‘Flavorists’, the food biz creatives

A recipe for Rendang, voted the world’s most flavourful dish

In the days of arrogant youth when I presumed to have some cooking flair, I decided the one side dish to punch up the belly of pork I was cooking was roast bananas. It is hard to describe how appalling the combination was. Almost as bad as the time when, having stored in the fridge a jug of gazpacho and a jug of iced coffee for a summer lunch, I decanted both into the same tureen.

From Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal messing about with nitrogen, to entire science departments at the service of the industrial food complex, time and money is spent concocting pairings to persuade us to spend our budgets on this moment’s major food revolution.

Beck Flavors is a company of ‘flavorists’, crafting flavours for their food manufacturing clients. For 2021, it has designated dill pickle as ‘flavor-of-the-year in the innovative category’. A lab team spokesman said, “It can be used in a wide range of applications, including cocktails, beer, chocolate, candy, ice cream, chips, popcorn and more.” He sounds like a prime candidate for my innovative pork-and-bananas combo. 

Comas Flavors has developed a flavour series called ‘Breakfast Basics’, so everything beyond breakfast can taste of cereal and milk, French toast, and jelly donut.

Spices manufacturer McCormick predicts that the tartness of hibiscus mixed with the heat of ancho chile will create a popular ‘Lively Latin combo’ for 2021. Whatever floats your boat. 

Just 10 companies, making billions in annual revenue, control nearly every food and drink brand in the world. We may cling to the notion that we are what we eat. It’s wrong. We are what industrial food manufacturers, trading on global financial markets, want us to eat. 

According to Deloitte, “The need for new product development on cutting-edge novel food ingredients is constantly evolving,”  with increased investment in technology and machinery “to keep up with the latest demands.” 

Are you making demands in cutting-edge novel food ingredients? I’m not.

Despite the exertions of ‘flavorists’, sales in the UK of fresh produce since Covid19 are up by 31% (presumably in markets where budgeting isn’t an issue), with 42% of consumers discovering cooking can be fun (presumably in markets where people can afford their utility bills). Mind you, sales of convenience food and alcohol are also up - by 29%. I can’t quote for the US, but I don’t see why their figures wouldn’t be similar. We’re all the same species. 

It’s no surprise Covid19 has changed how we shop for food. What with working from home, the decline in commuting, and lockdown rules, shopping in actual shops has slumped to below 10% of sales. Suddenly, consumers, not ‘flavorists’, are having an impact on what is sold to us. 

Take meat, for instance. Covid19 has created what’s called ‘Carcass imbalance.’ Butchery is a finely balanced trade that depends on little going to waste. But the pandemic has provoked a huge demand for ground meat, with mince flying off the shelves. This has created an over-supply of higher value cuts like steaks. Which in turn has pushed supermarkets into ‘value’ promotions to get rid of them. 

Do we need the food business to tell us yuzu and cherry blossom are the go-to flavours for this year? (By the next, it will be something different.) It’s about time buyers told the food biz what we really consider essential, whether that’s no more over-packaging, less plastic, sensible Best Before dates, a reduction in food waste, or producers taking a higher profit and conglomerates a lesser one.

Covid19 has proved shoppers have the power to insist on practical change, not a passing change in fashion flavours.

When CNN, in 2011, ran a Facebook poll asking which was the world’s most flavourful dish, more than 35,000 people responded, producing a short list of 50, most of them from South East Asia. 

Vietnamese summer rolls, Gỏi cuốn, came in at No. 50, with Indonesia’s spicy slow-cooked beef and coconut stew, Rendang from Minangkabau in West Central Sumatra, scooping the No.1 slot for flavour. Not a pinch of hibiscus flower in any of them. Award-winning Sumatran food writer Sri Owen’s recipe below is the simplest. But you’ll find a version of more complex flavours at Rasamalaysia.com.

1.5kg/3.5lbs brisket or stewing steak

6 shallots

3 cloves garlic

Salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon turmeric

3 teaspoons chili powder

½ teaspoon laos (dried galangal)

7.5 cups/3 pints santen (coconut cream or milk*) 

1 salam, curry or bay leaf

1 fresh daun kunyit (turmeric leaf) optional

Cut the meat into biggish cubes. Crush the shallots and garlic with some salt; add ginger, turmeric, chili, and laos. Mix them and put them into the santen. Add the meat and the various leaves. Cook in a wok, letting the mixture bubble gently and stirring it occasionally until it becomes very thick. This should take 1½ to 2 hours. Taste, and add salt if necessary. When the mixture is thick, the slow cooking must continue, but now the meat and sauce must be stirred continuously until all the sauce has been absorbed into the meat and the meat itself has become a good golden brown. This will take at least half an hour, perhaps as much as 1½ hours. Serve the Rendang hot, with plain boiled rice or glutinous sticky rice.

*Strictly speaking Owen calls for santen or santan made from 2 grating small coconuts into a cup of water and squeezing out the resulting thick, oily, white liquid. I - JW, not SO - recommend a 1:1 ratio coconut cream to milk. 

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