A Melting Pot for Flavors

Prepared Foods, March, 2000 by Linda Milo Ohr

A final key point to remember when creating any type of fusion cuisine: Know your target audience and their taste preferences. What a group of people dislikes in food is just as important as what the group likes. For example, one dish that's doing well in Japan--squid ink pizza--probably won't be taking off in the U.S. anytime soon. Instead of tomato sauce, the pizza features black squid ink sauce. Enough said?

Soy Sauce Reaches Outside the Orient

"It is the taste that ultimately provides the ethnic definition of any given food," says Elisabeth Rozin, food consultant and author. "Flavoring a dish with soy sauce, for example, almost automatically identifies it as Oriental."

Changing the seasonings added to the soy sauce, however, varies the ethnic profile. For example, "if you add garlic, brown sugar, sesame seed and chile to basic soy sauce, you will obtain a seasoning compound that is definably Korean," says Rozin. "Similarly, if you add garlic, coconut, ground peanuts and chile to the basic soy sauce, you will create a taste characteristically Indonesian."

Outside the Orient, soy sauce is finding a home in other ethnic cuisines, although as it radiates out of Asia, it becomes less intense. It turns up in Caribbean food, for example, where it becomes a component of Jamaican jerk sauce and spicy marinades, says Rozin. It is also found in a number of analogous English sauces such as Worcestershire and steak sauce.

Soy sauce is commonly used in fajitas, notes David Foster, R&D manager for a soy sauce supplier, "More authentic Mexican restaurants will marinate their meat in soy sauce, which enhances the meat's flavor," he says.

In addition, soy sauce filters into traditional American barbecue as a component of barbecue sauces and marinades. It has also become a fairly common ingredient in the American kitchen, and not just for stir fry dishes. It is now added to meat loaf or pot roast gravy. Consumers find that it is a richer salting agent than plain salt, says Rozin.

"Soy sauce is a very good flavor enhancer. This is one of the main reasons why it works well in different ethnic cuisine," notes Foster. Scientists have identified nearly 300 flavor components in soy sauce. These components help to harmonize the flavors of the different ethnic cuisines. "Additionally, with soy sauce containing 13.7% salt itself, you can use it in place of salt to enhance the flavors and the salt perception, but with a much lower sodium level in the final product."

Defining the Research Chef

"The Research Chefs Association (RCA), Louisville, Ken., started because chefs working in culinary R&D found themselves isolated from both the Institute of Food Technologists show (IFT) and the American Culinary Federation (ACF). We're sort of in the middle," says John Matchuk, vice president of RCA. "We combine culinary science with food science, resulting in what we call '[Culinology.sup.TM].'"

Recognizing the uniqueness of chefs working in R&D, the RCA will soon offer a certification program for the title of Certified Research Chef. The certification is for those who have experience as a chef and are working in the business of food research or development. Membership spans R&D chefs, corporate chefs for hotel and restaurant chains, culinary educators, product developers, marketers and "foodies" in general.