Interview with an Olive Oil Expert (2): Sensory Aspect

Everything you need to know about Olive Oil
(Part 2)

We continue in this post, part 2 of the Interview series with the Olive Oil Expert.

This time it covers the topic of the sensory evaluation of Olive Oil.

Sensory Aspect of Olive Oil

Olive Oil tasting should be done in tapered (Dark Blue) glasses.

WHAT COLOR IS GOOD OLIVE OIL?

The color of olive oil is not an indication of quality. Choose olive oil for taste not for its color.

Interview with an Olive Oil Expert (1): Health Aspect

Everything you need to know about Olive Oil
(Part 1)

“And a tree (olive) that springs forth from Mount Sinai, that grows (produces) oil, and (it is) relish for the eaters.( Quran 23:20 )”

Today’s contribution comes straight from the Olive Oil industry!
Pearl’s interviewed an avid experienced Food scientist who has been working in the olive oil production for 6 years. It is important for consumers like us know briefly about olive oil production, the sensory characteristic of the best olive oil, and how can we detect the differences or how can they choose the best olive oil brand from the market. We will be covering a week of posts about Olive oil, so stay tuned!

Mr. Mohammad Kobayter is the Quality Assurance and Logistics Manager at KOBAYTER S.A. in Malaga -Spain. Kobayter holds a Bachelor of Science in Food Science and Management from the American University of Beirut (AUB) and he is a certified expert in virgin olive oil tasting (from the University of Jaen, Spain). He previously worked as a Production manager assistant at KOBAYTER FRERES S.A.L. in Lebanon. (Alwazir historic Ad ) 

Mohamad, undergoing a sensory test on the olive oil

Maya La Chocolaterie

As I said in my previous post yesterday, It is been long time since I blogged. Working in the Food & beverage industry, makes you want to be more delicate while posting about your food adventures.

I always talked about chocolate on my blog. But since moving to Riyadh, and due to the hot and dry weather, it makes you subconsciously avert away from something warm and heat producing!

Yet, visiting Maya chocolaterie, a place solely for having a chocolate experience has proven something else! Chocolate is desirable regardless of the temperature! If it is hot, people will eat chocolate and perhaps even more!!

Maybe the quote from Star Trek actually reflects what goes on people's minds on chocolates :
"I never met a chocolate I didn't like " Deanna Troi -  Star Trek ( The Next Generation)

All the Smells of Home

A True Lebanese Speciality: Kaakeh كعكة عصرونية  Brings me all the Childhood Memories

"I want to conjure up all the smells of my home, lock them in a bottle, then take them with me wherever I go."

They say everybody has to leave their home for once in their life and come back so they can love it all over again for many reasons, new or old. Well, I want to come back to it, mainly because of all the smells I crave for smelling again. Label me a weird smell addict, which I truly am, considering my master’s concentration was in the sensory of food, including taste and smell.

What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

 
                
( Tedx Video )
A logical approach to the  nature of choice and happiness by giving an example of the pursuit of the best recipe that consumers will like.
It's all about food science.  How genious! "Psychophysics"  is mostly used as an analysis tool! This video is just what I try to explain to people  when they ask me about my thesis or  my work in  sensory science!  Malcom G;adwell speaks it all ...
Food Scientists should rejoice over this video.... And Ofcorse Food lovers will understand  the passion that drives food scientists to "perfect" a product and will explain to them why they choose a product over another

I will definitly buy Malcolm Gladwell 's blink book!
Bon Appetite,

Loulwa

Roadster's New Menu Tasting

"Yes, I think I do. After reading a lot of overheated puffery about your new cook, you know what I'm craving? A little perspective. That's it. I'd like some fresh, clear, well seasoned perspective."  Anto Ego.

