Are you cooking the flavor out of your food?

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In cooking, it’s difficult to preserve flavor AND create flavor at the same time.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘁𝘆-𝗴𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝘆:
-Chambers E 4th, Koppel K. Associations of volatile compounds with sensory aroma and flavor: the complex nature of flavor. Molecules. 2013 Apr 25;18(5):4887-905. doi: 10.3390/molecules18054887
-Rocha SM, Costa CP, Martins C. Aroma Clouds of Foods: A Step Forward to Unveil Food Aroma Complexity Using GC × GC. Front Chem. 2022 Mar 1;10:820749. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.820749.
-Kays SJ and Wang Y (2000). Thermally induced flavor compounds. HortScience. 35, 1002-1012. doi: 10.21273/HORTSCI.35.6.1002
-Spence C. What Is the Relationship between the Presence of Volatile Organic Compounds in Food and Drink Products and Multisensory Flavour Perception? Foods. 2021 Jul 6;10(7):1570. doi: 10.3390/foods10071570.
𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 (𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲) 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀:
www.thespecialsaucepodcast.co...
kitchen-theory.com/understand...
www.restaurantbusinessonline....
www.americastestkitchen.com/c...
www.americastestkitchen.com/c...
www.thoughtco.com/aroma-compo...
www.seriouseats.com/ask-the-f...
𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿-𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰:
-Dr. Keith Cadwallader, Professor of Food Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
MinuteFood is created by Kate Yoshida, Arcadi Garcia & Leonardo Souza, and produced by Neptune Studios LLC.
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[@MinuteFood]

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[@matthewharris-levesque5809]

You need to consider editing this video. Eating tomato leaves is not recommended and can cause gastro distress and other concerns in children. Casual suggestions of using them in cooking, without warnings, isn't really the best practice.

[@qwertyman1511]

I am personally suspicious of a charity with a marketing budget.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

​@@qwertyman1511the percentage of marketing vs percentage spent is what you should investigate. Consider how many services that exist, but no one has heard of them? In the extreme, 0 marketing *could* mean 0 people hear about the service.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

A very interesting sponsor. I'm looking through their website!

[@Ruruskadooo]

Aside from the smell itself being part of the taste, imo it makes food more enjoyable when you can smell it in the house while it's cooking and it smells delicious; it builds up the anticipation and enhances the later eating experience. So much of the enjoyment of food is how you perceive it, and there's just something about the experience of smelling a delicious home cooked meal wafting through the house that feels so happy and comforting, especially if you're going to sit down and enjoy it together with loved ones once it's done.

[@AdmiralThumbs]

Yeah, I was going to say something like this. I wonder if there have been any studies into the psychological effects of smelling good food before tasting/eating it. Perhaps the smells you get in advance are not wasted, but rather investments that yield a more enjoyable experience overall.

[@cromcorgetti]

In my experience, it's a double edged sword where I sometimes end up feeling like my food tastes flat due to odor fatigue of cooking for hours and smelling the same cooking. This is all anecdotal but I've read others experiencing the same thing.

[@Mattrk698]

I think it goes around that, the anticipation of the flavor, people who can't smell anything are able to taste the food and enjoy it equally

[@asdfghyter]

i feel like the main thing missing in the original quotes (apart from "is it a significant amount you lose?") is that you actually need the volatilization for it to taste/smell anything, so it is very helpful to create the environment where the aroma compounds are likely to escape before serving

[@miigon9117]

Becoming stressed out about losing flavor when smelling good aroma sounds so bad and goes against a big part of cooking and eating delicious food: making yourself happy. I would say just enjoy yourself and don't worry about it.

[@cherriberri8373]

Exactly, imo if you made yummy smelling food, unless something went horribly wrong that's a strong indicator it's gonna taste yummy... especially because as we've already talked about a lot here, smell is flavor

[@k_fuller]

I loved the shout-out to America's Test Kitchen! I was thinking of that tomato video the whole time. They have a similar hack for strawberries, where they add blended freeze dried strawberries at the end. On the flip side, when making broccoli cheddar soup, they say to simmer the broccoli for twenty minutes because in that case you want to boil off the sulfur aromas so that you're left with the nutty and subtler flavors.

[@lordofthestrings86]

I’d always heard that tomato leaves were poisonous. After looking in to it, that is not the case. I’m curious though, do you basically treat them like a bay leaf and take out before serving?

