Download - Catalyst

The Commodification of Taste
The Food Processing Industry
•
•
•
•
•
A material transformation
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
Flavors and Fragrances Industry
Off-shored to China
But also a cultural transformation: as
semiotic analysis of how taste
communicates.
The trope of “convenience”
• From wartime logistics to postwar
convenience.
• Mass-produced, shelf-stable foods.
• Flash freezing.
• Flash re-heating: deep frying and
microwaving.
War Time Technologies in
Agricultural Production
Chemical Warfare
Refrigerated Boxcar
Freezer Trucks
Microwave Oven
Mass Spectrometer
Data Representation
The Engineering of Taste
• The synthesis of flavor and image
“makes of food a substrate: a base
product to which is added not only taste,
texture, vitamins or ‘functions’, but also
added values: the signs of convenience,
health or ‘sexiness’--everything our
minds need” (Haden, p. 354).
• The power of advertising to educate our
palate.
• Food for kids is brightly colored and
flavored (sweet, salty, crispy).
• And it is “fun” to eat.
Food as a substrate
• Taste is engineered as a sign system
on top of a food as the base.
• The flavor profiles do not derive from
the food itself but from chemical
additives carefully compounded to
deliver sensation rather than nutrition.
• “Edible food-like substances” versus
food (Michael Pollan)
Snack foods of the future
• Sensates
• Foods to make your mouth tingle, warm,
cool, salivate, or tighten
• But also neutraceuticals
• Foods broken down into nutrient
delivery
• Food in Science Fiction: Kubrick’s 2001:
A Space Odyssey
Food as a Sign System
• In advertising, food is invested with all
kinds of meanings that motivate us to
desire it.
• The idea of “the m(e)atrix” is that we
live in that world of signs that may not
connect with the reality of our food
systems.
• If we have “lost our way with food”
(Pollan), how do we get back?
• Taste has the power to create a sensory
bridge to a living reality ‘outside the
matrix’ … one that promotes the activity
of knowing as accessible, engaging and
corporeal, rather than one pre-tuned for
reception.” (Haden, p. 356)
The re-education of the palate
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK
wL5G5HbGA
• Is it chicken?
• Or is it chickenized?
• Even the “good bits” have changed.
• Julia Child: Chicken doesn’t taste like
chicken anymore.
• Chicken as a neutral substrate.
What is HVP?
• A major component of chicken or any
meat related flavor is HVP (hydrolyzed
soy or wheat proteins).
• Labeling now has to designate either
wheat or soy based.
• Oil extraction from soy leaves behind
soy meal.
• This is hydrolyzed: “chemically
digested” in a vat of sulfuric acid.
• Lye is added to bring the pH back to
neutral.
What is HVP doing in our
food?
• Hydrolyzation breaks it down into amino
acids, one of which is glutamic acid
(glutamate).
• Free glutamate plugs into the taste
receptor we call “umami.”
• The only non-processed sources of free
glutamate is in shellfish, meat, fish, and
milk.
• Our taste sensors for umami evolved to
sense protein.
Other Sources of Glutamate
•
•
•
•
Seaweed (nori, kombu)
Hard cheese
Cured meats
Vegetables (peas, potatoes, grape
juice)
• Traditional condiments (soy sauce, fish
sauce,
• Green tea
From Food to Simulacrum
• HVP is a flavor enhancer
• It is a handy substitute for making edible
food-like substances easy and cheap to
produce.
• We can use it as a red-flag for cheap
food (we can change the sign system).