Understanding Flavor Principles
The food revolution in the United States has helped breed a more sophisticated consumer and added pressure on restaurateurs...
The food revolution in the United States has helped breed a more sophisticated consumer and added pressure on restaurateurs to deliver more authentic foods. But before you add new globally influenced items to your menu, getting to understand the flavor principles of a cuisine or region is important.
Cuisines can be broken down into defining ingredients that create familiar, recognizable flavors, according to “The Flavor-Principle Cookbook” by Elisabeth Rozin, published in the early 1970s.
Rozin points out that most cuisines have three common ingredients that take lead roles, for example:
- Chinese: soy sauce, rice wine and ginger
- Mediterranean: wheat, olives and grapes
- Thai: fish sauce, lime and chilies
Global flavors can also be approached in terms of functional categories, which can be combined to create a desired flavor as seen in these examples:
- Aromatics: ginger, garlic and scallions in Chinese cooking or onions, carrots and celery known as “mirepoix” for French cuisine
- Fats: lard in Mexican cooking, olive oil for Mediterranean, ghee (clarified butter) in Indian dishes
- Liquids: fish sauces and soy sauces of Asia, stocks & broths of French, or more general use of rice wine, beer, spirits or dairy products
- Acidic flavor attributes: from rice vinegar in China to citrus fruits in various cuisines
- Sweetener: such as tamarind or palm sugar, balances the acidic taste in balanced dishes
- Spices: saffron, turmeric and pepper, add definite flavor, aroma and color
- Compound seasonings: Chinese hoisin sauce, Thai curry pastes, North African harissa chile paste, Mexican mole paste and U.S. ketchup enable a chef to create complex flavors with minimal time.
Once the menu developer can get a grasp of the common flavors they can begin to introduce authentic flavors onto their menu and meet what the savvy diner is craving.
Excerpt from Restaurant Business Magazine Online’s September 22, 2006 article. Reprinted with permission of Ideal Media, LLC.
