The sugar taboo in savory cooking

[cdh]

One thing people have to realize is that all tastes reduce other tastes. Like, a common acceptance is that sugar balances out sour. And, while true, bitter actually balances out sour a bit better than sugar, and vise versa. Try adding a few drops of lemon juice to a tablespoon of coffee in the morning as an experiment. I'm not saying that the lemon/coffee will taste "good," but the bitter in the coffee will be reduced noticeably.

←

Have to question your relationship with your taste buds there, qwerty...

I really can't agree that bitter and sour balance each other out. As a brewer of wacky sour beers, I know well that overbittering a beer intended for the sour bugs is a terrible mistake. Sweet and bitter balance each other, as you'll discover if you observe the bittering unit to gravity unit ratios of many popular beers. Beers that have large hops additions need to be balanced by large malt additions to provide balance to the bitterness, not jolts of lactic acid. Sour beers are balanced by more malt additions as well, giving the sweet and sour effect that Duchesse de Bourgougne and and Rodenbach are famous for.

There is a market for beers that are sour and bitter, as exemplified by Orval, but not many folks find them appealing. I think you're in that minority. And a very outspoken minority it is, fervent in their love of Orval. I just don't understand it.

[Qwerty]

You have to understand that I wasn't implying that things that are bitter and sour are appealing, just that if you add bitter taste to sour taste the taste is reduced. I wasn't saying that it taste's "good."

By default, if you bring any other taste up you reduce the effect of the other. Add sour to sweet, the sweet is reduced. Add sweet to sour, the sour is reduced. Add bitter to sweet, the sweet is reduced. Add sour to bitter, the bitter is reduced, etc. etc.

Why do people add lemon to tea?

Seriously, next time you have some black coffee, add a few drops of lemon juice. Taste it. Then add a small pinch of sugar to another. Tell me which one is less bitter (not which one tastes better, but which is less bitter).

My main point was that it isn't necessarily a necessity (or even a good thing) to use sucrose to balance out tastes. Tomato sauce too sour? You could add sugar, sure...but what good would that do. Try adding some caramel (or caramelized onions, or carrots, etc) to sauce, which add sweet and bitter taste (as well as a bunch of aroma and some texture) to better reduce the sour in a way that adds a depth of flavor to the sauce.

Maybe "balances" out was a bad phrasing on my part, but I stand by what I said. How about bitter reduces acid more effectively than sweet.

Edited February 24, 2007 by Qwerty (log)

[cdh]

I'm going to have to disagree with you again, based in beverages, again. Tonic water + lemon or lime results in more flavor, not less. Tonic is sweet and bitter with a hint of sour. Lime is sour and bitter. Lemon is just sour.

I find lemon + tonic less pleasant and just as flavorful as lime + tonic, which goes against your theory of flavor. Care to comment?

[Qwerty]

Ummmm, ok.

First off, I would have to disagree with you saying that lime is bitter. The predominant flavor in lime is sour, just as in lemon. I don't find limes any more bitter than lemons, but I do find limes slightly sweeter, though not by much.

Second, are you talking about taste or flavor? I was only talking about taste, not any flavors that come with the ingredients, unless otherwise noted. I assume you are saying talking about taste, so I'll proceed from that assumption.

I assume you are trying to find fault in my "logic" by asserting that lime (bitter and sour) is more pleasant to you in tonic than just lemon (just sour). I'm just not sure exactly what you are saying. Especially since I stated that tastes reduce other tastes, so by my theory the reason you like tonic and lime better is because the tastes are all working in tandem to reduce each other and make them palatable. I mean, you hopefully would find drinking plain tonic water less desireable than drinking tonic and lime, adn you would find sucking on a lime less desirable than drinking tonic and lime.

I really don't understand your point. If you had a pint of pure lime juice...it would taste nasty, right? What it you added half a cup of club soda (bitter...not really sweet). The lime juice is still nasty, right? But is it LESS nasty than it was before? Yeah, it is. Why? All you did was add bitter...is there less sour in the lime juice? No...it's just the effect of the sour is reduced because your mouth feels less sour because of the bitter. Once again, I'm not saying that the resulting concoction would be "good," I'm just saying that it was better.

You say that lemon juice and tonic is less pleasant than tonic and lime? But is lemon and tonic more pleasant than tonic alone? I would say yes.

So, in theory, you proved my point for me.

Edited February 24, 2007 by Qwerty (log)

[annecros]

I'm going to have to disagree with you again, based in beverages, again.  Tonic water +  lemon or lime results in more flavor, not less.  Tonic is sweet and bitter with a hint of sour.  Lime is sour and bitter.  Lemon is just sour. 

I find lemon + tonic less pleasant and just as flavorful as lime + tonic, which goes against your theory of flavor.  Care to comment?

←

That's very insightful, and interesting to get somebody from a different perspective on the sweet/savory balance. I really must buckle down and read the brewing threads.

I am guessing that you prefer the additional flavor that the lime imparts on the tonic, rather than the additional flavor that lemon imparts on the tonic. I am in your club with that one, and a generous application of gin in mine - just to keep things balanced, of course.

The best argument I can wrap my brain around is that sugar just doesn't add anything additional. In the tomato sauce argument, sure you could add ANOTHER carmelized onion, and make the sauce more ONIONY in addition to making it sweeter - or you could adjust with a pinch of sugar while maintaining the predominant tomato flavor.