All foodies  know Anto Ego from Ratatouille and his renowned strict criticism. And all remember his famous line that If he didnt love the food, simply he wouldn't swallow it!  
Still he is a logical person . A perspective is what he only needed to judge Gusteau's! 
Well, I personally think that restaurants criticism is a 100% biased process as much as the food critique tries to hide this biased opinion.
Why? One single moment from Ego's childhood, transformed all his thoughts about the restaurant. Food critisim doesn't get born at the moment we taste food, it is a process that mingles together all our thoughts, memories, the people we are with , even the music we are hearing there....
It is a sensory "crumbling" .
All the neurons are moving and the signals going back and forth from the mouth to the brain, then from the brain to the stomach. Continuous set. One peculiar odor from the meal on the table, will shift everything, bringing memories, whether sad or bad. You will forget what you are criticizing and base it on mostly what you are feeling when you tasted this meal.
As much as food critiques will tell me that this is not the case and they succeed in isolating their feelings when tasting. I believe that this is useless. What is the purpose of  tasting  food without a memory to remember or build upon? Tasting food is not just a physical experiment to the tongues as much as it is a creation of new feelings and new tastes. Eventually, creation of new memories.
What brings you back to the same restaurant and order the same meal is what it had created the same time you tasted it.  The memory was stored in a special place in your brain and you want to enjoy it again and again. 

Restaurants have this mission to keep the same memory, unchanged, and untouched. This is quality. 
And once they change their menus or maybe a recipe, they are in a dilemma of making us unhappy. They will either lose us or they will succeed in repeating the same process of building an enjoyable memory again

And here I am talking about one of my favorite Lebanese Chain restaurants : Roadster's Diner*. Roadster's will always remind me of my college days when we used to ditch classes at AUB and go eat there and enjoy our times chatting.It will always remind me of the vividness of Hamra, its diversity and its noisy setting.

Chocolate Bars made from Camel Milk

For those who are living in the United Arabs of Emirate, you have probably tried it.
But for someone who is living in Lebanon , where there are no camels, and no camel milk production, this is something "exotic".

A month ago I talked about localization of food products and how it is crucial that Food industries focus on what the consumers in their markets need rather on what it is more likely to import . A an example I tweeted was a new product : the "Camel Milk Icecream". Here is a business review from the dairy products website about Al-ain wanting to launch icecream from camel milk.

So, a week ago, my friend wanted me to try the chocolate bars made from Camel Milk . The chocolate bars were produced by  "Nasma" company.

Peanut Butter "Wanna Be " Cookies

If you  are craving for something sweet and different than your granola bars or if you are bored from having those Kellogg's  Nutri-Grain Cereal Bars or cereals for breakfast , here is a substitution to break the routine!
Check this quick recipe that doesn't require ANY BAKING :  "Peanut Butter Wanna be Cookies" gives you the taste and energy you need!
The only thing you need is some love for peanut butter! :) 

Time of preparation: 4 mins
Serving amount: 10 " wanna be " peanut butter cookies
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 2 tablespoon of smooth peanut butter
• 1 cup of Oatmeal ( Quaker or any brand in the supermarket)
• Sprinkles of Vanilla 
• Optional: cinnamon, cocoa powder, nuts and raisins.

**No preservatives, No colorants, No artificial ingredients :)
Steps: 

Coffee: My Story? or Theirs? ..The Ultimate Coffee Guide.

My Story


Black as the devil, Hot as hell, Pure as an angel, Sweet as love."~Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

I remember the times when I used to accompany mom around Beirut , in buying grocery from local shops, known in Lebanese as “dekkaneh”. Supermarkets back then weren’t ubiquitous. I used to nag about the fact  that she would take me from shop to another till she finds that secret ingredient for the food that she wants to cook, or that special butchery that offers delicate meat..  But the only favorite part I used to get excited about was entering the Coffee Roaster. Just smelling the aroma of the bean roasting was the only thing that would shut me up.  “Bin maa’ Heil” (. (Or coffee with cardamom) shouts my mom to the vendor over the machine. The picture in my head is pure : I stand below the machine , watch the vendor weighing the beans in a stainless steel bowl.  I hear the beans hitting the stainless steel bowl, then the beans are devoured by the grinder. And here all the heavenly aromas are released.

