Figure 1 - uploaded by Lilli Mauer
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
Cilantro, the leaf of the Coriandrum sativum plant, is an herb that is widely consumed globally and has purported health benefits ranging from antibacterial to anticancer activities. Some individuals report an extreme dislike for cilantro, and this may explain the different cilantro consumption habits between populations. However, the prevalence of...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... proportion of individuals who would not try cilantro was highest among East Asians at 1.1%. Figure 1 shows the distribution of cilantro preference ratings on the 9-point scale for the three major ethnocul- tural groups: Caucasians, East Asians and South Asians. This histogram shows the specific breakdowns (the nu- meric responses selected) of liker, neutral and disliker categories. ...
Citations
... Before closing this section, it is important to note that genetically determined individual differences play an important role in determining our liking for certain odorants/flavours 169 . In the case of coriander/cilantro, for example, the same molecule smells pleasantly citrusy/herbal to one section of the population, but unpleasantly soapy to another section of the population [170][171][172] . Androstenone is another chemosensory stimulus that delivers very different perceptual and hedonic responses as a function of an individual's genetic make-up 173 . ...
Our food choices and consumption behaviours are often influenced by odour hedonics, especially in the case of those orthonasally experienced aromas (that is, those odours that are food-related). The origins of odour hedonics remain one of the most intriguing puzzles in olfactory science and, over the years, several fundamentally different accounts have been put forwards to try and explain the varying hedonic responses that people have to a wide range of odorants. Associative learning, innate and molecular accounts of odour pleasantness have all been suggested. Here the origins of the hedonic response to vanilla, which is one of the most liked smells cross-culturally, are explored. The history of vanilla’s use in food and medicine is outlined, with a focus on its neurocognitive appeal. While vanilla is one of the most widely liked aromas, it is also rated as smelling sweet to most people. Food scientists are becoming increasingly interested in the possibility that such ‘sweet smells’ could be used to help maintain the sweetness of commercial food products while, at the same time, reducing the use of calorific sweeteners. Such an approach is likely to be facilitated by the low cost of artificial vanilla flavouring (when compared with the high and fluctuating price of natural vanilla pods). Hedonic responses to food odour may be rooted in evolution, associated learning or the physiochemical structure of odorants. Here, vanilla is used to study these mechanisms in an effort to understand why some flavours are universally liked and how that might be advanced in food science.
... Androceo con 5 estambres. Fruto esquizocarpo, ovoideo o globoso, mericarpos no separándose en la madurez, costillas poco prominentes (Mauer & El-Sohemy, 2012 ...
El presente libro es una excelente recopilación de
hierbas y especies. Estas tienen un papel importante
en la caracterización de la cocina y recetas propias
de un territorio, aportando características difíciles
de incorporar mediante otro tipo de elementos
gastronómicos.
Las hierbas y especies aportan a la cocina de
cada territorio aquellas cualidades diferenciales que
caracterizan de forma inequívoca los sabores de la
cocina de un determinado lugar, y en muchos casos,
son aquel elemento que hace de esa cocina única
en referencia a otras cocinas similares o de zonas
próximas. Las hierbas y especies transmiten clima,
tierra, origen, historia, incorporando a las recetas
sabores genuinos y singulares.
... is highly subjective and that some flavours may be liked by some consumers and disliked by others (Mauer & El-Sohemy, 2012;Watkins et al., 2013). The dry ageing of sheepmeat is associated with changes in mutton flavour profiles (Burvill, 2016) and it is probable that consumer liking for dry aged sheepmeat would be influenced by consumer flavour preferences. ...
Dry ageing of mutton may enhance mutton's consumer appeal; however, consumer acceptance of mutton is heterogeneous. To identify which consumers prefer dry aged mutton, dry (DA) and wet aged mutton (WA) loin and topside were rated by consumers (n = 540) for tenderness, juiciness, liking of flavour and overall liking on a 0–100 scale. Two predictive liking models were developed, utilising either consumer clusters (identified by agglomerative hierarchical clustering) which related to mutton liking and ageing method preference, or demographic factors. The cluster based model had the highest explanatory power. Cluster 1 (n = 219) preferred DA (p < 0.001), rating it 5.9 points higher than WA, cluster 2 (n = 235) had no ageing method preference (p > 0.05), and cluster 3 (n = 79) preferred WA (p < 0.001), rating WA liking 8.3 points higher than DA. Cluster characterisation found some differences between clusters that may relate to consumer ethnicity and familiarity with mutton.
