Whether you are a supertaster (someone
with high tongue papillae density) or a subtaster (someone with a
subpar tongue), you have experienced the Perfect Pizza. It was the
ideal combination of hand-tossed ingredients, baked at the ideal
temperature for the optimal amount of time, and placed on your plate
(or napkin…or bare hand…) exactly so many seconds after coming
out of the oven (or microwave, if you’re that kind of
person). If you ask around, you probably won’t find two exact
descriptions of what makes the Perfect Pizza. For some people it
might actually be perfect after it defrosts for fifteen minutes in
the back of the car on the ride home from the grocery store. I have
to remind myself that: 1) not everyone likes warm pizza, and 2) maybe
eating pizza close to its frozen state preserves its vitamins.1 In any case, it is
realistically improbable that anyone will be able to create a
universal Perfect Pizza, on account of the fact that everyone has
unique tastes.
But, what if a chemical trick could
reconcile all taste buds and we could indeed make the One Pizza
everyone uniformly loved? After all, tongues are only tongues, and
they can surely be tricked into believing they are tasting the best
pizza ever. Something similar already exists. It is called miraculin,
extracted from the miracle fruit, which grows in West Africa.
Miraculin makes sourness turn into sweetness for a while, until it
lets go of your papillae. But that’s not enough for our thought
experiment. Miraculin might make lemons taste sweet, but the change
isn’t uniform: some people will perceive the same lemon as more or
less sweet, depending on their personal preferences. What we need is
a chemical that will trick tongues into tasting exactly the same
thing: our Perfect Pizza.
Sadly, there are many roadblocks.
For one, taste is not only about papillae. There is an element of smell as well, which would not be controlled by our synthetic taste-altering chemical. What to do? Personally I would trick the brain directly. By targeting the parietal lobe, where taste is processed, and the frontal lobe, where smell is processed, I would have total control over how people feel about my Perfect Pizza. But designing a drug with such capabilities might have even better applications. We could make Brussels sprouts taste like pizza. We could make durian smell like pizza. We could make downtown San Francisco smell like pizza. Why? Why not! I would definitely pop a pill in the morning if it helped me navigate the city without gagging until I reached the safety of my classroom. This would be a true boon to people everywhere subjected to terrible food and terrible cooking. If they could make their food taste great, the quality of their lives would improve. Think of our friends, the vegans! Think of our friends who are allergic to nuts! How awesome would it be to eat sunflower seed butter (it’s alright…) while it tasted like peanut butter (yeah!).
For one, taste is not only about papillae. There is an element of smell as well, which would not be controlled by our synthetic taste-altering chemical. What to do? Personally I would trick the brain directly. By targeting the parietal lobe, where taste is processed, and the frontal lobe, where smell is processed, I would have total control over how people feel about my Perfect Pizza. But designing a drug with such capabilities might have even better applications. We could make Brussels sprouts taste like pizza. We could make durian smell like pizza. We could make downtown San Francisco smell like pizza. Why? Why not! I would definitely pop a pill in the morning if it helped me navigate the city without gagging until I reached the safety of my classroom. This would be a true boon to people everywhere subjected to terrible food and terrible cooking. If they could make their food taste great, the quality of their lives would improve. Think of our friends, the vegans! Think of our friends who are allergic to nuts! How awesome would it be to eat sunflower seed butter (it’s alright…) while it tasted like peanut butter (yeah!).
In many ways
developing this drug would be both horribly difficult and horribly
shortsighted, but I think we should focus on the good. The benefits
outweigh most of the problems I was able to identify,2 so we should give it a shot! Miraculin is bound to
break into the market in the near future, so scientists should
definitely explore the synthesis of more molecules like it. Issues of
taste affect everyone, every day of their lives. I am sure it’s a
project that can be monetized, which is a good reason to
start any endeavor, and it would truly improve lives. On the other
hand, if you could have a Perfect Pizza every night, when would it stop
being perfect? After a week? A year? Then what?
Lauren Drayer lives in a small town and thusly writes about small topics.
Lauren Drayer lives in a small town and thusly writes about small topics.
1 Cooking some foods does reduce their nutritional value, according to www.theproducemom.com, but I don’t know if I trust that website.↩
2 Such as encouraging people to keep eating terrible food, since they can make it taste good↩
