Effect of Slice on Taste

Effect of Slice on Taste

Theory:
Slice dimensions affect taste.

Experience:
1. Hyde Park, 1975, a large woman in the kitchen of the Julius Rosenwald mansion/commune fills her mouth with fromage and says to me, “Thinly sliced cheese tastes better.” She is right. I’m in love. The emotion passes; the thought endures.
2. Eisenhower Expressway, 1983, I am driving to teach a class. I have a baggy of sliced apple and also a whole apple. Eating both, I find the slices taste better.
3. Yesterday at lunch, my client orders spicy Thai pizza, which comes with chunks of chicken, cut like blocks of tofu, appalling. Shredded (sliced by hand) the chicken becomes more luscious and flavorful.

A thin slice touches more taste buds. Better taste is had with a thin slice.

I agree in general, but I think a very notable exception is bread. Bread, to me, always tastes best torn in a big chunk off a fresh loaf.

Slight elaboration of Hammond's Maxim follows:

Slicing maximizes food stimulus contact with taste buds.
Slicing liberates moisture from food prior to ingestion.
Moisture becomes means of communication of "flavor" properties of said food item, resulting in the following two-pronged effect:

1) Taste receptors are stimulated; brain intereprets.
2) Moisture permits vaporization of scents in food item, resulting in increased perception of fragrance, and a sense of "more taste".

Additionally, thin slices might reduce sensations of pressure and movement in the mouth, thus permitting the taster a taste and fragrance experience unclouded by this type of "noise".

Good topic!

Tom Fitzmorris, the New Orleans food writer, always advocates thin slicing. He sez it maximizes the amount of food that comes in contact with one's taste buds.

Me, I think thin slicing works in some contexts, thick in others, and in even others, I'd rather not have slices.

Thin, as thin as possible, I want smoked salmon or other smoked fish. I think this works because the fish practically dissolves on the tongue. Thicker, I want dry ham like Parma; in fact too thinly cut, and I think ham looses something. There should be some chew. Even thicker, I like turkey and thicker still pastrami. Each time, I find it is not only the slice, but the thickness that perfdects the product.

Now, what not too slice. I agree with Ed that certain breads, baguettes, and really, challah, taste best in rips. Finally, BBQ pork shoulder, I much prefer a pulled or chopped product to a sliced product.

My head is a little foggy this morning. It took me a while to realize that we weren't talking about lemon-lime pop.

gleam wrote:I agree in general, but I think a very notable exception is bread. Bread, to me, always tastes best torn in a big chunk off a fresh loaf.

There is also something pleasing about crunching into a big apple, but I believe the pleasure comes from sensual features in addition to/instead of flavor. I am not sure a chunk of anything actually tastes better than a slice of the same thing – but eating a chunk of something can give pleasures that eating a slice cannot. Taste just isn’t one of them.

Vital Information wrote:Thin, as thin as possible, I want smoked salmon or other smoked fish. I think this works because the fish practically dissolves on the tongue.

This may relate to Josephine’s (and Brillat-Savarin’s) thoughts about moisture – a thinner slice of, say, bread is more easily moisturized in the mouth, thus flavor is communicated more readily.

Josephine wrote:thin slices might reduce sensations of pressure and movement in the mouth, thus permitting the taster a taste and fragrance experience unclouded by this type of "noise".

I was at fancypants-ishTownhouse (111 S Wacker) on Thursday night, and was dismayed to see a cheese platter go out with chunks of cheese cut into inch-cubes, kind of like you’d see on a Jewel “hors d’oeuvre” plate. I do think that chomping into a chunk of cheese is usually done with the side teeth (because you pop in mouth and chew), which limits the stimulation range of the tongue to basically the sides. Now, on the topic of mouth movement of food, you can increase taste by letting the food slide back over the tongue, but I don’t think that’s the way people usually choose to chew. In addition, as you say, the very action of using the big side teeth (molars,etc.) to render the bite swallow-able may create a noise or static that may interfere with more subtle food signals.

david, i might be a little dense, but what's up with your 'comma?' at the bottom of these posts???? justjoan

Deli meats and cheeses should always be sliced thin...not quite shaved, but thin.

try explaining that to the Jewel deli counter worker

I get that biting-on-tinfoil reaction when I see people ask for a thicker cut...or, I forget to be specific as per slicing and receive the default same.