She was ordering the Levant coffee which is based on the Turkish brewing method, and widely spread in Lebanon and Syria. This Turkish coffee is either roasted with cardamom or stays plain (qahwah sādah) according to the buyer’s taste.
Turkish coffee  served by Mom for her neighbors or visitors was a daily habit. As I a grew older, I was allowed to drink the Turkish coffee, especially if I had exams during my high school years and I needed to overnight.

During the holy month of  Ramadan , and as a Saudi Arabian tradition dictates, mom  prepares the Arabic coffee ( made from green beans) after every fasting. It brings sooth after breaking the fast and eases digestion.Arabic coffeem makes its appearance in our house during more “ethnic” holidays such as Ramadan and Eid..Humans are indeed creatures of habits.
This  Arabic coffee is characterized with the overwhelming aroma and flavor of cardamom, and sometimes other spices like saffron that usually gives it a golden color,  as well as the odors of cloves, and sometimes cinnamon. It is  mostly served with dates for the sugary taste, because sugar can’t be added to the coffee.

Arabic Coffee drank in Najd area mostly

Coffee making is an alchemy by itself ; millions of varieties, different blends, distinct flavors , added ingredients like milk, chocolate,cream…etc  ( Check this interesting  infographic ) and even coffee choice depends on each one's taste (Coffee Matching according to  taste : Coffee Matching)

But that’s not the whole story here. This is just my story. Coffee roasters aren’t wide spread anymore like a decade ago, coffee was replaced by vacuum packaged bags that can be just grabbed from any supermarket. There is no roasting. There is no overwhelming smell. The magic has gone.
And if one would analyze the reason behind this,it is because of the rise of prices of coffee.
The fresh roasted coffee mom bought costed only few dollars per kilogram, whereas  now the kilograms costs atleast 20 dollars!
Blame it on the oil prices, blame it on  global policies. Blame it on the industry. The coffee prices will continue to soar! But are coffee farmers gaining wealth with all this soar?

From now,  I will talk about the story of the coffee beans from the farmers point of view. It is their story...

The Red Velvet Cake Dilemma

The Red velvet cake has lately been prominent. Everytime I am around my friends , the Red velvet cake should be either mentioned or devoured in their mouths.One can’t deny that its feathery texture, the striking red color, and the overwhelming vanilla taste, that contribute to its fame. It is indeed a magical cake, and just looking at it reminds me of cartoon, and all the Disney movies we all grew up watching.

Picture from the web

However, beauty is not pure. And as everything in life have their pros and cons. The red velvet cake is not an exception to this rule, sadly.

Normally nutritionists scare you off from these high caloric cakes, but as I am a food scientist I’d rather take another angle.  So, this post  is not to scare you away from the calories; rather, it’s the “red” you should worry about.

Let’s take Martha Stewart’s online recipe of the cake. Martha uses around 1/4 to 1/2 cup of a red food coloring to make one cake. She clearly states to put 2 one-ounce bottles liquid red food coloring to achieve the desired shade!Consider a normal diet; you are having one piece of the red velvet cake every month, along with other colorants in food from the halloween candies, to the Eid Mlabbas, to the Christmas colored cookies, to potato chips, fruit loop cereals, the guacamole dip, to the hotdog and the  frozen vegetables…etc The list goes one because everyone is increasingly relying on  processed foods.
 The question is whether all these colorants will cause any health implications.

Let us start why is there color in my food? 
Remarkably, sensory scientists found that color is always associated with flavor. Consumers may refuse to have a green chocolate drink or a brown strawberry juice. Therefore, industries rush in adding colorants to make their product look fresh, nutritious, and thus appealing to consumers. That’s because consumers love everything that resembles nature. ( more on how color affects the sense of tastes of food & drinks by Washington University)

Cibophobia: The Fear of New Food

As a child, I used to leave those weird looking vegetables in my plate, or remove those mushrooms from my pizza. I refused to try those shrimps mom prepared, or the Okra stew with rice stew, or even the asparagus soup. I was afraid to eat fruits except apples and bananas. Back then I was a picky eater but as I grew up, I started having the courage to explore most of them.But of course this “pickiness” remains deep inside me every time I want to eat something new.Sensory Scientists named this “pickiness” as Cibophobia or food neophobia, the reluctance and sometimes avoidance to eat novel foods. It is immensely affected by one's culture, gender, age, and educational, social, economical status as well as the place of residence: urban versus rural.