If I wanted a red sauce, it would be hard for me to settle for pinkish carmelized onions.

At least qwerty never tried to argue that lemon/coffee is a good thing. And I'm not thinking that coffee with a dollop of onion confit would work for me at 5 AM either.

Edited February 24, 2007 by annecros (log)

[Qwerty]

The best argument I can wrap my brain around is that sugar just doesn't add anything additional. In the tomato sauce argument, sure you could add ANOTHER carmelized onion, and make the sauce more ONIONY in addition to making it sweeter - or you could adjust with a pinch of sugar while maintaining the predominant tomato flavor.

←

Yeah, you could do that, or you could start with carmelized onions in the first place, or make a caramel out of table sugar (and thereby adding not only sweet but a little bitter, as well as aroma) to the sauce. If you have a tomato sauce, then the predominant flavor will be tomato. If at any point you add enough onions to overpower the tomatoes, you have an onion sauce Proabably wouldn't happen.

Again, it's just my opinion. I'm not trying to tell anyone that they shouldn't use sugar in cooking...I even said I do it sometimes. I'm just providing possible explanations for Fat Guy's query, as well as possibly provide alternatives to some people who might want to try something different or look at taste a little different.

[annecros]

The best argument I can wrap my brain around is that sugar just doesn't add anything additional. In the tomato sauce argument, sure you could add ANOTHER carmelized onion, and make the sauce more ONIONY in addition to making it sweeter - or you could adjust with a pinch of sugar while maintaining the predominant tomato flavor.

←

Yeah, you could do that, or you could start with carmelized onions in the first place, or make a caramel out of table sugar (and thereby adding not only sweet but a little bitter, as well as aroma) to the sauce. If you have a tomato sauce, then the predominant flavor will be tomato. If at any point you add enough onions to overpower the tomatoes, you have an onion sauce Proabably wouldn't happen.

Again, it's just my opinion. I'm not trying to tell anyone that they shouldn't use sugar in cooking...I even said I do it sometimes. I'm just providing possible explanations for Fat Guy's query, as well as possibly provide alternatives to some people who might want to try something different or look at taste a little different.

←

Well, I sort of think of it as a finish, and optional. I do start with carmelized onion in most anything I cook when appropriate.

Now that I'm thinking that chicken stock over, as much onion as I add the sugar may not do it any good at all.

I didn't mean to pick on you.

[cdh]

qwerty-

Taste a some lime juice and get back to me about it not having a bitter element. I think you'll reconsider.

Next, I don't think the concept of "nasty" belongs in this analysis. Nasty is subjective. Nasty is what broccoli was to George Bush Sr.

More or less flavorful is objective.

Club soda is flavorless, or slightly sour from the carbonic acid in it. Not bitter.

Club soda dilutes, lessening any flavor that your lime brought to your example. That was not bitter countering sour. That was nothing countering something and coming to an average.

[Qwerty]

I was under the impression that soda water was made from sodium bicarbonate, which IIRC would be bitter. I apologize if I was mistaken on this matter. I would be happy to substitute tonic in that scenario and still get a very similar result.

And I'm not talking about flavor. Flavor=taste + aroma + texture. I am talking about taste...sour, acid, salty, bitter, and umami.

More or less flavorfull is subjective. But I would argue that more or less "taste" is not subjective. If you add b)itter to sour, then the sour taste is reduced. Period. I can't say it any clearer. The same goes for all tastes. The amount someone finds palatable is subjective, but the fact that the tastes are reduced really isn't.

And you're right, "nasty" is a subjective term. But so is stating that you find lime and tonic to be more pleasant than lemon and tonic. So I was trying to take something that you stated to the extremes. That's all. Using an example you gave and trying to explain myself using your guidelines, i.e. lime and tonic, etc. I don't think that too many people would disagree with me that pure lime juice is nasty. I've never met anyone that drank galsses of lime juice with breakfast...and there is a reason for that. It's nasty. So yeah, it's subjective, but I say it with confidence.

So, I'll try again...

I again apologize for my apparant igorance about club soda. Again, I thought it was made with sodium bicarbonate and had a bitter taste. We'll remove that from further discussion.

Of course, you can dillute taste with water. You can dillute lime juice with water and eventually make it weak enough to be palatable. That is fine...but in cooking, if probably wouldn't make sense to dillute your soup with water if, for example, if was a too bitter on the palate. But if you add acid (lemon juice, vinegar, etc), you reduce the bitter and add taste and aroma to the soup. You could also add sugar. But sugar has no aroma, and it only effects taste. And it is less effective for reducing bitter than sour is.

Bitter greens and citrus dressing...classic. Why? They reduce the tastes of the other and make each more pleasant.

A few drops of mignonette sauce on the oyster...sour from the sauce helps reduce the salty/astringent(bitter) and umami of the oyster, and make the salty/bitter/umami a little "rounder" and more palatable to eat. I'm not even saying that oysters aren't delicious by themselves, but maybe, maybe to some people they are a little more delicious with a drop or two of vinegar...or lemon juice, or alcohol, or whatever.

Edited February 24, 2007 by Qwerty (log)