Taste: Surprising Stories and Science About Why Food Tastes Good by Barb Stuckey Page A
Authors: Barb Stuckey
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amorous.
“She definitely got some kind of signal from that urine,” Lundström says. Watching his dog react to the secret signals in other dogs’ urine got him interested in pheromones, the aromas that emanate from many living creatures, reportedly used as signals. Lundstrom eventually went to graduate school to earn a PhD in psychology. His team at Monell studies the science of smell in humans and how it affects our behavior.
As both a Swede and an expert in the science of olfaction, Johan Lundström told me he has never, ever, smelled anything as horrid, as putrid, as sickening as the Swedish canned fish delicacy (atrocity?), surströmming.
“Its odor is the most foul I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been working in olfaction for ten years,” Lundström says.
In ancient Sweden, salt was used to preserve everything, including fish, the mainstay of the Swedish diet. When the herring catch was very large and the supply of salt—expensive in ancient times—was very small, the Swedes had to get creative. Instead of curing the fish with salt, they resorted to another method to preserve an excellent harvest. They put the fish in cans along with water and just enough salt to control (but not completely halt) the growth of microorganisms, sealed the cans, and put them into storage. Because the amount of salt in the brine wasn’t high enough to completely stop all microbial growth, what happened inside the can was a type of oxygen-free—anaerobic—fermentation. In food processing we go to great lengths to avoid anaerobic fermentation. Usually, this type of spoilage gives off signals so you know not to consume the food. Sometimes the gases that develop in cans of surströmming are so strong that the cans buckle and bulge: a clear warning signal if ever there was one. Yet in Sweden this only increases the value of the putrid fish inside.
Lundström correctly refers to the above process as rotting. This rotten herring product is still being made in modern Sweden, although you have to be pretty committed to eat it. Swedish law prevents apartment renters from opening the putrid cans inside their homes because the stench is almost impossible to remove from a building. It’s also prohibited on some international flights. The preferred method for getting the rotted fish out of the can is to hold it under water while opening it, so the offensive aromas that escape are largely lost in thewater, as opposed to being volatized into the air. This method also acts to control the stinky contents from spraying everyone in the near vicinity of the can, as a lot of pressure builds up inside it during fermentation. Years ago, Lundström took his Canadian girlfriend to Sweden, and in an effort to share his culture with her, he and a few friends threw a surströmming party. Outside, of course. Out came the pièce de résistance: the rotted, canned, fermented herring. When the uninitiated foreigner got a whiff of it, she vomited.
Ever the curious eater, I went online to order surströmming from Sweden, but I was unsuccessful every time I tried. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection doesn’t look favorably upon bulging metal cans with foreign words on the label. So I asked Lundström to tell me what it tastes like.
“When you put it in your mouth, the odor is completely different,” says Lundström, describing the taste when surströmming is served classically, as opposed to the nauseating smell.
It’s a little bit sour. You have this very fresh taste of onion, the warm boiled potato, and the sour note of the herring on the crispy bread. That together is extremely nice. There’s this complex difference between the retronasal odor and the orthonasal smell you detect through your nose before you eat it. And no one really knows what this is.
This conundrum also fascinates Linda Bartoshuk. At her Center for Smell and Taste, Bartoshuk has experienced the same distinction between aromas that are detected outside the mouth versus
“She definitely got some kind of signal from that urine,” Lundström says. Watching his dog react to the secret signals in other dogs’ urine got him interested in pheromones, the aromas that emanate from many living creatures, reportedly used as signals. Lundstrom eventually went to graduate school to earn a PhD in psychology. His team at Monell studies the science of smell in humans and how it affects our behavior.
As both a Swede and an expert in the science of olfaction, Johan Lundström told me he has never, ever, smelled anything as horrid, as putrid, as sickening as the Swedish canned fish delicacy (atrocity?), surströmming.
“Its odor is the most foul I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been working in olfaction for ten years,” Lundström says.
In ancient Sweden, salt was used to preserve everything, including fish, the mainstay of the Swedish diet. When the herring catch was very large and the supply of salt—expensive in ancient times—was very small, the Swedes had to get creative. Instead of curing the fish with salt, they resorted to another method to preserve an excellent harvest. They put the fish in cans along with water and just enough salt to control (but not completely halt) the growth of microorganisms, sealed the cans, and put them into storage. Because the amount of salt in the brine wasn’t high enough to completely stop all microbial growth, what happened inside the can was a type of oxygen-free—anaerobic—fermentation. In food processing we go to great lengths to avoid anaerobic fermentation. Usually, this type of spoilage gives off signals so you know not to consume the food. Sometimes the gases that develop in cans of surströmming are so strong that the cans buckle and bulge: a clear warning signal if ever there was one. Yet in Sweden this only increases the value of the putrid fish inside.
Lundström correctly refers to the above process as rotting. This rotten herring product is still being made in modern Sweden, although you have to be pretty committed to eat it. Swedish law prevents apartment renters from opening the putrid cans inside their homes because the stench is almost impossible to remove from a building. It’s also prohibited on some international flights. The preferred method for getting the rotted fish out of the can is to hold it under water while opening it, so the offensive aromas that escape are largely lost in thewater, as opposed to being volatized into the air. This method also acts to control the stinky contents from spraying everyone in the near vicinity of the can, as a lot of pressure builds up inside it during fermentation. Years ago, Lundström took his Canadian girlfriend to Sweden, and in an effort to share his culture with her, he and a few friends threw a surströmming party. Outside, of course. Out came the pièce de résistance: the rotted, canned, fermented herring. When the uninitiated foreigner got a whiff of it, she vomited.
Ever the curious eater, I went online to order surströmming from Sweden, but I was unsuccessful every time I tried. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection doesn’t look favorably upon bulging metal cans with foreign words on the label. So I asked Lundström to tell me what it tastes like.
“When you put it in your mouth, the odor is completely different,” says Lundström, describing the taste when surströmming is served classically, as opposed to the nauseating smell.
It’s a little bit sour. You have this very fresh taste of onion, the warm boiled potato, and the sour note of the herring on the crispy bread. That together is extremely nice. There’s this complex difference between the retronasal odor and the orthonasal smell you detect through your nose before you eat it. And no one really knows what this is.
This conundrum also fascinates Linda Bartoshuk. At her Center for Smell and Taste, Bartoshuk has experienced the same distinction between aromas that are detected outside the mouth versus
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