Nothing is more memorable than smell

"Nothing is more memorable than a smell.  One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town.  Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.  Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once.  A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth."  ~Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses.

For me , entering a restaurant is not just a meal occasion, it's a sensual ritual for exciting all my senses, then my nerve buds, up to my neurons , then encrypting this stimulation into my memory storage area.
And if this ritual didn't happen, then the restaurant failed in making me a memory.
And if it failed in making this memory, this simply means : " the food wasn't great". And, although I am a food scientist ,  where one would assume that would be easy  for me talking about a restaurant , its menu and its food. But it is not. Because I tend to talk about almost all the factors that affect eating.  You will notice that as you read below.


The couqley bistro- restaurant  experience for brunch, was one of those vivid memories that had successfully been processed and stored. As you enter, you are overwhelmed with the smell of home  made omlettes and pancakes, and so you  evocatively remember the Sunday mornings where you used to wake up late , smell something delicious and enter the kitchen to see  your mother preparing for you,  your favorite breakfast: Pancakes.  Bringing back  this picture is worth it all. 

Humans,what do they taste like ?

 Perhaps this post will cause disgust to many people. Perhaps it might raise interest.

And yes I do agree , it is not   religiously , morally, and ethically, acceptable to actually "eat humans".
But as a food scientist, we needed to learn about the taste of "humans" in our studies. So, the question was " What does Human Flesh taste like?" .
The answere was  not by making us taste the flesh  in class, but rather by reading few research papers from  Food Science Scholars . And how did these scholars describ human flesh taste??
Well , definitely they didn't conduct sensory tests on human samples.
What they did was   interviewing some tribes ( who are cannibals of course, or whose ancestors were)  and asking them about their gustatory experience when they eat it.  Maybe it wont be a precise description ,even biased, but that's what's sensory  is all about ;  a personal experience that differs between one person and another according to his/ her own taste buds, memories, and personalities.

One interesting paper reviewed this topic was done by Gary Allen ( Culinary Institute of America) titled as:
"What is the Flavor of Human Flesh? It was  Presented at the Symposium Cultural and Historical Aspects of Foods . Oregon State university, year 1999.
Here is a script of some parts of the paper: ( if your interested you can read the remainder here )
"   Anthropologist Jeremy MacClancy described the taste of human flesh -- based not upon his own     experience, mind you, but upon the testimony of some of the natives of the New Hebrides islands of the South Pacific:

"From all accounts, human meat is very sweet, in Vanuatu, they say that the flesh of a black man is sweet, whereas the flesh of a white man is really quite salty and stringy, they say it's not so nice."[2] Derek, a member of the Dani tribe in Irian Jaya reminisced about the taste of human flesh in an article in the Baltimore Morning Sun, in May 1992:

"Deliciouiversity, Corvallis, OR. .Old ones are tough. Young men and women taste better. And babies taste like fish. The flesh is very soft.["3]<  "

Taste Spotting

I found an awesome website for all food lovers and food photographers.  A website that shares photos of food but behind every photo is the story/blog/link to it!
So its like a cool display of the recipes , food experiences  and quick access to what you might need!
Here is the link :)  Taste Spotting.

British Madness and Tea

The sound of the liquid pouring and the steam flushing in your face. The overwhelming aroma, that bitter taste,  the soothing feeling in your throat..ahhhh Tea ::):)
Surely , tea doesn't belong to a specific country. You have the indian "Chai". the morrocan/arabic "ash-shay", the chinese green tea, the japanese jasmin Tea ...etc  I am not go list them.We have wikipedia for a reason.