Hence, no mass deli culture to speak of in Chicago; virtually anywhere else in the country they'd know how to slice deli products w/o being told.

---I'll always remember my chagrin when confronted by a busybody who took offence(?) overhearing my ordering procedure and just had to stick in her two cents that, "you aren't getting your money's worth if it's sliced too thin." To which I replied that they aren't carving a Butterball here...it's a compressed, injected, product of some sort or other and only benefits from tissue thin slicing both texturally and flavorwise. She just hrmphed.

Christopher Gordon wrote: "you aren't getting your money's worth if it's sliced too thin."

As in, "Which weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?"

Certainly meats sliced for sandwiches, thinner = better. Corned beef, pastrami, turkey, etc. all benefit from being able to bite through several layers without pulling out a whole slice, and more tongue exposure.

Some things it's a wash: long-braised brisket shouldn't make a difference if it's fork-mash tender anyway.

Anything moist, though, and thinness could be a detriment: shave your shrooms for a pizza, and you'll get no flavor. Watermelon? Inch-thick, please, to get that juice-down-the-chin bonus. Tofu? Won't hold together if you slice it too fine.

Even the torn hunk of bread really falls into the "thin" category, because of all the edges that you get.

HI,

Another contrast in taste is whether your drink is drunk from a plastic or glass cup. If at all possible, I prefer drinking from a glass. There is something dulling about plastic cups, which I cannot identify why specifically. I just know.

In the case of the metal or plastic containers, for example a can of Coke, there is the total absence of ice. I am accustomed to ice which not only increases carbonation activity, it also slightly dilutes the drink.

Regards,

Christopher Gordon wrote:Deli meats and cheeses should always be sliced thin...not quite shaved, but thin.

There's a point at which the advantage of a thin slice is outweighed by the loss of texture from slicing too thin (or shaving, as you say).

Texture has to be taken into account.

If a thin slice enhances points of contact between food and taste bud, it might seem as though the surest way to maximize the amount of food that touches the tongue would be to puree everything, to create a slurry that would more completely coat the tongue than would be possible with any solid food item. This does not seem to be a desirable option because you’d lose the not insignificant textural component – and there is surely something aesthetically displeasing about a slice of ham reduced to pablum for the sake of more complete lingual coverage. However, theoretically, this ham paste would actually convey ham flavor more completely than would be possible with even a shaved slice.

It's not a ham smoothie, but certainly the foam revolution speaks to the theory of coating the palette with maximum flavor.

trixie-pea wrote:It's not a ham smoothie, but certainly the foam revolution speaks to the theory of coating the palette with maximum flavor.

Excellent point. Foam also speaks to fragrance enhancement through vaporization.

I think of all this as sort of being the equivalent of looking at the Chicago Symphony, averaging out mathematically what note or chord they're playing, then playing that exact note on a synthesizer and saying, "Look, no more need for an orchestra!"

Foams and all that stuff can provide a powerful hit of one dimension of a flavor, but when we bite into a slice of serrano ham, for instance, there's a dozen different things going on at once, little hard crunchy bits that taste one way and little fatty bits that release flavor in another way as they melt and who knows what all. Pureeing and smoothing them out loses that interplay of flavors and textures, the time dimension as they affect and change one another, and so on and on. All of that is hardwired into what we think of as flavor; it's not just a matter of isolating flavor and then injecting it directly into the taste buds.

JoelF wrote:Certainly meats sliced for sandwiches, thinner = better. Corned beef, pastrami, turkey, etc.

