There's a lot of chemistry that goes into how and what we taste.

There's some aroma compounds in bell peppers and sulfur compounds and wine and garlic

that we're almost ridiculously sensitive to.

It's Tuesday, March 19th, and would you look at that?

Today is Science Friday.

I'm SciFRI producer Kathleen Davis.

Flavor is arguably the most important part of a meal.

If the flavor of something is off or undetectable, it can jeopardize your enjoyment.

There's so much science that goes on behind our sense of taste.

Flavor scientist Ariel Johnson knows all about this,

and she wrote a book, Flavorama, unlocking the art and science of flavor.

She joins Ira Flato to talk about it.

You're quite a resume.

I mean, you have a PhD in flavor chemistry.

You've worked at some of the best restaurants in the world, including Noma in Copenhagen.

That is something.

How did you get interested in the chemistry behind flavor?

Well, I was always pretty interested in science generally and pretty interested in food science generally and you know pretty pretty interested in food and

I guess eventually uh while I was in high school um foran adria the chef at lboui uh which was like

a super influential experimental uh Spanish restaurant so he was on the cover of the New York times

magazine and he was like holding this

like little container of like carrot foam and I was like what is that? And it was a whole article about how

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