rather recent invention. Smell, that with his stocks. More than anything else, French food most primitive of impressions, is our oldest sense. is defi ned by this very simple process. Essentially, Even unicellular creatures have a way of breathing in deglazing is when a cook burns meat in a pan (to their environment and “tasting it”. Perhaps because produce a nice seared Maillard Crust, a crosslinking olfaction seems so crude an input, cooking, that and “carmelizing” of amino acids) and then adds a mirror to our tongue and nose, has rarely (at least liquid. The fronde, the burned bits of protein that rise outside France) been considered an art. up from the pan (deglazing also makes life easier for Nevertheless, the kitchen is a testament to the dishwasher) gives sauces their divine depth; its our cravings. Behind the most elaborate of recipes what makes beef bourguignon, bourguignon. Deglazing lies the basic human need for salt, glucose and fat. is why expensive menus the world over always are in The chef translates these basic needs into the artifi ce French. of deliciousness, creating an aesthetic space out of But what is it about stocks and deglazing that bodily requirements. the tongue fi nds so delicious? They seem to appeal to The history of that aesthetic space, the no distinct part of our tongue, being neither sweet or moment when people began paying large sums of sour or especially salty. So why does it taste so good? money for a meal cooked by a stranger, begins in What does our tongue taste when we eat a spoonful of th early 19 century France, with a one-time dishwasher. a viscous and profound beef daube, its deglazed bits His name was Escoffi er and he invented veal stock. simmered in wine and stock until the sinewy meat is Others had boiled bones before, but no one had appropriate for a spoon ? Or for that matter, what do 2 spring 2004 the columbia science review we taste when we eat a smelly cheese? What is it about soy sauce (all potent sources of glutamate), science denatured protein, the taste of life past, that we fi nd persisted in its naive belief in four, and only four, so inexplicably appealing? tastes. The answer is umami. The Even more erroneously, science Japanese word for delicious, umami is an believed each taste was relegated to a unlikely answer to Escoffi er’s insights. specifi c section of tongue (ie, bitterness But, according to science, umami is at the back, sweetness at the peninsular what you taste when you bite into tip). No one seems to know why decay. To be precise, umami is actually science perpetuated this myth, but it the taste of L-glutamate, the dominant is completely wrong. Beyond a mild amino acid in the composition of life. concentration of bitter receptors at the L-glutamate is released from life forms back of our tongue (poisons tend to be The taste map myth by proteolysis (a shy scientifi c word for bitter so it should be the last thing we death, rot and the cooking process). It’s only in its taste) our taste cells are equally distributed. free form that you can taste it. Despite the willful ignorance of science at The story of umami begins at about the the time, Kikeda’s idea gained a certain cult following. same time that Escoffi er invented Filet ala Rosselini, His salty white substance, MSG, a powder that science a fi let mignon sauced with a reduced veal stock and said couldn’t work because we had no means to taste a scattering of black truffl es. The year was 1907 it, nevertheless became an overused staple of cheap and Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda asked himself Chinese food (MSG was sold in America under the a simple question: what does dashi taste like? Dashi label “Super Seasoning”). With time, other pioneers is a classic Japanese broth made from kombo, a dried began investigating their local cuisines and found form of kelp. It’s used in Japanese cooking like the their own densities of L-glutamate. Everything from French use meat stock, as a universal solvent, a base aged cheeses to ketchup was rich in this magic little for every sauce. But to Ikeda, dashi didn’t taste like amino acid. Furthermore, its chemical discovery any of the four classic tastes or even like some unique began to answer some of the culinary world’s deepest combination of them. It was all of them at once, only questions: Why do so many cultures, beginning with more so. It was delicious. Or as the Japanese would ancient Rome, have a fi sh sauce? (salted, slightly say, it was umami. rotting anchovies are like glutamate speedballs) Why And so Kikeda began his quixotic quest does ketchup taste so good on French fries? (the for this unknown taste. He distilled fi elds of kelp, L-glutamate in ketchup somehow heightens our searching for the essence that might trigger the same sensitivity to all other tastes. Add ketchup and the fry mysterious feeling on the tongue as a steaming bowl becomes more French.) And of course, umami theory of soup. After patient years of lonely chemistry, also explains Escoffi er’s genius. The burned bits of Kikeda emerged with an odorless, white powder. It’s meat in the bottom of a pan are unraveled protein, name was monosodium glutamate. It was salty, but dense in glutamate. Dissolved in the sauce, they fi ll not like salt. Nor was it sweet, sour or your mouth with a now quantifi able deliciousness. bitter. But it was delicious. He named Umami also explains why meat tastes so good. It’s this sensation umami. former animal, and is thus all amino acid. The Atkins Kikeda’s research, while diet should be offi cially renamed the “pure Umami representing a potentially seminal fi nding diet”. Monosodium glutamate. in the physiology of taste, languished. So the culture of the kitchen had articulated a His discovery was completely ignored; science thought biological truth of the tongue long before science did it had the tongue solved. Umami these rational people solely because it was forced to feed us. It lived and said, was an idle theory unique to Japanese food, a silly died by the capricious whims of the tongue. But what idea concerned with something called “deliciousness”, every cook knew for sure, science was still denying. whatever that was. And so while cooks the world over The taste of the delicious, said these lab coats, was all continued to base entire cuisines on the use of dashi, in our imagination. parmesan cheese, tomato sauce, chicken stock and continued on page 5 the columbia science review spring 2004 3 Does Quantum Physics Set Us Free? By Kristen Fountain Prominent physicists Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Shroedinger, Albert Einstein, and Niels Bohr famously disputed the certainty of a particle’s position. ou are rushing down College Walk, Under that paradigm, how can a person (a soul, a self) late for giving a class presentation possibly be the sole cause of his or her own actions? Ywhen out of the corner of your eye Thinkers have been picking and pulling at the problem you see a friend sitting bent over on the steps, her for centuries with the same arguments until the early shoulders shaking, head in her hands. She didn’t see twentieth century when the pillar started to crack. you and would never know if you don’t double-back.