Everyone has different holiday traditions–and almost all of them involve food.
You will therefore be as relieved to discover as I was that science is doing its best to ensure that our holiday favorites continue to delight us.
The Sensory Analysis Lab at the Prince Edward Island Food Technology Centre has helped insure that islanders’ Christmas tastes just right by rigorously taste-testing Egg Nog Light, produced by PEI’s small, independent Purity Dairy, and providing the dairy with specific recommendations to improve the recipe.
Such “sensory evaluation” laboratories can be found everywhere, scientifically analyzing the sensory impact of the food (and other products) we use every day. It’s a rather unique field because, although it does make use of mechanical and electronic devices, its primary analytical tool is the human being.
Sensory evaluation scientists don’t call their taste testers “taste testers”; they call them “panelists,” and there are three types.
First, there is the “true consumers,” people who have little or no experience with sensory tests, but who reflect the consumers for whom the product is intended. A typical consumer panel will consist of between 200 to 500 people (to ensure enough relevant data).
Next, there are the “experienced panelists,” those who often take part in sensory evaluation tests. Experienced panelists can provide more detailed information than the true consumers. Big sensory evaluation laboratories like the National Food Laboratory in Dublin, California, have huge numbers of experienced testers they can draw on, people who come back again and again because they enjoy the experience and because it gives them an opportunity to influence the marketplace. (It’s not for the money; tasters are usually paid just a few dollars for a simple tasting and only about $100 for complex tastings done over three or four days).
Finally, there are the “trained panelists,” who undergo extensive training (as much as two hours a day for months) to become experts on a particular product. They can analyze a product in far greater detail and with greater accuracy than the other kinds of panelists.
Panelists are screened, usually over a period of weeks, to ensure that they have a keen sense of taste and smell. Testing usually takes place in rooms with carefully controlled lighting (to ensure they either see the true color of their samples or, alternatively, through the use of colored lights, that they aren’t influenced by the true color of their samples) and carefully filtered, odor-free air. Samples, which are typically identified only with a non-informative label, such as a three-digit number, are prepared out of sight, and pushed through two-sided doors that ensure the panelists never see their servers.
Panelists face one of four basic types of tests: difference, preference, acceptance and descriptive. A difference test answers only one question: “Are these two samples different?” This test is used to see if a particular product is changing during production or due to storage.
The preference test is the old Coke/Pepsi challenge: which sample do you prefer?
The acceptance test measures how much a tester likes a particular food. One acceptance test uses the Hedonic Scale, a 9-point scale of liking that ranges from “Like Extremely” to “Dislike Extremely.” Another, called the attribute rating scale, is usually used with experienced panelists, and asks them to measure the intensity of specific attributes of a product–i.e., bitterness or sweetness.
Finally, descriptive analysis requires a trained panel dealing with a very defined attribute rating scale. It’s often used to evaluate changes to a particular product. A well-trained panel can even test a competitor’s product and determine how it is being changed.
Some sensory evaluation laboratories deal with all kinds of products (testing everything from the taste of microwave popcorn to the greasiness of hand lotions); others are more tightly focused (i.e, only test food) and still others are extremely specific (i.e., they only test beer–and no, I don’t know how you get a job as a beer taster).
It’s widespread precisely because “Sensory testing is critical for new product development and improving existing products,” as Charles Sims, a professor with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, puts it. “The consumer is becoming more and more in tune with what tastes good and what doesn’t taste good.”
Most of the holiday foods we enjoy may have never undergone scientific sensory evaluation under proper laboratory conditions, but on the other hand, few commercially prepared products have ever been as thoroughly taste-tested as your mom’s famous super-gooey Christmas fudge.
When it comes to our own families’ traditional holiday foods, we are all expert panelists.
