Capturing Nature's Flavors: Flavor Chemistry in the United States, 1913-1954

Time: 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.

Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Free

Open to the public

This talk about the history of flavor chemistry will examine how “natural flavors” gained material substance, scientific meaning, and cultural significance in the United States in the first half of the 20th century.

Flavor became a technical and scientific problem with the industrialization of food. Changes in agricultural and manufacturing practices—as well as long-distance transportation, the rigors of supermarket shelf life, and less time-intensive modes of preparation—altered the sensory qualities of foods, rarely for the better. Standardization required a new level of consistency from inherently variable foodstuffs. Intensifying commercial competition among brands raised the stakes, with “repeat buyers” assuredly motivated by “better flavor.” These factors drew intensive attention to the flavor qualities of foods and particularly to departures from consumer preferences. Why did milk—perfectly safe, as far as bacterial count was concerned—sometimes taste distressingly like cardboard? Why did canned green beans often seem “flat” or insipid, even though the vegetables that went into the can were high quality and tasty? What material changes occurred as coffee went stale? Food manufacturers increasingly turned to specially trained scientists and technicians—including flavor chemists, food technologists, food engineers, and home economists—to answer these questions and to develop improved methods of production that resulted in more “flavorful” foods.

This talk will discuss the emergence of flavor chemistry as a specialized professional discipline, one that offered a distinct way of thinking about the material and sensory qualities of foods and that prescribed particular means of remedying the perceived loss of good flavor in processing. Investigations into the chemical components of flavor were conducted at government experiment stations, in universities, and in the research and development laboratories of food companies and flavor and fragrance manufacturers. Berenstein will look at how these diverse locations shaped the practices of flavor chemists and the forms their research took. In particular, her focus here will be on how flavor chemists understood “natural flavor”—how they undertook the analysis of flavors in foods, and how they approached the preservation, enhancement, and reproduction of those flavors in processed foods.

Nadia Berenstein is a doctoral candidate in the History and Sociology of Science program at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently writing her dissertation, a history of flavor additives, flavor chemistry, and flavor chemists in the United States, as a Haas Fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation's Beckman Center. She holds a BA from Harvard College and an MA from New York University. You can follow her on Twitter (@thebirdisgone), or read more about her research on her blog, Flavor Added.

About Brown Bag Lectures

Brown Bag Lectures (BBLs) are a series of weekly informal talks on the history of chemistry or related subjects, including the history and social studies of science, technology, and medicine. Based on original research (sometimes still in progress), these talks are given by local scholars for an audience of CHF staff and fellows and interested members of the public.

For more information, please call 215.873.8289 or e-mail bbl@chemheritage.org.