Have you ever wondered why certain things taste better than others? Take a cheeseburger for example. What makes a 
Burger King’s burger taste different than a Wendy’s burger? Sometimes it is in the ingredients, but seriously… how much different can you really make a burger. The ingredients are pretty much the same for all of them. Bread, meat, tomato, cheese, pickles, lettuce, and ketchup. Sure you can add bacon or mustard or some secret sauce and make it taste different, but if you took a burger from Wendy’s with the same junk on it as a burger from Burger King’s then my bet is that you would be able to easily tell which was which. So what are the differences?
The first thing I notice is the size of the ingredients. Wendy’s typically uses thicker buns and
often times thicker meat. They put more sauce on it and the lettuce is usually whole pieces instead of shredded. Those are significant differences to taste buds that thrive on quantity. See, the reason one tastes different from the other is because of the proportion of the ingredients and not necessarily the ingredients themselves. Proportion is where the science of flavor really lives.
I worked for this great little burger place growing up called the Soda Shoppe. I worked there after school for a little over a year. I started right before school got out my Junior year and I worked there till a couple weeks after I graduated and got the hell out of Dodge. Anyway, while I was there I was able to work every station in the place. I really liked working the front counter though. That was the station that got to make the shakes. Sometimes if it was really busy we would have someone up front taking orders and another person doing the drinks and working the drive through window. Either way, on slow days (which was expected any day where the weather wasn’t good or on Sundays) we would experiment with the food. Sometimes we would try to create a new sandwich and other times we would play with the shakes. I still remember the Camel Puke shake that we created… I’m sure it tasted just like the real thing.
On one particularly slow Sunday I started thinking about what life would be like if you had to drink all of your food through a straw. Would you have to swear off cheeseburgers, or was there a way to still eat them. There was only one way to find out. ;) I made one and threw it in the shake machine. I tasted it before I put it in there and it was delicious. When it came out it wasn’t. I don’t need to disgust you with the details, but my assumption that it would taste the same since all the ingredients are still the same was totally wrong. That was when I discovered that it wasn’t about the ingredients. It was about the proportion of those ingredients. When you equalize everything and get the same proportion in every bite it just doesn’t taste the same. The reason a cheeseburger tastes like it does is because of the amount of bread to meat to cheese to everything else. The reason a Burger King burger is different from a Wendy’s burger is because they are using different proportions. That thicker bun makes a difference. That lettuce changes things. The size and amount of the tomato and ketchup and pickles and everything makes a huge difference.
I remember that my dad told me once that the burgers I made didn’t taste the same as the ones that other people made at the Soda Shoppe. I couldn’t figure out why. I mean, I’m using the same ingredients and the same buns and everything. I thought about that and discovered that it was because I was putting things on a little differently. I would spiral the ketchup and mustard in from the outside instead of just zig zaging it across the meat. I put three pickles in a clover formation on the meat instead of just stacking them up on top of the lettuce. The reason that mine tasted different was because when you bit into it you got a different proportion of the ingredients. Odd how that works…
I’ll tell you a place that has proportion figured out and that is Blue Bell Creamery. If you haven’t
had Blue Bell ice cream then you haven’t lived. The stuff is beyond compare. My favorite flavor is Banana Split. I’ve tasted other ‘banana split’ flavor brands, but they don’t have it right. They are using banana flavored ice cream for one. Blech! Whoever heard of a banana split using banana flavored ice cream??? Sacrilege! The beauty of a banana split is the proportion of banana to ice cream to chocolate to whatever else. It isn’t something you can just blend up in a bucket. Similar to my cheeseburger experiment, if you blended up the ingredients of a banana split it would taste nothing like one. Blue Bell has captured the science of the flavor in a banana split and made it so when you spoon it out you actually get the right proportions. It is absolutely amazing! I’m probably only a fan because it has that unique flavor that you usually have to assemble yourself instead of buying in a bucket, but either way it is probably the best flavor ice cream I’ve ever had. MMMMMM!!!