[@techheck3358]

⁠​⁠@@lordofthestrings86I would assume so, but depends on the dish. Tomato leaves are much more tender than bay leaves, they’re more akin to spinach. The myth isn’t entirely unfounded. Many parts of plants in the nightshade family (solanaceae) can be dangerous. For example, tomato leaves are fine, but potato leaves aren’t.

[@icecreambone]

i feel like the unanswered question here is whether you are actually losing a significant amount of flavor. a gas or aerosol is much less dense than a liquid or a solid after all

[@brothermine2292]

That question was covered beginning at 2:40.

[@keelanrose5706]

@@brothermine2292 I feel like it was just a little bit vague. But hey ho, still not a bad video :)

[@cherriberri8373]

@@keelanrose5706 It's a bit vague because there is no yes or no to it, and the vagueness of all of this is acknowledged in the video. But I agree, Minutefood did an awesome job explaining a broad and rather still unknown topic

[@collinfant5146]

If you're cooking over a really long time yes. Like in say a crockpot. Otherwise no.

[@ankokuraven]

One thing i will add, getting a food to the state its releasing those volatile aromas, means it will be pumping out those aromas while you are eating them. some of those compounds would not get released during consumption if they were cold.

[@gleann_cuilinn]

The tip about tomato leaves is super useful because I have a tomato plant that makes tons of leaves but not many tomatoes... now i can use it for something

[@oldcowbb]

tomato leaves are mildly poisonous

[@Bb-yr1cu]

@oldcowbb Exactly my thought! It is not very safe to consume any parts of the tomato plant except for the fruit, since they are poisonous. Composting them is a much better idea imo, it can give you more tomatoes in the next growing season! :D

[@LibertyMonk]

​@@oldcowbbonly very mildly. You're more likely to get heartburn from the acidity in the tomato sauce/dish than feel anything from a pinch of tomato leaves mixed into a pot of sauce.

[@genericalias5756]

not always a bad thing though: if you've ever cooked beef or lamb start to finish in a pressure cooker, you might have noticed some odors that stick around at the end

[@satansamael666]

Also to caveat the argument, you are also losing undesirable odors as well. So that’s another factor to consider.

[@MinuteFood]

A great point! Fish sauce is my favorite example of this.

[@thomassebastian7]

1:06 This was exactly what I tried to explain to people. Smelling and tasting are the same. If you smell something, you indirectly are tasting it. If you taste something, you indirectly are smelling it.

[@VincentGroenewold]

To me, aroma is the entire thing that makes things taste. I unfortunately have Corona at the moment and lost my taste, but I still taste sour, salt and heat. The rest is completely gone though (usually temporarily fortunately). But that you loose enough to evaporation to even notice, I also never believed that exactly because it's a small percentage.

[@claranyman5708]

SAME. Im also sick atm and Ive lost my sense of smell and by far the worst part of this is that I can't taste food properly anymore. Everything just tastes vaguely sour!

[@keelanrose5706]

It depends. If you add some fresh herbs at the beginning when cooking a stew or something I can well imagine their flavour cooking away. Generally I think you're right though. It's simply a negligible amount.

[@tomclanys]

Once I had that virus I lost my smell and taste for like 4 days, but like... completely. I couldn't even smell alcohol, chilli powder or pepper. I couldn't even feel their burn at all! That was the weirdest thing ever. Weirdly enough nothing tasted "bad", but the texture was more noticeable, but nothing was disguisting or anything like that.

[@durdleduc8520]

i was pretty surprised when she said that scientists were unsure how much aroma contributes to flavor -- based on accounts like yours, i thought it was universally agreed that smell IS flavor! get well soon.

[@cherriberri8373]

@@durdleduc8520 Well yeah, their account is from having covid, which interrupts both senses. So as scientists said, we don't know how much aroma contributes to the flavor of food and how much of it is actually just taste

[@lumination0923]

That explains why every time my mom cooks it smells so amazing but the actual food itself is bland and sometimes even terrible! I don't think she's a food nerd like everyone here but I might experiment with this once I start cooking on my own

[@LibertyMonk]

She also might just, not add salt or oil/butter to bring out the flavor of the dish. Heat control is really important for flavor, but if there's no salt to bring out the flavor, or no fats to spread the flavor over your tongue, it'll seem bland.

