26 Caramelization Sweetens Cooked Onions
Onions contain sucrose, a natural sugar, trapped within their cells. The longer onions cook, the more sucrose is released. Heat then converts it into glucose and fructose, sweeter forms of sugar. This process, called caramelization, gives cooked onions their rich, sweet flavor.
27. Cocktails gained popularity during Prohibition when juices were added to bootleg liquor to mask unpleasant flavors, which could include ingredients like dead rats or wood tar.
28. There is a mushroom known as “Chicken of the Woods.” While some say it tastes like chicken, others describe its flavor as resembling crab or lobster.
29. Tonic water was originally created by the British army as a prophylactic treatment against malaria, thanks to the addition of quinine. To improve its bitter taste, soldiers began adding gin-giving rise to the classic gin and tonic.
30. About one in four people are “supertasters,” experiencing tastes more intensely than others. These individuals have a higher density of taste cells on their tongues and are often more sensitive to bitter flavors, which is why many supertasters dislike beer.
31 Bacon-Flavored Seaweed Discovery
In 2015, researchers at Oregon State University patented a strain of seaweed that tastes like bacon when cooked and contains twice the nutritional value of kale.
32. Termite queens have the longest known lifespan of any insect, living between 30 to 50 years. In many parts of the world, they are considered delicacies due to their rarity and rich, fatty flavor. Documentarian Andreas Johnsen sampled one and described its taste as similar to foie gras.
33. In a study, researchers discovered that intense sweetness can be more addictive than cocaine. When rats were given a choice between water sweetened with saccharin and intravenous cocaine, an overwhelming 94% preferred the sweet taste of saccharin.
34. American wine had a poor reputation until the 1976 “Judgment of Paris” event. Wine industry experts blind-tasted California and renowned French wines side by side. Surprisingly, California wines won in both red and white categories, revolutionizing the global wine industry.
35. DMSO, an organic solvent, has the unusual property of being “tasted” through touch. It directly stimulates the nerves responsible for taste, producing a sensation even without ingestion.
36 L-Glucose: Gold-Priced Sweetness
Glucose (sugar) has an opposite “handed” isomer known as L-glucose, which tastes identical but isn’t metabolized as sugar. It’s safe for diabetics but comes at a steep cost-about 50% more than gold.
37. The popular Sriracha sauce in the US (notably in the green-capped bottle) tastes different today due to a change in its chili pepper supplier. The original supplier was sued for $1 million over alleged overpayment, but the farmer countersued and won $23.3 million. He now produces his own Sriracha sauce.
38. Coca-Cola’s Simply Orange Juice is crafted using an algorithm known as the “Black Book.” Oranges are categorized by source, type, sweetness, and acidity, then flash-pasteurized and combined with flavor packs. This ensures a consistent taste nationwide, year-round.
39. Low pressure and humidity in airplane cabins reduce your senses of taste and smell by up to 30%. This diminished sensitivity contributes to the notoriously poor reputation of airline food.
40. Within just 48 hours of quitting smoking, your senses of smell and taste begin to recover and return to normal.
41 Why We Crave Spicy Foods
When you consume spicy foods, your brain releases endorphins and dopamine. This chemical reaction is why many people develop a craving for spicy foods after acquiring a taste for them.
42. The same chemical responsible for the earthy taste of beets also contributes to the distinctive smell that occurs when rain falls after a long dry spell.
43. Lemon juice reduces the fishy taste and smell of fish because its acidity neutralizes amines, the chemical compounds responsible for the odor. By neutralizing them, it makes the amines non-volatile, stopping the smell.
44. During the Middle Ages, physicians would drink their patients’ urine to diagnose medical conditions. Remarkably, they accurately diagnosed diabetes by detecting the sweet taste of the urine.
45. In 2006, a wine-tasting robot concluded that human flesh tastes similar to pork, particularly bacon.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Spartans’ Fearsome Black Soup
Spartan warriors commonly ate “black soup,” made from boiled pigs’ legs, blood, salt, and vinegar. After tasting it, one commentator remarked, “Now I know why the Spartans do not fear death.”
47. The fizzy sensation from carbonated drinks isn’t caused by bubbles popping. Instead, it’s the actual taste of carbon dioxide stimulating the taste receptors on your tongue.