... While there are some important individual differences in terms of our ability to smell the many different volatiles that contribute to flavour (e.g., see Blakeslee, 1935;Blakeslee and Salmon, 1931;Reed and Knaapila, 2010), these genetic differences have not, as yet, been linked directly to characteristic personality traits. So, for example, currently there are no known personality traits associated with a person's propensity to taste cilantro/coriander leaf as either citrusy/herbal or soapy and unpleasant, say (e.g., Eriksson et al., 2012;Mauer and El-Sohemy, 2012;McGee, 2010), nor with any of the many selective anosmias that have been reported in the literature over the years (Spence, 2017b). ...
A number of personality characteristics have been linked to various aspects of taste (gustation), trigeminal, and olfactory perception. In particular, personality traits have been linked to olfactory sensory thresholds and olfactory identification abilities, as well as to the sensory-discriminative aspects of taste/flavour perception. To date, much of the research in this area has focused on Sensation Seeking (including Experience Seeking, and Openness to Novel Experiences), with the latter being linked to a preference for spicy, and possibly also crunchy, sour, and bitter foods/drinks. Novelty-seeking has also been linked to a preference for salty foods, while anxious individuals appear to enjoy a much narrower range of foods. A bidirectional link has also been documented between taste and mood. Certain of the personality-based differences in taste/flavour perception and food behaviour have been linked to differences in circulating levels of neurotransmitters and hormones in both normal and clinical populations. Taken together, therefore, the evidence that has been published to date supports a number of intriguing connections between personality traits and taste perception/food behaviour.
... The food pairing hypothesis also fails to take account of the sometimes marked genetic individual differences such as have been evidenced for cilantro/coriander (e.g., Eriksson et al., 2012;Mauer and El-Sohemy, 2012), and androstenone, in boar meat from uncastrated animals (e.g., Lunde et al., 2012;Wysocki and Beauchamp, 1984). In fact, significant differences in pleasantness and sensory threshold have now been reported for a surprisingly large number of food-relevant olfactory stimuli (Reed and Knaapila, 2010;Trimmer et al., 2019). ...
Traditionally, in the West, the decision about which flavours to pair in a tasting experience has been as much the personal choice of the chef or, more likely, the sommelier, as anything else. However, the last couple of decades have seen a rapid growth of research interest in the pairing of flavours. Nowadays, one can find examples of people pairing everything from beer with food, tea with cheese and chocolate, etc. As interest in the marketing potential of flavour pairing has risen, along with the growing public fascination in the topic, scientists have become increasingly interested in trying to understand the principles (both cognitive/intellectual and perceptual) underlying the successful pairing of flavours. In this narrative review, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the chemical, computational (gastronomy), and perceptual approaches to pairing flavours are highlighted. Thereafter, I show how the various principles of pairing (both perceptual and cognitive/intellectual) can be extended beyond the domain of pairing flavour with flavour to consider the rapidly growing are of sonic seasoning. The latter term refers to those situations in which specific pieces of music or soundscapes are matched, or paired, with particular tastes/flavours based on the crossmodal correspondences. The review ends by considering the future development of pairings flavours, and assessing novel means of establishing connections between flavours and other sensations.
... The presence of the relevant VOCs in Coriandrum sativum mean that a taster will either perceive a pleasant, citrusy, herby taste, or else an unpleasant soapy taste. However, which of those perceptual responses (determined by the presence of the relevant VOCs) a given taster will experience depends on the taster's genetic make-up [42,43]. Though, it is a little unclear from the literature whether coriander tastes soapy, smells soap, and/or has a soapy flavour. ...
This narrative review examines the complex relationship that exists between the presence of specific configurations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in food and drink products and multisensory flavour perception. Advances in gas chromatography technology and mass spectrometry data analysis mean that it is easier than ever before to identify the unique chemical profile of a particular food or beverage item. Importantly, however, there is simply no one-to-one mapping between the presence of specific VOCs and the flavours that are perceived by the consumer. While the profile of VOCs in a particular product undoubtedly does tightly constrain the space of possible flavour experiences that a taster is likely to have, the gustatory and trigeminal components (i.e., sapid elements) in foods and beverages can also play a significant role in determining the actual flavour experience. Genetic differences add further variation to the range of multisensory flavour experiences that may be elicited by a given configuration of VOCs, while an individual’s prior tasting history has been shown to determine congruency relations (between olfaction and gustation) that, in turn, modulate the degree of oral referral, and ultimately flavour pleasantness, in the case of familiar foods and beverages.
... Androceo con 5 estambres. Fruto esquizocarpo, ovoideo o globoso, mericarpos no separándose en la madurez, costillas poco prominentes (Mauer & El-Sohemy, 2012 ...
