Flavors: I miss them dearly

Well, friends, young Malcolm has the sniffles. Someone was hacking in the shower at the gym the other day. I imagine whatever nastiness leapt from his chapped mouth made its way to my flip flop and then to my hands and then to my nose where it currently resides.
Let me address two things: One, yes, I'm human. I get sick. Two, like most people I know, you probably didn't think that I would set foot in a gym, did you? It's true, I'm more comfortable in tweed than Lycra, but I can pass a medicine ball like nobody's business.

Now, on to the matter at hand. I can't breath well today. I can't smell anything, ergo I cannot taste much either. And this has me thinking of flavors, and the delicious meals I will not enjoy in the coming days. Some of you folks out there work hard to create these flavors and I am quieted by the cold truth that I will not be able to experience them for what I hope is no more than a week.

With that, I say, to my health!

And now, some flavor trend pieces that you may have missed...

A team of researchers, including former CCNR postdoctoral research associates James Bagrow, Sebastian Ahnert and Yong-Yeol Ahn, took a network-based approach to explore the impact of flavor compounds on ingredient combinations. They designed and analyzed the bipartite network of links between ingredients and flavor compounds found in more than 56,000 recipes from three online repositories, including epicurious.com, allrecipes.com and menupan.com.

Adding functionality to the mix raises the stakes considerably, because many functional ingredients present taste and texture challenges. Here are some up-trending ingredients that can help make functional flavor success happen...

We have identified Mediterranean, Indian and Caribbean as three of the hottest cuisines in the restaurant industry today. What follows is an overview of each cuisine and a discussion of why each is poised to break out of (relative) obscurity and impact the industry in a big way...

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Savory Flavors: Transforming Easy Products to Gourmet Delights 
Today’s consumers continue to seek grocery products containing more bold and layered flavors, and manufacturers have responded by adding more unique and global ingredients to some of the most basic products...

There is a trend featuring savory-inspired cocktails, with accents such as bacon, anchovies and foie gras. Bartenders are adding bacon fat to whiskey, freezing it and then scraping the solidified fat from the top, for a bacon flavor-infused whiskey, without the fat.

Active Flavor & Aroma Emitting Packaging. A Technical/Solutions Presentation...