'The Art in Imitation Flavors': Flavor Chemistry and Scientific Craft

Time: 12:00pm

Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation

This talk will consider changing American tastes between the late 19th century and the 1960s by looking at the people responsible for making flavors: the technicians, pharmacists, and chemists who developed, compounded, and manufactured synthetic flavor additives for use by the rapidly expanding food and beverage industry. In particular, Berenstein’s research describes the emergence of the “flavorist” as a scientific craft profession—one whose members defined themselves not only in terms of chemical expertise, techno-scientific mastery, and corporate affiliation but also creativity and craftsmanship. Using handbooks and manuals for flavor production as well as material from the Society of Flavor Chemists, Berenstein considers recruitment, apprenticeship, and professional development among flavor chemists in an era when the science of flavor was dramatically transformed by the introduction of new instrumentation, including gas-liquid chromatography and mass spectroscopy. By examining the professional lives of flavorists, this discussion will shed light on changing social and cultural understandings of natural and artificial, synthetic and organic, and of flavor itself—as well as the role of scientific knowledge in defining “good taste.”

Nadia Berenstein is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, where she calls the Department of History and Sociology of Science home. In the past she has written about the disappearance of the passenger pigeon, the electrocution of Topsy the elephant, and the phenomenon of birds fatally colliding with buildings. Her most recent work documents the history of flavor chemists and flavor additives in the United States.