... One example from cooking practice refers to the differences in preference for cilantro or coriander. While many people love it, others claim that it smells foul, like soap or dirt (Mauer & El-Sohemy, 2012). These coriander haters appear to be overly sensitive to several aldehydes that produce this soapy or pungent aroma (Eriksson et al., 2012). ...
This systematic overview tries to link scientific knowledge on human perception and appreciation mechanisms to culinary practices. We discuss the roles of the human senses during eating, starting out with basic mechanisms of taste and smell perception, up to principles of aesthetics. These insights are related to how foods are experienced, how ingredients are combined, the use of flavor bases in cuisines, the creation of a full course meal, the choice of a beverage with a dish, and how people learn to appreciate new foods.
... 43,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61] The high concentrations of unsaturated aldehydes in cilantro are the source of the aroma of the herb as well as the source of the well-documented preference or disdain for cilantro. 62 (2E)-Decenal has been described as having a fatty, pungent odor; (2E)-dodecenal has a floral, pungent odor; (2E)-tetradecenal has a pungent, spicy, floral odor; while the unsaturated alcohol, (2E)-decen-1-ol, has been described as having a wet dog odor. 63 There is apparently a genetic variation in olfactory receptors responsible for the preference for or the aversion to the odor of cilantro. ...
Coriander and cilantro, the fruit and herb of Coriandrum sativum, are popular additives in various cuisines worldwide. The essential oils derived from coriander and cilantro are also popular and have shown some remarkable biological properties and health benefits. In this report, we have analyzed the essential oil compositions of 19 commercial coriander and 28 commercial cilantro essential oil samples by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) techniques. In addition, 5 coriander and 4 cilantro commercial essential oil samples were analyzed by chiral GC–MS. Commercial coriander essential oil is dominated by linalool (62.2%-76.7%) with lesser quantities of α-pinene (0.3%-11.4%), γ-terpinene (0.6%-11.6%), and camphor (0.0%-5.5%). Commercial cilantro essential oil is composed largely of (2 E)-decenal (16.0%-46.6%), linalool (11.8%-29.8%), (2 E)-decen-1-ol (0.0%-24.7%), decanal (5.2%-18.7%), (2 E)-dodecenal (4.1%-8.7%), and 1-decanol (0.0%-9.5%). The enantiomeric distribution of linalool was 87% (+)-linalool:13% (−)-linalool in both coriander and cilantro essential oils, while α-pinene was 93% (+):7% (−) in coriander, 90% (+):10% (−) in cilantro; and (+)-camphor:(−)-camphor was 13%:87% in both essential oils. Chiral GC–MS analysis was able to detect an adulterated coriander essential oil sample. The data provided in this study serves to establish a baseline for future evaluations of these essential oils as well as a screen for authenticity or adulteration.
... Just take, for example, those flavour compounds where there are profound genetically-determined perceptual differences (see Reed & Knaapila, 2010). A large percentage of the population perceive cilantro/coriander as tasting unpleasantly soapy, whereas the majority think it tastes pleasantly herby (Mauer & El-Sohemy, 2012). It is perhaps for this reason that one might expect not to come across quite so many foodbeverage pairings involving this particular ingredient. ...
The recent explosion of interest in the topic of flavour pairing has been driven, at least in part, by the now-discredited food-pairing hypothesis, along with the emergence of the new field of computational gastronomy. Many chefs, sommeliers, mixologists, and drinks brands, not to mention a few food brands, have become increasingly interested in moving the discussions that they have with their consumers beyond the traditional focus solely on food and wine pairings. Here, two key approaches to pairing that might help to explain/justify those food and beverage combinations that the consumer is likely to appreciate are outlined. Historically-speaking, many conventional pairings emerged naturally from cultural/geographical matches, presumably internalized as semantic knowledge amongst consumers. In this review, such conventional pairings are framed as but one example of a cognitive/intellectual food-beverage strategy. The alternative approach to pairing that has become increasingly popular in recent years involves experts/commentators making recommendations based on the perceptual relationship, or interaction, between the component stimuli, be it one of perceived similarity, contrast, harmony, emergence, or modulation (either suppression or enhancement). Physicochemical accounts of pairing, based on the presence of shared flavour molecules (e.g., aromatic volatiles) in the to-be-combined flavours or ingredients, have also gained in popularity. Here, though, the latter approach is framed as an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to predict matches based on perceived similarity. This review summarizes the available evidence concerning food-beverage pairing and proposes a new dichotomy between intellectual/cognitive and perceptual pairing principles in the case of food-beverage matching.