[@randomjunkohyeah1]

It’s extremely unlikely that the stuff in this video has anything to do with it.

[@iagocasabiellgonzalez7807]

Totally agree. Think onion dice. When cooking on olive oil at a mild frying boil 'till it gets transparent it gives tons of aroma (some times too much, if the onion is wilder), and the resulting base can be used for a million different dishes, giving flavor but not killing all others, a positive thing. Evaporating cooking water to concentrate flavor is another of my favorite tricks.

[@PredictableEnigma]

I think smelling it before eating while it's cooking means you are still getting the pleasurable benefits of those compounds, just earlier. The anticipation of the food you get from smelling the scents coming from the kitchen is just as good as the scents you get when you are actively eating the food! Not lost scent/flavor, just timed differently.

[@miandrew88]

Thanks for explaining some of the stuff I've inherently learned from cooking like adding fresh herbs at the end of cooking! Love this channel

[@blainebickle1178]

I love how you make food science easier to understand with these concise videos!

[@xelaxander]

I noticed that risotto is way more flavorful if the cheese is added just at the end. Somit seems to matter for some dishes where one adds flavor compounds in low concentrations. If the flavor compound is produced by heat, like in many Maillard reactions, it doesn’t seem to really matter.

[@DoctorX17]

I wish I had a sense of smell so I could enjoy aroma… it sounds so nice to be able to tell if someone is cooking from another room and enjoy it

[@MuttonTheDragon]

Smells also get your mouth watering for good food, helping with the digestion process early on.

[@EnRav1]

I feel like that one tasting water by smelling company would've been the perfect sponsor for this video

[@KristenRowenPliske]

I lost my sense of smell after a bad sinus infection (not COVID) & that DEFINITELY affected my sense of taste. It took a couple years before I regained anything, at first just string odors & flavors & now moderate. I could always sense heat from spices (I can’t tolerate them 🤷🏽‍♀️) & much of what I don’t like is texture-based anyway. I ate what I knew I liked & tried a few other things that I normally wouldn’t have been interested in. My mom was more concerned about it than I was; it didn’t stop me from getting hungry & eating.

[@drunkenobservations7483]

I have wondered about this with stock making. I go for around 4 hours, while I have friends that believe in 24 hrs.

[@LimeyLassen]

I wonder, if the whole room smells good from the food, can you even tell the difference where that aroma is coming from?

[@KaitouKaiju]

Yeah smells get more intense the closer the source is and since some compounds vanish very quickly the aroma is much more complex when fresh

[@christopherkarr1872]

Nice video - I've been saying this for years. Volatile aromatic compounds *are* smell, and adding, say, vegetables to a stock near the end of stock cooking significantly improves flavor retention.

[@SkylerLinux]

On the point of preserving the smells in food as you're cooking them, cook in a pressure pot. It's both faster to cook AND with a higher pressure the compounds will cook-off at higher temps & slower

[@babilon6097]

I like your flavour of humour. I hope you're not running out any time soon.

[@clankb2o5]

Some people in the comments seem to think that tomato leaves are poisonous, but a quick google search tells me that they're perfectly fine to eat. Happy cooking!

[@L0v3Aesthetix]

I love food and about cooking. And new subscriber!

[@tonatiuhl.8433]

In coffee there is a new method used to keep the volatile compounds created during the extraction: a frozen metal ball between your shot and your cup. there are some good videos about it, i love this kind of tricks

[@akpak4449]

Huge added value in those videos!

[@narutokunn]

I can't cook ANYTHING but I LOVE THIS CHANNEL.Thankyou

[@elheber]

IMHO smelling my delicious food while cooking is part of my meal, and a huge part of why I love cooking. It's like an appetizer. Sorry, no, correction: it's literally an appetizer.

