Food In The Fort

Last summer, I decided to share the pleasure of my required school reading with Leo by making him suffer through Freakonomics. Such a bad book. The problem is that it is so much fun when you’re reading it; but then if you stop and think about it… Anyway, turn about is fair play, so we followed this up with Joanne Chen’s The Taste of Sweet: Our Complicated Love Affair with Our Favorite Treats. Like Freakonomics, this book is breezy and enjoyably written but, happily, it lacks the chapters which cause me to go on rants about the author’s racism and deliberately deceptive use of statistics.

However, The Taste of Sweet does share a Freakonomical feature: both authors like to toss off assertions of dubious scientific accuracy. A case in point: when discussing the role of fiber in our diet, Chen quotes pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig who says that bacterial DNA found in stool samples of ancient humans proves that people used to eat about twenty to thirty times more fiber than we do today. This is given as evidence to support the idea that this is the ideal human diet, not just what those undoubtedly very regular people had available to eat.

Without a doubt, the chapter that both Leo and I found the most interesting was “The Real Taste of Strawberry” in which Chen describes how flavors change over time to adapt to current tastes. And she’s not just talking about artificial flavorings. Fruits and vegetables themselves are constantly being selected and manipulated in order to provide a more idealized taste: a more strawberry-flavored strawberry or sweeter sugar cane. As Chen notes, “Humans have been trying to have it their way with nature for a very long time,” and “Real flavors, in fact, aren’t any more consistent than fantasy ones.” And speaking of fantasies, apparently “healthy” tastes like raisins and spice, with a hint of creaminess, at least to food engineer Marie Wright who had embarked on a quest to create a “healthier” tasting oatmeal flavored cookie.

Overall, Leo and I enjoyed reading The Taste of Sweet, in spite of its problems. It’s readily apparent in the numerous interviews and history Chen cites that she has done her homework and the result is an easily digestible yet thought provoking book. However, Chen’s own conflicted relationship with sweet foods gives her analysis an unbalanced feel. Her celebration of the role of sweet foods in our culture is undercut by a generous helping of guilt. In this, Chen certainly parallels most Americans’ relationship with sweets. To paraphrase from her chapter “Guilty Pleasures,” we all have trust issues with delicious food and the more indulgent it seems, the more suspicious we think we should be.

Note: This review was co-authored with Leo.