48. Banana candy tastes different from modern bananas because the flavoring was invented during the popularity of the Gros Michel banana, which had a distinct taste. After Panama disease wiped out the Gros Michel, the Cavendish became the dominant variety, but the artificial flavor remained unchanged.
49. Just before World War II, the US developed the “Logan Bar,” a chocolate bar deliberately designed to taste only “a little better than a boiled potato.” The bland flavor ensured that soldiers wouldn’t eat it outside of emergency situations.
50. Cats cannot taste anything sweet. Instead, they can detect ATP, the biomolecule that supplies energy within living cells, making meat particularly appealing to them.
RE: Fact #31 (Bacon-Flavored Seaweed Discovery) – I’ve heard this story forever! It’s gotta be a myth, or some experiment that’ll never happen.
RE: Fact #10 (Babies’ Taste Bud Decline) – Why’s my little one not into fancy scotch and cheese?
RE: Fact #50 (Cats’ Unique Meat Taste Perception) – Why the parentheses around “meat”? Just ’cause tissue has ATP doesn’t automatically make it meat. ATP is super common in muscle, sure, because muscles need a ton of it for movement. But every single cell in your body uses ATP, not just muscles.
RE: Fact #2 (Electric Spoon Enhances Saltiness) – It’s not quite like salt, though. It just makes things salty, it doesn’t really *enhance* the flavor. Salt’s the best because you add a little bit at a time, building flavor as you go. These spoons? They just make it salty.
RE: Fact #37 (Sriracha’s Recipe Controversy) – The taste of sriracha always changed a bit, depending on the chili peppers – different seasons, different peppers. They never really tried to make every batch taste exactly the same.
It’s a bummer, really. They had this awesome partnership for about 25 years. As sriracha got more popular, they’d tell the farmer how much they needed, and he’d hire more people and get more land. They treated him really well, never tried to screw him over. It was a true partnership.
RE: Fact #32 (Delicacy of Termite Queens) – So, what’s foie gras like, taste-wise?
RE: Fact #31 (Bacon-Flavored Seaweed Discovery) – I’m betting it doesn’t actually taste like bacon.
RE: Fact #7 (Cilantro’s Soap Taste Gene) – There are tons of foods like that. Bell peppers are one, but fewer people are sensitive to them.
For some people, bell peppers taste awful, like dirt.
I wonder if cilantro sensitivity varies across different groups, since Pho seems to be half cilantro – that’s why I love it!
RE: Fact #5 (Miracle Fruit Alters Flavors) – The sugar industry fought tooth and nail to ban it as a food additive, even though food scientists were exploring ways to use it as a sugar substitute.
RE: Fact #23 (The Truth About New Coke) – They stopped making the original recipe later that week. That was a huge problem. People weren’t bothered by New Coke itself, but they were furious they couldn’t get the old stuff anymore. They brought out Coke Classic eventually, but the damage was done—people boycotted New Coke just out of spite.
RE: Fact #34 (Judgment of Paris Wine Revolution) – After Uncle Carlos died, my siblings and I cleaned out his place. We found this old bottle of Stag’s Leap wine – from ’74 or so, the one that made Napa famous. We were totally blown away! Turns out, the old hermit had a secret life as a wine guy. So we opened it up… and the joke was on us. He’d used that fancy bottle to age his *own* homemade wine, which was, well, awful. Really, really bad.
RE: Fact #1 (Red Delicious’ Flavor Decline) – They’re practically fake.
RE: Fact #47 (Carbon Dioxide’s Fizzy Taste) – I can’t stand that bubbly feeling in carbonated drinks. In 37 years, I’ve probably only had six packs worth of soda total—only when I was desperate and super thirsty, or that one time in high school I bet a dollar on it. I hate beer for the same reason.
People gave me weird looks as a kid for not liking soda, and I still get them as an adult for not liking beer. Now I just say I hate the taste of carbon dioxide—it sounds a bit better, I guess.
RE: Fact #12 (Brussels Sprouts’ Taste Evolution) – So, it turns out there’s no such thing as a “Brussel sprout”—it’s always “Brussels sprout.” Always add the “s”!