wolfpackgrrr
All American
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| Quote : | "Expert taste tester Judy Heylmun plucks a ripe, red strawberry from a plate, takes a bite, and pauses to let the taste register on her tongue.
"I give it a nine on the sweetness scale," she says.
Another taste tester bites into a berry, puckers, and writes "astringent" on her chart.
The taste testers belong to a team hired in May as part of the N.C. Strawberry Project, a partnership between N.C. State University's Plants for Human Health Institute - located at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis - and Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte.
Their task: to tease out subtle differences in flavor and appearance between one strawberry and another.
Watching through an observation window in an adjacent room, project director and N.C. State researcher Jeremy Pattison plans to use their results in his efforts to breed a tastier, hardier North Carolina strawberry.
Pattison also hopes to hold strawberry taste tests with produce buyers and chefs to find out what each group looks for in an ideal berry.
"The project is unique in the plant breeding world in that we're asking the culinary industry to help us define what makes for the tastiest fruit," he says.
Pattison scrolls down a list of some of the major compounds that give strawberries their distinctive taste.
"Strawberry flavor and aroma come from a complex mixture of more than 300 compounds," he says.
Volatile esters, lactones and other natural compounds form as the fruit ripens, producing flavor notes reminiscent of coconut, pineapple and caramel.
"This one tastes like cotton candy," says Pattison, pointing to a compound labeled "ethyl maltol." "It's a pretty strong note in strawberries, especially berries from California."
"Other varieties have a strong grape Kool-Aid flavor."
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Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/06/27/1302900/building-a-better-strawberry.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy
I can't say I've ever eaten a strawberry that reminded me of grape Kool-Aid   4/17/2012 2:34:25 PM
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