Flavorama review: Arielle Johnson digs into flavour science in a tasty new book

Personnel of the World class Danish restaurant Noma works in the kichten on May 31, 2021 in Copenhagen. - While the six-month Covid-19 closure has been tough for Noma, consistently ranked as one of the world's top restaurants, it's also been an opportunity to reinvent its cuisine. As it reopened this June, the restaurant has reworked its menu -- in part to take the lack of foreign tourists into account. (Photo by Thibault Savary / AFP) (Photo by THIBAULT SAVARY/AFP via Getty Images) — Copenhagen’s Noma restaurant, where researcher and cook Arielle Johnson has worked

THIBAULT SAVARY/AFP via Getty Images

Flavorama
Arielle Johnson (Harvest)

WHAT makes roasted meats taste so good? In the 19th century, scientists thought the answer was a mysterious substance known as osmazome, found in the flesh and blood of animals. The influential theorist Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin described osmazome as “the most meritorious ingredient of all good soups”.

The science of flavour has come a long way. There can be few people better placed to bring us up to speed in 2024 than Arielle Johnson, a…