- Piece examined why Western (European, North American) food is less flavorful than non-Western food.
- Non-western foods tend to use spices and ingredients that are unrelated, while western ingredients tend to share similar flavor compounds.
- Up until the mid-1600’s, European food involved contrasting flavors/ingredients.
- However, once spices became more widely available (less expensive due to inflow of spices from colonies), wealthy Europeans decided to differentiate themselves from commoners by favoring more bland food.
- Perhaps unsurprisingly, this shift started in France.