[@savagesarethebest7251]

Adding some of the ingredients later is something I and my girlfriend already have figured out together by ourselves :)

[@nocsha4119]

Im kinda glad i saw this because o want to make a tea concentrate anf was wondering the same

[@MathewSan_]

Great video 👍🔝

[@crazyrocket2900]

People always ask me if I can't taste food as well because I can't smell. I think I just can't sense the compounds at the really low concentrations people normally can like you discussed because I can (sort of) taste a lot of the things you said you mostly smell and don't taste. I have actually fallen out with a lot of the things in that list (my sense of smell slowly deteriorated). Some examples being vanilla and chocolate (it's usually too sweet for me now). I never liked almond so I don't have anything to compare, I love the acidity of tomatoes and lemons so I don't know if that's supposed to have some deeper layer to the flavor. I like cinnamon but it does feel like I have to put a lot of cinnamon on stuff in order to taste it. I switched away from coffee to tea because I like the slower release in caffeine so that one doesn't count, and I still like parsley and sage. (I wasn't aware bread had an aroma)

[@cherriberri8373]

I'm a bit similar, I lost a portion of my sense of smell after an ATV accident. It feels like it depends on the day and even time of day, and temperature, but I'd describe it as exactly that, like I needed a higher concentration of the actual molecules to be able to smell it versus people around me. I too, didn't know bread had an aroma until I started eating breads besides white bread, but it's never been strong. Very maillard-y smell with a sort of starchiness similar to potato, but I cant smell bread at all during the night

[@crazyrocket2900]

@@cherriberri8373 That's strange that it varies! For me the whole process was a slow decay over years and it will sometimes be not as bad for a day but it returns to where it's at now which is pretty thoroughly not being able to smell. I am an undergrad in chemistry and math so I get to test that sometimes too with some funky stuff. Pretty much my only experience with directly smelling things anymore is if they're very strong or occasional bouts of smelling fairly random things very intensely. I'm not entirely convinced the second one is real though because I ask my wife if she can smell it too and she has no clue what I'm talking about so I tend not to share anymore because I don't want people thinking I'm crazy. I noticed that I'm starting to forget what things are supposed to smell like but with things like bread I think it's just that they blend into the background so you don't think about the smell of bread until you lost it and then just assumed it must not have had a sent. I had a similar thing with chocolate funnily enough (another one in that frame of foods we mostly smell the taste of them) and only recently my wife told me that it does have a smell - she was working in a candy store.

[@LibertyMonk]

"the acidity of tomatoes but don't know if there's more to it than that" wow. The acidity is an important part of it's profile, but only in the way the milk chocolate is sweet and dark chocolate is bitter. I can't even imagine what it'd be like without aromatics/volatiles.

[@AySz88]

As clarification, the distinctive smell of bread is often identified as "freshly baked bread" or toast, and is a classic maillard reaction example. Lemons (citronellal) and tomatoes (lots - see "The Genetic Basis of Tomato Aroma") each have fairly potent smells from just breaking the plants' cell walls (ex. zesting lemon skins), not just the acidity.

[@savvivixen8490]

All I know is that my dad taught me to "flavor for loss." I already know a measure of flavor will be inevitably lost during the cooking process, so seasoning my dish in a way to compensate for the inevitable loss based on volume, temperature, and water/lipid content has saved me a good deal of trouble with my dishes and baked goods.

[@anthonylosego]

The layering function is probably key. Cook first, layer up later before serving.

[@Wildhorn666]

Was expecting an AirUp sponsorship with that subject.

[@SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

Thanks so much

[@Yupppi]

I like the hypothesis, and I like it be left as an academic exercise. I think we've all been there where we cook until something smells good. We don't want the previous lost smells, we want the food to reach the point where the smell is good and then we know it has reached the point of being delicious and we can stop cooking. And think about all the sauces, like the basic italian tomato meat sauce, that is left on the stove instead of taken out right when all the parts of it have been heated. The flavour basically gets better the longer you let it sit. While losing all those smell molecules "for no good reason". I think it's one of those nice to know mechanics and theory that don't have much to guide in practice (other than don't roast your food for a long time when it's done).

[@ciaduck]

This reminds me of tea brewing temperature. Green tea tastes bitter and sad if you brew it at boiling. If you brew it at 170 degress F (the correct temperature) it is sweet and sometime grassy. The hotter temperature scalds the leaves, destroying the sweet flavors and producing bitter ones.

[@MinuteFood]

We just might have a video in the pipeline on this very topic...

[@billmcdonald4335]

I'm anosmic, so cooking for me is all about sight, sound, feel, and taste. I've learned over the years what works for me and what does not.

[@ramblingsofgabby]

When I make soup I noticed a trend of adding vinegar or acid as a last step off heat, but sometimes I've had to play with the flavours to get the soup where I want and the acid will fade. It's also not nearly as prevalent in any leftover soups

[@samanthaDH]

1:55 Whoaaaaa The biggest/only thing my mom taught me with cooking growing up is that, "If you can smell it, it's done" and holy heck there's science to back her up!

