How to tap into your flavor superpower? The nose knows. (2024)

Lately I’ve been reconnecting to my sense of smell, thanks to “Flavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor” by Arielle Johnson, a food scientist who helped establish the fermentation lab at the restaurant Noma in Copenhagen and has advised some of the top chefs in the world.

For several years I studied perfumery because I love, as Johnson puts it, “the deep paying attention” to the way things smell. Johnson apparently loves it too. Smell — our most underrated, underappreciated sense — has everything to do with the way we experience flavor.

What we taste refers to salty, sour, sweet, bitter and umami — that’s it, that’s all our tongue has receptors for. “Just about everything else is smell,” Johnson writes.

The grassiness of herbs, the anisic notes of fennel, the marine flavors of seaweed, the tropical-ness of pineapple ... these come from molecules translated by our scent receptors.

“Tastes are single sensations,” Johnson says, “and only a few types of molecules can cause each one.” Meanwhile, I know that “smells are multidimensional sensations” created by a world of volatile molecules, because many of these were parsed in perfumery school — eugenol in cloves, linalool in lavender, gamma-decalactone in peaches.

These are the building blocks of patterns in flavor. And these patterns ultimately make up a big part of cooking.

Johnson organizes the building blocks into categories — her main ones are fruity, herbal, spiced, meaty and vegetal, each further broken down into subcategories. It’s a deep dive.

There’s a lot to read in “Flavorama” about decoding “taste plus smell equals flavor” and the fact that “flavor is molecules,” and it’s all fascinating, but what about the recipes?

Johnson wrote nearly 100 recipes, scattered throughout the book as practical lessons. They’re the best kinds of recipes: a handful of ingredients, easy instructions and huge payoff in flavor. They’re written in paragraph form with boldfaced ingredients labeled within the instructions.

Here’s an example. From the section “Sour” in “Chapter 3: The Five(ish) Tastes,” I made Sour Orange-Marinated Pork Shoulder, Adapted to Sour Orangeless Circ*mstances.

“To make faux sour orange juice, mix ¼ cup (60 ml) freshly squeezed orange juice with ¼ cup (60 ml) lime juice.

“In a food processor or with a mortar and pestle, combine 6 garlic cloves, ½ cup (120 ml) faux sour orange juice, ¼ cup (60 ml) vegetable oil, 1½ teaspoons (9g) salt and ½ cup (20 g) coarsley chopped cilantro leaves. If it’s too thick, add a bit more oil — you want it to be the texture of soft mud, not entirely liquid.

“Rub the paste all over a 2- to 4-pound (1 to 2 kg) boneless pork shoulder. Marinate in the fridge overnight, then cook in a Dutch oven with a heavy, tight-fitting lid at 250 degrees for 4 to 6 hours, or until very tender. Serve immediately. Serves 3 to 6.”

For one, I appreciate the substitute here for the juice of sour oranges, which are hard to come by (maybe the subject of another newsletter next sour orange season). Two, the flavor of sour orange (or faux sour orange) juice plus cilantro plus garlic is so pow! And three, my kitchen never smelled better.

Below are also a few especially fragrant/flavorful recipes from our archives.

Meanwhile, we’re at the L.A. Times Festival of Books this weekend. Come see us at Booth 410 on the main USC campus, where a lineup of chefs and authors will be discussing and signing their latest books.

Eating out this week? Sign up for Tasting Notes to get our restaurant experts’ insights and off-the-cuff takes on where they’re dining right now.

Carrot Ribbon Salad

This vibrant salad from Alexis deBoschnek has so many bright flavors and crunchy-to-chewy textures, with ribbons of carrot and plump golden raisins. The aroma of fresh herbs — mint and cilantro — combines with a garlicky dressing and a drizzle of tart-sweet, fruity pomegranate molasses.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 30 minutes. Serves 4.

(Nicole Franzen/Nicole Franzen)

Mh Zh’s Zhoug

Pungent, herbal, spicy Yemeni zhoug — what a condiment! The erstwhile restaurant Mh Zh gave Gillian Ferguson its zhoug recipe, with Anaheim and serrano chiles (interestingly, the “spice” of chiles isn’t a flavor or smell but is actually sensed by our pain receptors, so it’s a touch), fresh soft herbs and the warming and cooling spices cardamom, caraway and cumin. You can put it on pretty much anything.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 35 minutes. Makes about 2 cups.

(Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times )

Spicy Watermelon And Tahini Salad With Pistachios And Mint

As soon as watermelon season starts, make this salad from former Times cooking columnist Ben Mims. Fruity-sweet watermelon, savory-nutty tahini, green chiles, pistachios, fresh mint, zingy lemon — this is a dream summer salad.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 30 minutes. Serves 6 to 8.

(Silvia Razgova/Silvia Razgova)