"A Taste For Hotter, Mintier, Fruitier"

I just read a really good article on Yahoo by Miriam Gottfried about how Americans palates are changing and what food companies are doing to satisfy the need. You can link to the article HERE, but I will give some highlights:

• "The buttery taste found in packaged foods isn't just butter flavor anymore. Increasingly, it is browned-butter flavor, formulated to taste deeper and more savory than plain butter"

• "American cuisine is adrenaline cuisine"

• "Food companies describe some of their efforts as adding "umami," a Japanese word that, roughly translated, means good flavor"

• "As people crave intensity in flavor, some traditionalists are wondering if diners will become desensitized to natural flavors. Regular mangoes may taste bland when eaten next to mango-flavored gum or a mango energy drink, they say"

• "New flavors used to originate in fine dining kitchens and work their way down, but now they come just as often from the Food Network or from ethnic or international sources"

Certainly worth the read. There's a lot of interesting material there. Check it out.