[@BastiatC]

I'm not even through the intro and I can already hear the Cajuns laughing.

[@emiliomurkmere]

2:04 omg khachapuri!!! my georgian friend's mom makes this so much and its sooo goooddd

[@Xloi63]

In mead brewing, I’ve learned that you should only add your flavouring ingredients like fruit and flowers during the secondary fermentation stage. If they are put in too early, the intense agitation of the primary fermentation will blow off all of those flavourful volatile compounds that would make your brew complex and unique. Not waiting for the first fermentation to wind down explains why my meads all came out with the same sort of funky taste.

[@travisretriever7473]

"That's my two scents" ... Take my fucking like, lady!

[@dhruvpatel.1001]

Yes, I don't wanna accept that, the smell replaces the flavour, I really love the smell/flavour from the Maillard reaction! 😋

[@LiborTinka]

Yes, steam distillation is actually one way how aroma compounds are extracted (e.g. essential oils). The efficiency depends on steam volatility of the said compound (see e.g. Raoult's law).

[@gildedbear5355]

I think the better way to look at it would be that cooking changes flavor and the scents of the cooking food are indicators of how those changes are progressing.

[@BIGWUNuvDbunch]

Minute food dropping another banger!

[@GameDesignerJDG]

There are ways to preserve aroma compounds, if you want to go to the effort. I propose there are 3 ways: condensing, dissolving, and capturing. Condensing is when a gas (such as a volatilized compound) loses heat and changes phase back to a solid or liquid. You can condense the flavours by keeping the lid on your pot as you cook. Many flavour compounds will condense on the surface of the lid and should fall back into the dish you're cooking. You could take this to the extreme by cooling down your lid with ice water or building a lid with active cooling (either with AC / a heat pump or by pumping cold liquid over it). Disadvantages: only compounds that become volatile at temperatures above that of your condensing surface (the lid in the examples above) can be collected this way. It's possible to dissolve volatile flavour compounds into another substance, like water, oil, or alcohol to prevent them from escaping the dish. You can do this by simply adding water, fat, or alcohol to your dish. If you want to collect the most volatile compounds, I suppose the best option would be to create a continuous supply of mist in the pot. Misting the liquid would increase the surface area and dispersion of the solvent (water, oil, and alcohol), which would increase the probability of capturing stray compounds. Disadvantages: Only compounds that dissolve in the solvent you use can be collected this way. Water dissolves different compounds than oil which dissolves different compounds than alcohol. In addition, adding solvent to your cooking inherently changes the recipe that you're trying to create. Lastly, you can prevent volatile compounds from escaping by literally trapping or capturing them inside something that you don't open until later. Fried chicken captures the flavour of the meat inside by creating a crispy shell around the food. Certain baked goods can capture the flavours of things baked in them. That's why pigs in a blanket taste better than hotdogs. You can also keep the food in a closed container while it cooks, but that would usually turn it into a pressure chamber, which isn't ideal. The best way to take advantage of this is to eat the package the food came in, but another way is to wrap the food in tinfoil or boil it in a vacuum sealed bag suited for the task. Disadvantages: heating a completely closed package is usually a bad idea. And partially open packages can let some compounds out. Combining 2 or all of these techniques is easy. Putting a lid on your pot condenses volatile compounds on the surface of the lid, as well as condenses water to dissolve the compounds, and it constricts paths for the compounds to escape, even if it doesn't completely capture them.

[@reneejoseph5334]

Bro I’m not even trolling this channel is so educational

[@CaritasGothKaraoke]

Don’t call people “bro”. Especially don’t call women “bro”. Just stop saying “bro” altogether. Seriously. Abolish the word, even for brothers.

[@sandwich2473]

When I had covid I lost my smell entirely for almost a year I could still taste perfectly fine but all food was limited to the basic senses of sweet, satly, etf Funnily enough, when I started to get my smell back I fell in love with coffee :P

[@yellowflowerorangeflower5706]

Also much of the pleasure of cooking itself comes from the aroma

[@jon1913]

Oh food puns, you always get me.