Burger King’s burger taste different than a Wendy’s burger? Sometimes it is in the ingredients, but seriously… how much different can you really make a burger. The ingredients are pretty much the same for all of them. Bread, meat, tomato, cheese, pickles, lettuce, and ketchup. Sure you can add bacon or mustard or some secret sauce and make it taste different, but if you took a burger from Wendy’s with the same junk on it as a burger from Burger King’s then my bet is that you would be able to easily tell which was which. So what are the differences?The first thing I notice is the size of the ingredients. Wendy’s typically uses thicker buns and
often times thicker meat. They put more sauce on it and the lettuce is usually whole pieces instead of shredded. Those are significant differences to taste buds that thrive on quantity. See, the reason one tastes different from the other is because of the proportion of the ingredients and not necessarily the ingredients themselves. Proportion is where the science of flavor really lives.I worked for this great little burger place growing up called the Soda Shoppe. I worked there after school for a little over a year. I started right before school got out my Junior year and I worked there till a couple weeks after I graduated and got the hell out of Dodge. Anyway, while I was there I was able to work every station in the place. I really liked working the front counter though. That was the station that got to make the shakes. Sometimes if it was really busy we would have someone up front taking orders and another person doing the drinks and working the drive through window. Either way, on slow days (which was expected any day where the weather wasn’t good or on Sundays) we would experiment with the food. Sometimes we would try to create a new sandwich and other times we would play with the shakes. I still remember the Camel Puke shake that we created… I’m sure it tasted just like the real thing.
On one particularly slow Sunday I started thinking about what life would be like if you had to drink all of your food through a straw. Would you have to swear off cheeseburgers, or was there a way to still eat them. There was only one way to find out. ;) I made one and threw it in the shake machine. I tasted it before I put it in there and it was delicious. When it came out it wasn’t. I don’t need to disgust you with the details, but my assumption that it would taste the same since all the ingredients are still the same was totally wrong. That was when I discovered that it wasn’t about the ingredients. It was about the proportion of those ingredients. When you equalize everything and get the same proportion in every bite it just doesn’t taste the same. The reason a cheeseburger tastes like it does is because of the amount of bread to meat to cheese to everything else. The reason a Burger King burger is different from a Wendy’s burger is because they are using different proportions. That thicker bun makes a difference. That lettuce changes things. The size and amount of the tomato and ketchup and pickles and everything makes a huge difference.
I remember that my dad told me once that the burgers I made didn’t taste the same as the ones that other people made at the Soda Shoppe. I couldn’t figure out why. I mean, I’m using the same ingredients and the same buns and everything. I thought about that and discovered that it was because I was putting things on a little differently. I would spiral the ketchup and mustard in from the outside instead of just zig zaging it across the meat. I put three pickles in a clover formation on the meat instead of just stacking them up on top of the lettuce. The reason that mine tasted different was because when you bit into it you got a different proportion of the ingredients. Odd how that works…
I’ll tell you a place that has proportion figured out and that is Blue Bell Creamery. If you haven’t
had Blue Bell ice cream then you haven’t lived. The stuff is beyond compare. My favorite flavor is Banana Split. I’ve tasted other ‘banana split’ flavor brands, but they don’t have it right. They are using banana flavored ice cream for one. Blech! Whoever heard of a banana split using banana flavored ice cream??? Sacrilege! The beauty of a banana split is the proportion of banana to ice cream to chocolate to whatever else. It isn’t something you can just blend up in a bucket. Similar to my cheeseburger experiment, if you blended up the ingredients of a banana split it would taste nothing like one. Blue Bell has captured the science of the flavor in a banana split and made it so when you spoon it out you actually get the right proportions. It is absolutely amazing! I’m probably only a fan because it has that unique flavor that you usually have to assemble yourself instead of buying in a bucket, but either way it is probably the best flavor ice cream I’ve ever had. MMMMMM!!! 
0 comments:
Post a Comment