 I am not going to be talking about tea and British habits. Tea is a great part of the British tradition,  if you want to argue with a British person about tea, make sure you really know what you are talking about before entering an argument about it.

It happened once with me. I was in a tour in Unilever, New Jersey for the food scientists in Cornell.After touring the whole company and R&D, we finally entered the  "Lipton" area.
Yes, Lipton the most famous and most consumed brand in the whole world. We met the tea expert there who tours the world to search for the best tea leaves and buy them from farmers ( or perhaps buy the whole farm, I am not going to enter in the debate of Fair trade now, lets keep it for later).

And so he made us taste the tea he had prepared and then he asked us what is your favorite tea. My friends who were Americans, dont usually drink tea ....Noooo , Ice tea actually doesnt count.
And when my turn came to answer I told him "Earl Grey".. And the reply was far more  than I expected.
He looked at me with furious eyes :"Earl Grey!!! Anyone can put lemon with tea. That is simple. There is no intelligence. no taste in that!!" .
 At that moment, I thought because I didnt know about other tea types, he was mad at me. So , I went and listed for him all kinds of tea from cammomille to green tea. He was still mad.
I realized later, he was mad because Earl Grey is a Russion made tea , and he being British felt the urge to hate that type of tea. That is one hypothesis.Maybe it is true, maybe it is not :)
So, beware of British madness when you talk about Tea!
Stereotypes in food are always common....

Some "Tea" Quotes:


1- A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. Eleanor Roosevelt


2- Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company.  ~Author Unknown


3-If you are cold, tea will warm you.  If you are too heated, it will cool you.  If you are depressed, it will cheer you.  If you are excited, it will calm you.  ~Gladstone


4-Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.  ~Thich Nat Hahn


English Tea Infographic :

The Sacredness of Tasting

A close friend was telling me today that i always brag  how much i like food, how much it is something personal for me and how much i choose it delicately . Nevertheless,  she adds that she actually never saw me so passionate about it . Despite that i talk about food constantly ( since i am a food scientist), she says she didnt saw me experience this  zeal "on the ground" .But  this talk was after the small incident that happened today.
So, what happened today??

Well, it was a small incident. Today,  I had a very arduous never lasting 60 minute aerobic class, where i literally couldn't breath . In the class, i was thinking about  juices, water , chocolate, french fries, Basmati rice , lasagna..etc This is what we call an urging appetite . Yes Yes  I was having a "FOOD Fantasy".

I wanted this class to finish so bad, so that i rush up to Bliss Street and choose whatever i like from my favorite foods .(Ironically, the streets name is after Reverend Daniel Bliss-an American missionary who founded the American University of Beirut,  and not because it is blissful due to all the restaurants there :P:P)

Despite all this food enthusiasm, i chose one simple food : "Hazelnut chocolate filled doughnut and a bottle of water". My friend ( which ofcorse was having a doughnut too) was watching me how  i  was eating the doughnut with passion : So, i just sat and looked at the doughnut for 30 sec, then i smelled it. After that , i had a first bite and listened to the sound that my teeth made  as it chewed the poor dough. Then I had another bite much slowlier than before . I wanted to incite all my senses, to feel this food, and so to enjoy it with nothing interrupting me.  My friend confessed that i was treating it as a sacred object.
It was  my heaven that moment.

I cant deny that tasting food is my passion. And i want to pursue more things in it .
Perhaps it will become  my religion, my ceremonial, my ritual, or even my sanctuary :)

Let There Be Light !!....[when we eat]

As  food scientists , we are always taught the importance of light in affecting our senses. Light is a main factor while evaluating food . Thus, when performing sensory evaluation tests , a specific type of light of  specific intensity should be chosen according to the aim of the experiment done on the food product.


For example, if we were testing an " upgraded product" and we wanted to see if consumers can detect the change in taste integrated in it , we evaluate it with the previous version of the product by performing a "Triangle Test". The lights in this test should be dark ( dark red rather than the normal light bulb in homes) to mask any difference in appearance that can affect the panelist's judgement immediately and let them indicate the product as being totally different.