Funny, I totally disagree. I like my corned beef, pastrami and roast beef sliced thick and I absolutely abhor thinly sliced turkey. I think that "whole" meats should retain the texture and consistency of meat. Slicing them thin turns them into some kind of meat flavored mush. On the other hand, I like most salami and other cured sausages sliced paper thin. With ham, it depends on what type. Standard boiled or baked ham I like thick, but dry cured hams like serrano, I like thin. Most cheese, I also like thinly sliced, especially sharper cheeses. In that case the maximum flavor for minimum volume theory holds true, but in the case of softer and creamier cheeses, the texture is as important as the flavor.

I have noticed at Russian and other Eastern European delis where they take their salami seriously, they have standard gauges for each different kind of sausage, and it is consistent from store to store. For instance, they all slice Tsarskaya paper thin, wheras the blacked skinned cognac salami (with the name I can never remember) is always sliced thicker, and other sausages like krakowska, are sliced thicker still. The angle of the slice also seems to be standardized for each type of meat. On the other hand, you go to Dominick's deli counter, and there is no consistency whatsoever. The thickness of the slice just depends on what the slicer happens to be set at.

I agree with d4v3 on this one. I absolutely hate "shaved" or very thinly sliced turkey or any cold luncheon meat for that matter. On a sandwich, the texture crosses the line into something that's not quite meat-like. I generally prefer what is commonly considered "medium thickness" by most deli counter-people.

Best,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:I agree with d4v3 on this one. I absolutely hate "shaved" or very thinly sliced turkey or any cold luncheon meat for that matter. On a sandwich, the texture crosses the line into something that's not quite meat-like. I generally prefer what is commonly considered "medium thickness" by most deli counter-people.

Best,
Michael

When I speak of thin slices of deli meat I refer only to Butterball, Boar's Head compressed, injected...whatever products. I would never "shave" or thinly-slice for that matter, a roast turkey.

I think this a matter of personal preference. For example, I like cheese in thin slices; my husband, the cheesehead, would rather have a a big chunk.

If it's good ham, I like it sliced thickly, but I prefer pastrami thinly cut (e.g. Manny's). Hard salami, cut it thin; regular kosher style, thick slices, please.

LAZ wrote:I think this a matter of personal preference. For example, I like cheese in thin slices; my husband, the cheesehead, would rather have a a big chunk.

It is, no doubt, a matter of personal preference. Cheese, though, is one of those food items that I almost always prefer sliced thin.

David, Hammond

David Hammond wrote:Cheese, though, is one of those food items that I almost always prefer sliced thin.

Where do you get a thin-sliced ricotta?

nr706 wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Cheese, though, is one of those food items that I almost always prefer sliced thin.

Where do you get a thin-sliced ricotta?

Or a thin-sliced cottage cheese?

"Almost always" is about as close to an absolute as I would go on this one.

d4v3 wrote: I like my corned beef, pastrami and roast beef sliced thick

I was thinking about this thread when we stopped at Jake's, lucky us, on a trip north Saturday. They slice that corned beef plenty thick (and in fact thicker than they were slicing when Mike G took this photo)--and as far as I'm concerned, anything Jake's does with corned beef is what ought to be done with corned beef.



Photo courtesy of Mike G

Ann Fisher wrote:

d4v3 wrote: I like my corned beef, pastrami and roast beef sliced thick

I was thinking about this thread when we stopped at Jake's, lucky us, on a trip north Saturday. They slice that corned beef plenty thick (and in fact thicker than they were slicing when Mike G took this photo)--and as far as I'm concerned, anything Jake's does with corned beef is what ought to be done with corned beef.

Hey, whatever works for you, Ann. This is all quite definitely a matter of taste.

Given the moisture of the hot meat, it may actually be necessary for Jake to cut larger hunks of the stuff...which brings me to a related point regarding meat cutting that I alluded to in the first post: the tendency to cut chicken breast into large cubes before dropping it in salads, on pizzas, etc.

This machined-out, thoughtless and automatic chunking of once-living tissue not only results in cubes that have less flavor than would be enjoyed with a pulled or torn version of the same meat, but it seems somewhat disrespectful to the beast who gave its life for our eating pleasure.

David "Top of the food chain, Ma!" Hammond