"Scientists have figured out what makes Indian food so delicious"!?

[Martin Fisher]

"The takeaway is that part of what makes Indian food so appealing is the way flavors rub up against each other. The cuisine is complicated, no doubt: the average Indian dish, after all, contains at least 7 ingredients, and the total number of ingredients observed by the researchers amounted to almost 200 out of the roughly 381 observed around the world. But all those ingredients — and the spices especially — are all uniquely important because in any single dish, each one brings a unique flavor."

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/03/a-scientific-explanation-of-what-makes-indian-food-so-delicious/

[Anna N]

"More specifically, many Indian recipes contain cayenne, the basis of curry powder that is in dishes like red curry, green curry, or massaman curry. And when a dish contains cayenne, the researchers found, it's unlikely to have other ingredients that share similar flavors. The same can be said of green bell pepper, coriander and garam masala, which are nearly as ubiquitous in Indian cuisine."

Anyone else find the above paragraph little confusing?

[Simon Lewinson]

Sounds like a load of crap to me. Red, green and Massaman are thai curries! Am I the only person that thinks that these curries are made with curry pastes not powder? Also, cayenne is not an Indian ingredient per se, but rather a style of Chilli that is not really used in Indian cuisine.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Simon Lewinson (log)

[Martin Fisher]

It's a Washington Post article, what do you expect?

The referenced research is interesting.

[huiray]

The author of the WaPo article took liberties with the terms used and examples, conflating Thai curries ("green curry", "red curry") with any curry from India.  The paper itself (http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1502/1502.03815.pdf) looks fine.

 

The authors (Jain et al.) of the actual paper used the term "cayenne".  The ingredient is also used in South Asian cooking, maybe in combination with Indian chillies, but perhaps the authors may be using the term in a general sense for fruit of Capsicum species?.  See here for one example listing the ingredient as one that is used in Indian cuisine.

 

The "conclusions" are not new, insofar as it applies to "Asian" food (note double quotes).  Jain et al. also refer to an earlier paper (from 2011) which was much more detailed and broader in scope but which concentrated on E (and SE) Asian cuisines versus European/Western cuisines.  This earlier paper in html (http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/full/srep00196.html) and as a more-readable pdf (http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/pdf/srep00196.pdf) I've previously referenced this earlier paper a few times here on eG.

 

A side-note on Thai curries versus Indian curries:  From what I read elsewhere Indians by-and-large seem to like Thai curries a lot; but Thai folks frequently (if not generally) dislike Indian curries.  My understanding is that there is something about how an Indian curry "smells" that is very off-putting to many Thais, but there may be various other factors.

Edited March 4, 2015 by huiray (log)