This is an example of how light affects our food experience. Another example is will be an extract from the "Scientific American"  magazine.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An article published in Scientific American ( Mind & Brain section), reviews the effect of darkness and light on our eating habits. The article thoroughly cites a  new scientific study  " Dining in the dark. The importance of visual cues for food consumption and satiety"(Scheibehenne B, et al., 2010).

64 Participants were served food in a dark restaurant .Half of them received supersize portions and thus they ate 36% more food. Participants normally weren't able to  precisely estimate their actual consumption than those who ate the same meal in the light.

Some scientists claim that this reason is because the eye is main detector i.e the eye can accurately evaluate how much the body needs food and how much it can consume and how much it consumed, whereas the stomach would take its time to judge appetite and satiety!

Of corse other scientists refute these findings by claiming that many factors weren't taken in consideration.


Perhaps that  is why they call "Light Food " , when there is light , you will eat less :P

You can find the whole article on this link : 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eating-in-the-dark

Lychee

Sensory lab in Cornell's NY Agricultural Station, NY

I am done from my Sensory evaluation midterm and i remembered an incident .

Three years ago, i participated as a sensory panelist for " Neophobia/Neophilia" .i.e how much we like or hate new food .
They presented to me 6 new foods i never tasted before in my life and i had to taste them 3 days per week. Some were satisfactory , some were tolerable over the two month tasting period, while only one was just unbearable. I used to taste just a milligram from it, and i I used to rush in the tasting.

Thus, it got the worst rating from me. Usually, I don’t like stereotyping food, or even judging food. But this one was the exception to my rule. It had a horrendous texture and taste.

Unfortunately, I didnt know what i was tasting. So, for two months i kept wondering about it , and supposedly i was not allowed to ask anyone about it !

Till I was fed up, I yearned to know why does it taste that bad to me.

I remember that I asked the researcher : “ Madam is this the eye of a cow ?”. I was not joking or mocking. I had a serious look on my face. So her reply was also serious: “ Are you sane? Ofcorse we wont be cooking cow eyes!! I cant believe that you thought that we were giving an eye to taste!”

Well, innocently, It really looked like the eye of something!! It was white, rubbery and covered with a slippery transparent layer and a black thing ( actually it was a seed ) in the middle!!. Yes like the cornea!!

Thanks god the tasting sessions were over. I saw the published results and knew what it was. It was Lychee: a fruit, a tropical berry!!

                   

































I googled everything about this Lychee/lichu . It has a pinkish beautiful skin before it is peeled off. ironically, enough, they stated that it is a fragranced fruit with a sweet taste. Apparently , it didn’t taste like that for me!!

Oh and well , this fruit is used for red tea, cheese cakes, fruit salads, and ice blended drinks!!!

At least now , if I wanted to go Mexico ,southern Africa or china, I will definitely avoid it!

P.S: For list of tropical fruits , you can check this link: http://sonic.net/~alden/Fruittroex.html#litchi

Thoughts, like Spices

Spices have a long history ; they were the most luxurious products and they were widely traded between cultures..Even religious books like the bible, and the poem of king Solomon refer to spices.
Indeed, their function range between adding flavor to food, changing its color and even to preserving food ..


I rememeber a story that my Food Chemistry teacher told me about which is that hot chilli pepper was primarily added in Indian food to cover the bad flavor of the food which is usually of low quality because of poverty. Maybe that's how spices became later essential & inevitable in certain foods.




But the magic of spices is in their blending! This is called " Masala". Actually, mastering the art of cooking is in knowing how to blend different spices.


Primarily, the subject of this post is not about spices. Indeed, just like spices add a distinct flavor to foods, so do my thoughts.
I believe that i just have random thoughts that are sometimes not even related and i blend them all together and come with a personal message or a song or even a paragraph.
Some might say its non-sense, others might say its creativity. But i just say it's me & i love Spicing thoughts!!!!