Tag Archives: foodscience

Indian food!

My mom's mom's side of the family owns somewhat of a farm, and this food is the most natural and delicious it gets. During winter break, I literally watched the people pick the tomatoes, lemons, and wheat off the farm and cook it into something delicious.

My mom’s mom’s side of the family owns somewhat of a farm, and this food is the most natural and delicious it gets. During winter break, I literally watched the people pick the tomatoes, lemons, and wheat off the farm and cook it into something delicious.

I love Indian food, and I miss it so much in college. No offense, but the dining hall food is pretty bland. When I was at home, I did get a little sick of eating the same food every day, but I would honestly take that over anything now. Every time I go home I always bring back food to eat for lunch and dinner because I miss it so much! I was browsing around Facebook the other day, and found an article explaining the “science” behind why Indian food is so good. I do agree that the taste is very bizarre and unfamiliar for people who have never had it, but I guess there is a science to flavor. I don’t cook very much, but it looks hard, because every time I try I have no idea where to start.

There is this nifty chart that explains how certain flavors may overlap, but its really hard to read. Either way, good thing scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology in Jodhpur did the research. Here is their actual research. They analyzed popular Indian recipes and all their flavors. They actually found that Indian recipes had the least amount of over lap between their flavors, which maybe proves why they are so delicious, or at least intriguing flavors? Who ever thought you could quantify flavor.

Either way, here is a good example that the article explains. Take a recipe with 4 ingredients: coconut, onions, chile peppers, and spices.

Four ingredients

If you’ve ever taken a stat class, this graph tests the commonalities between the chile and the coconut.

flavor overlap

Basically, they found that if a recipe has a certain flavor, it is very unlikely that it will have another flavor in the same group. Cayenne is a curry base in a lot of Indian food, and based on this study, the curry base would only be created by ONE spice that contains cayenne. Red curry, green curry, and massaman curry is all relevant to a curry base. From personal experience, I have always experienced green curry, and thats just because of where I’m from in India. I’m from the West coast so the food is less gravy-based and more fried and dry. It’s weird to think how usually when making or conceiving an idea for a dish, you would think to combine similar flavors. But Indian cuisine is quite complicated. Apparently the average dish contains 7 ingredients, and based on this study the ingredients don’t mix. Like the other day I ate strawberries and nutella, but I guess that’s not suppose to taste good??? IDEK, I’ll probably go eat more of the combination today. Either way, this was quite an interesting study!

I can’t wait for spring break. I now need to think of all the foods that I want to eat that week. This post has made me FAR too hungry. But until next time!

~~~ Apurva