[@armagetronfasttrack9808]

Do any research papers actually show that _any_ relevant aroma compounds (aside from maybe ethanol) are vaporized enough during a typical home cooking process to reduce their concentration to ~50% or less? For example, for the tomato sauce trick, are they sure that the fresh tomato flavors are actually being "cooked off" (vaporized) and not just undergoing chemical reactions due to the heat? If there aren't any actual examples in the research, then I would say it's totally irrelevant to even consider trying to "save" any aroma loss through vaporization since the concentration of the aromas is not even changing in a significant way due to vaporization.

[@GoodTIMeMoviesNL]

Wow you guys in America now also have tony Chocolonely, that os good to see.

[@MultiLeandrini]

This is so interesting, and I never really thought about this. But there is a premise in this video: "flavor" that the eater gets is of absolute importance but the smell of processing the food is irrelevant (in terms of pleasure of the cooker, not in the sense of information so that we know how good is the cooking process going). In my opinion the smells I get while cooking are good and pleasurable on their own, I don't think I would like it very much to cook in an odourless environment. Part of the good experience of eating is also the cooking. (Although -again, as you said, it's complicated- because as you smell the stuff you're cooking you also lose sensibility to the flavour when eating)

[@hopsiepike]

It depends on how volatile the aromatic is - some definitely cook off faster than others. Saffron, for example, can disappear if added too early.

[@mathewritchie]

On the other hand it is possible to eliminate flavor from food a few years ago I did some work at lake Argyle diamond mine when I went to the mess for dinner and breakfast all the food was tasteless and no amount of salt or chilli sauce could fix the problem,I have since found other food suppliers with the same magical anti flavor technology but never found out how they do it.

[@P_Chalou]

I guess you have to learn by experience which compounds are completely lost with heating. I certainly cannot tell, but we all usually add herbs at the final stages. Another thing I have noticed is that when I use white wine with nice fruity and flower scent, I smell something really amazing, but I have lost all the aroma after 2-3 minutes. So I have come to decide that I will add the wine just before I remove from the heat, even if alcohol remains at the end

[@sfllaw]

5:16 You fooled me into thinking that you'd partnered with @TwoCentsPBS! 😅

[@HelPfeffer]

0:21 me: "oh, so more flavor means more smell, right?" her: *the other way around* me: 🤔

[@SnowsLife]

basically, fresh bread is a smell. fresh bread is also a taste. temperature is key for taste... soo Ideally , you would have both, but the combination of the latter is ideal.

[@jakeehrlich8113]

For compounds that can re-dissolve (not sure which these are) and don’t break down (not sure which ones these are either) cooking them in a confined space and then letting them cool back down would in theory preserve them. If you sous vide pineapple juice before using it as a marinade for meat or as a flavoring agent in bread you can denature the bromine enzymes that break down protein/gluten while maintaining more of those fresh volatile compounds. This sort of “pasteurized” pineapple juice doesn’t taste quite as fresh as the real stuff but it is a lot better than boiling it. Another aside, some foods/aromas like lemon are particularly or easy to boil off. Boiled lemon juice tastes like sour water but you can cook strawberry jam quite a lot and it retains its flavor. I think in some cases it’s just because the volatile compounds themselves are more volatile (truffles seem to be an instance of this), and in other cases the viscosity/solidness of the food might not be allowing the compounds to escape as quickly until you break them down and increase their surface area by chewing in your mouth.

[@MBKill3rCat]

It's not just smell, but I find if I add herbs at the start of cooking, their flavour is much diminished compared to adding them near the end

[@mikeroni]

I’m not sure it matters if you eat in the same area that you’re cooking in? The smells make their way to your nose either way

[@brothermine2292]

Do pressure cookers preserve flavor?

[@MindYourOwnPlate]

Surstrõmming for sure tastes better than it smells!

[@mael1515]

Sous vide would have been an interesting element here: air tight cooking could mean more flavor?

[@Rkcuddles]

As always your puns and red hair stick figure are my favorite Wait how come I can't taste anything when I lose my sense of smell when I have the flu? I thought without the smell, your taste buds don't get prepared so you don't taste the food as well.

