Description: Taste has long been considered the most basic of the five senses because its principal mission is a simple one: to discern food from everything else. Taste is a whole-body experience, and breakthroughs in genetics and microbiology are casting light not just on the experience of french fries and foie gras but the mysterious interplay of body and brain. Tasty explains the scientific research taking place on multiple fronts: how genes shape our tastes, how the mind assembles flavors from the five senses and signals from the body's metabolic systems, why something disgusts one person and delights another, and what today's obsessions with extreme tastes tell us about the brain. Brilliantly synthesizing science, ancient myth, philosophy, and literature, Tasty offers a delicious smorgasbord of where taste originated and where it's going--and why it changes by the day.
Brief description: John McQuaid's journalism has appeared in Smithsonian magazine, the Washington Post, Wired, forbes.com, and EatingWell magazine. His science and environment reporting for The Times-Picayune anticipated Hurricane Katrina, explored the global fisheries crisis, and divulged the problems of invasive species. His work has won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. John is a graduate of Yale. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and two children.
Review Quotes:
"An exploration of taste in all its complexity and contradiction...McQuaid is a deft writer with a talent for vivid metaphors."
-- "Business Week"