Neurogastronomy
How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters
by Gordon Shepherd
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Pub Date Dec 02 2011 | Archive Date Sep 01 2012
Description
Gordon M. Shepherd, a leading neuroscientist at Yale University, embarks on an eye-opening trip through the human brain's "flavor system," establishing the parameters of a new field: neurogastronomy. Challenging the belief that humans' sense of smell diminished as they made the leap from primate to human, Shepherd contends this sense, the main element of flavor, is far more powerful and important than we think.
Shepherd begins with the mechanics of smell, the way it stimulates the nose as it hits the back of the mouth. From the food we eat, the brain represents smells as spatial patterns, and out of these, it constructs flavor. He then considers the effect of the flavor system on many contemporary social, behavioral, and medical issues. He analyzes flavor's engagement with the brain regions controlling emotion, food preferences, and cravings, and he even devotes a section to food's role in drug addiction and, building on Proust's iconic tale of the madeleine, its ability to evoke deep memories. Shepherd discusses the link between his research and trends in nutrition, dieting, and obesity, particularly the challenge to eat healthy. He concludes with human perceptions of smell and flavor and their insight into the neural basis of consciousness. Everyone from casual diners and amateur foodies to wine critics, chefs, scholars, and researchers will be thrilled by Shepherd's scientific-gastronomic adventures.
Gordon M. Shepherd is professor of neurobiology at Yale School of Medicine. He is the author of Creating Modern Neuroscience: The Revolutionary 1950s and the third edition of Neurobiology; editor of The Synaptic Organization of the Brain; and former editor in chief of the Journal of Neuroscience. Having made important contributions to the synaptic organization of the brain, his current research focuses on olfaction at the level of microcircuits and their construction of the spatial patterns of smell that are essential for the perception of flavor.
Advance Praise
"Neurogastronomy is a path-breaking account of flavor from how weperceive it to how it affects society. Gordon Shepherd?s explanationof our food preferences is a tour of the intellectual senses and amodel of brain science."-Richard Wrangham, Harvard University, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
"Neurogastronomy is a personal yet magisterial account of the new brain-based approach to flavor perception. Shepherd's panoramic view of science, culture, and behavior is that of a true pioneer of the chemical senses."-Avery Gilbert, author of What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life
"Cooking? It is first love, then art, then technique. Chefs and food lovers alike can benefit from a better appreciation of the phenomena at play throughout the culinary process, from the field to the fork and beyond. And this is why flavor is so important, and why Gordon Shepherd's well named Neurogastronomy is such a welcome addition to the literature"-Hervé This, author of Molecular Gastronomy
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780231159104 |
| PRICE | 24.95 |
| PAGES | 288 |
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Featured Reviews
sarah m, Librarian
I can't get in to this book. The author gets off to a bad start in the Introduction: he gives credit for the book's origin to his wife, who is a "gourmet cook" and "reference librarian and an avid reader," but then diminishes her scholarly pursuits by listing her myriad hobbies; the author, meanwhile, sums up his work more simply and straightforwardly: "my life has been in the laboratory, studying the part of the brain responsible for the sense of smell." He apparently has no hobbies or pesky child-care responsibilities that would split his focus.
The fact that the author made up the word for the title isn't a deal breaker, if it's truly a new field, but he lost me when he quotes himself, including a quotation he said that appeared in an article by a different author.
No matter how interesting the brain science may be, this is an author unlikely to be able to get out of his own way, too full of himself to offer a connection to readers.
