TEASE YOUR TART TASTE BUDS

Tease Your Tart Taste Buds

Each time you sit down to a delicious meal or pick up a tasty snack your mouth goes to work overtime.  Your teeth may do the chewing, but thousands of cells in the onion shaped taste buds on your tongue do most of the work by eagerly extending their sensors to sort out each flavor that makes food one of the joys of life.

          Flavors have been broadly categorized as sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory or sometimes called meaty or umami. It has also been known for more than a century that humans differ in their individual sensitivity to bitter, such as the bitter flavor in cabbage or Brussels sprouts. The new field of scientific research has sprung from the Human Genome Project and has identified a multiplicity of genes responsible for producing the sensors (receptors) on your taste bud cells.  

Not only do we now know that there are several different sensors that detect the sweetness in a cookie, saltiness in a pickle, sourness of a lime, bitterness of beer and meatiness (umami) in your 4^th of July hamburger, but also how molecules from these foods react with these sensors to relay a further message to your brain. If you hated Brussels sprouts as a child and your sister or brother found them inoffensive, you apparently inherited a different combination of genes for that particular receptor to bitterness. The soapy flavor that some of us detest in cilantro is caused by a different gene variant that apparently is not too common, hence the popularity of cilantro.

Such technicalities aside, I’m searching for a variety of ways to challenge our taste buds with the approach of autumn.  The tomatillo, which is abundant this time of the year, has been one such discovery. The tomatillo originated in Mexico and looks like a small green tomato in a husk. It is tart in flavor and is a closer relative to the gooseberry than the tomato in the plant world. It’s tart flavor tempted me to pair it with pork in a stir fry and the results were delicious.

                   Tomatillo and Pork Stir Fry

Slice ¾  lb lean pork in ¼ inch slices and cut the slices roughly in 1 inch pieces. Toss the pieces to coat lightly in potato starch and set aside. Assemble the following cut vegetables: ½ sliced medium onion, 1 sliced celery stalk, 1 medium carrot in julienne strips, ½ seeded red pepper in 1inch pieces, 2 chopped cloves of garlic, 5 tomatillos cut in 6 wedges, ½ cup cauliflower florets (optional). In a large pan fry the pork on high heat in 1 tblsp. peanut oil with 1 tsp. sesame oil until barely seared from the outside and set aside. In the same pan cook the onions in 1 tblsp. olive oil for 2-3 minutes, stir in the celery and the garlic for 1 minute then add the rest of the vegetables, ½  tsp. salt, 1 tblsp. soy sauce, ¼ tsp. pepper, ½ tsp. oregano, 2 tblsp. lime juice and 1/3 cup chicken broth. Bring to boil, reduce the heat to medium and add back the pork. Cook for additional couple of minutes until the liquid is a bit reduced and serve hot over rice. (Serves 4).

Shrimp can be pleasantly paired with tart to Cajun type hot spices. This is my tasty low-calorie recipe for shrimp that can easily be served either over pasta or rice.

                   Shrimp-Feta Stir Fry

Peel, devein, rinse and drain 1 lb. medium or large shrimp. Assemble the following cut vegetables: ½ thinly sliced onion, 2 thin skinned frying peppers cut in ¼ inch strips and 2 chopped garlic cloves. Sautè the shrimp in 1 tsp. butter and 1 tsp. olive oil for 2 minutes on high heat with the garlic and remove from the pan. Add 1 tsp. olive oil to the pan and cook the onion and pepper for 2 minutes on medium heat, stir in  ¼ tsp. oregano, ½ tsp. salt, ¼ tsp. red pepper flake (optional), ¾ cup chardonnay, ½ tblsp. tomato paste. Cook to reduce volume by half, return the shrimp to the pan and cook for an additional minute. The stir in 2 oz. crumbled or cubed feta cheese, heat through and serve. (

Serves 4).

These crisp fall days sharpen our awareness of nature around us and the flavors on our plate. The crisp and the tart that combine so well in an apple, can work surprisingly well also in other foods. Somewhere I even have a French recipe for porkchops with sliced pickles!

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in coastal Maine and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)