[@marwcelin4022]

I wish you could have talked about ways to reduce flavor instead of increasing it too but few things you said could be very useful like using an air fryer, I just wish there were ways of doing that without making the whole house smell terribly

[@kloassie]

How about putting a lid on the pan to trap the aroma until the food is served

[@bensoncheung2801]

Totally.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

1:16 studied neurology and people have lost their sense of smell, leaving only taste behind. "Taste" is mostly smell. Sweet, salty, bitter, sour (umami? Popularized after my studies lol)

[@mooing_cowmilk]

friendly reminder that when you smell PO from the last person who used the bathroom, your consuming their waste products :)

[@TK_Brainslug]

my granny cooked red cabbage so long the was almost no colour left in it. My mom cooked it properly I hated it same with sourkraut which i quite unusual being a german myself

[@IWouldLikeToRemainAnonymous]

Great video! I immidiately got suspicious of the claim covered in the video. It is really much like with nutrients in food. When you cook some food you will be breaking down some nutrients that you no longer will absorb (in that way at least) but you are also rendering even more nutrients out of other bits when cooking and making them more bio-available in the digestion. I am all for questioning old wisdom but this was like a no-brainer. If the good smell of food made food worse to taste we wouldn't be cooking and reheating food in the first place. Ancient humans and civilizations did not know the science of how cooked food is more nutritious so had the smell generated in the cooking process actually made the food flavour worse than to not cook these ancient people wouldn't waste resources on doing it. Then we have the personal experience; aside from certain beverages and desserts, don't most of us think that most food is better when cooked/warm rather than having it cold?

[@cherriberri8373]

Nah, there are definitely some foods I prefer cold honestly! But I think that just goes to show that they're few in number, and I like most of them hot too even if I prefer them cold. One easy example is basically any salad

[@IWouldLikeToRemainAnonymous]

@@cherriberri8373 Just my point! I realized after I posted that I didn't include salads among the exemptions but should have because hot iceberg, arugula or romaine is not generally good. But otherwise, most foods are considered good or better when warm, by most people.

[@christophermcclellan8730]

Aren’t the green parts of tomato plants (i.e. the not tomato parts) poisonous though??

[@Ryak1234]

Isn't it the same thing for poop smell in the bathroom? Is it literally tiny volatile particle of feces in the air?

[@brukujinbrokujin7802]

I have been cooking for years and let me tell you, DO NOT worry about lost flavor. Having aroma also means that the temperature is "just right" to activate those aroma compound. And letting some lost doesnt mean anything. Airborne compound is so minuscule that it doesnt affect the food. If your food is aromatic that means it is at the best temperature. Remember when you can smell lets say olive oil ? What you smell is volatile compound. Even if you let your olive oil for weeks it wont lose "flavor".

[@Dondlo46]

2:04 isn't that Georgian food on the drawing? that's awesome to see the food get recognized

[@jennifer1329]

I thought I saw a khatchapuri!!

[@zerocalvin]

people that say "smell is lost flavor" forget that aeromantic is a thing... many things we use in cooking like garlic and pepper is for the smell rather than taste... smell is also a good indicator of cooking time.

[@Dixavd]

This is why whenever I cook, I cover the pot with an air conditioner tube aimee durectly at my fave. My burning face has never smelt so good /jk

[@nefelpitou]

Maybe the ideal way to solve this would be to cook all food under a condesner column of some sort, therefore trapping all of the volatile flavor compounds!

[@resart5445]

And thats why i use smelling salt instead of regular salt

[@rhettdownen6873]

Cooks of so many cultures have been perfecting this for centuries as an art. Science is barely catching up. Humans are pretty clever.

[@bastiat6865]

Great info. What are the two books under "Science and Cooking"?

[@techheck3358]

One is cooking for geeks. The other I can’t see, but I’m assuming “acid fat acid heat”

[@jonmedina259]

I always heard that tomato leaves are toxic to eat.

[@ydrib6086]

Yes, yes i am

[@Lennard222]

I would guess that when aromas are still tightly bound in the food, they do not as easily get into our nose while eating. Ever eaten cold spaghetti? Its harder to taste the delicate aromas.

[@SaulKohn]

Wait -- are tomato leaves edible? Or do you need to fish them back out before serving?

[@sebastianljung8745]

So, if my food smells burnt I should continue cooking to make it go away 👌

[@2010godkratos]

Indians coming in with their entire fleet YOU WANT SMELL? YOU WANT FLAVOUR? OVERDOSE ON BOTH!

[@custos3249]

Strange conclusion, smell=lost flavor. Cold pizza smells very little and tastes on par with that. Yet warm it, especially to the point of aroma release, and it's just as delicious as fresh or better (if reheated correctly).

[@Finian1]

this is like food theory