Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R.
Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R.
The Tantalizing Sense of Taste With Chef Regina Mitchell & Sassy Outwater
Episode title and number: The Tantalizing Sense of Taste With Chef Regina Mitchell & Sassy Outwater | Season 3 - #4
On today's show, we will discuss the fascinating topic of taste with our esteemed guests, Chef Regina Mitchell and Sassy Outwater. They will enlighten us on how taste extends beyond the food we eat. Get ready for a mouth-watering discussion!
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Bullet points of key topics & timestamps:
0:00 | Welcome
1:35 | How do you define taste?
6:23 | How does taste impact our lives?
11:06 | What is a refined palette & how do we develop it?
15:12 | How does our sense of taste change over time?
19:55 | How can we experience taste to its fullest?
27:01 | Connecting with Chef Regina and Sassy
Connecting With Chef Regina & Sassy:
- Regina
- Facebook @ReginaMitchell
- Instagram @ReginaDMitchell
- Email friendinthekitchen@gmail.com
- MONTHLY VIRTUAL SPRING COOKING SERIES
Join us as we take on The Classics and do a little revamping. For details and what we’re dishing up, request access by sending a note to friendinthekitchen@gmail.com
COOKING CHALLENGE
Chef Regina Monthly Email Cooking and Baking Challenge
A chance to connect and cook with other foodies and friends as we challenge ourselves to new recipes, kitchen skills, creativity, and have fun each month!
For details and information on which recipes we’re dishing up and on how to enter for the e-Gift Card of the month, please email Chef Regina friendinthekitchen@gmail.com
- Sassy
- Jolie Tea Company
- Facebook @pawsitivelysassy
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Music Credit: "Ambient Uplifting Harmonic Happy" By Panda-x-music https://audiojungle.net/item/ambient-uplifting-harmonic-happy/46309958
Thanks for listening!❤️
Steph: Welcome back to another edition of Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R. Podcast, the show that's clearing the air for more A.I.R. (Access, Inclusion, and Representation). I'm Stephanae McCoy and with me on my co-hosts, I'm Nasreen Bhutta, Sylvia Stinson-Perez, and I'm Dana Hinnant.
"I know how I like my food. I like it spicy, salty, sticky, crunchy, juicy, oozy - basically any dish you know and love, jacked up to a bordering-on-socially-unacceptable amount of flavor." ~Chrissy Teigen.
In our recent podcast episode, the Evocative Nature of Fragrance with Perfumer, Susan Baillely, we had a fascinating discussion about the sense of smell. So today we're equally delighted to chat with two incredible guests, Chef Regina Mitchell, and Sassy Outwater about the sense of taste. Ladies, before I turn the mic over to Sylvia, I'd like to welcome both of you back to Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R.
Sassy Outwater: Thank you.
Regina Mitchell: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be back.
Steph: It's a pleasure to have you both on the show, Sylvia.
Sylvia: Hello everyone. Welcome. I'm excited about this episode because, let me be honest, I love to eat. Taste is way more than about food, though. It brings up memories. It brings up emotions and it expands our senses. Regina and Sassy. How do you define taste? Regina.
Regina Mitchell: I'm gonna approach it in a sort of a neuroscience explanation first, and then I will approach it more of a casual pedestrian kind of way.
First of all, Let's talk about the science of taste. The science of taste is a result of substances which land on our tongues, and it activates receptor signaling. Okay, so what's receptor signaling? It's those that have the moments of nuances. So like a little receptors could be our bitter, sweet, sour, salty, umami which we refer to as savory.
In the culinary world, we say umami. And umami would be those things like tomatoes, green tea, cheeses, miso, soy foods. So those are the receptors. So when those little things start bouncing off of our tongues, then that's when we realize, Ooh, I can taste that. That taste like something salty. Which salty could be foods like bacon, ham, sausages.
Ooh, I taste something bitter. What are bitter foods? Broccoli, cabbage, kale. One of my favorites dark chocolate, cauliflower those things could be bitter. Another receptor sour. What are those things? Citrus fruits, tart cherries, yogurt, sauerkraut.
So the real definition of taste are those receptors that are bouncing off of our tongues that give us that flavor that speaks to us in which science actually discovered those five basic receptors. And that's pretty much what taste is.
Sassy Outwater: Taste for me, this is Sassy, is I'm gonna go the experiential and psychological route. Taste is, is as, Sylvia said nostalgic.
Taste is evocative. Taste transports me along with scent and that's the other piece of this is we have those five receptors that Regina mentioned, but then you have the smell. I'm a spice girl. Not one of the ones in the band, but the one with the giant spice cabinet. I grew up in a Middle Eastern household and learned from people around the mosque where I grew up, how to cook foods from different countries and the spice process that went into each of those foods.
And so for me, whether it's Indian or Libyan or a Afghani or Persian, those spice tastes and flavors combined. And so whether it's taking me back to third grade on the playground at Ramadan, breaking our fast at the end of the day. Or whether it's sipping a cup of tea with my mom, or whether it's cooking, buttery, flaky, flaky, pastry, and smelling it for an hour in the house and then going and eating it.
Whatever the case is taste for me is experience. Taste for me is life in my mouth, in my body. It's, it's both health and well-being from a physical standpoint of what I'm putting in my body and from a mental standpoint of what is it doing for me. And lately, I've been losing some of my taste because I've had cancer in my face and either the surgery or the radiation or the chemo or a combination thereof removed some of my ability to taste things the way I used to remember tasting them.
So like I went to taste some ranch dressing this week and I went, whoa, that's very different from the way I remember ranch tasting and tastes changes over time. And so for me it's, it's how do you move through life? When you're enjoying food with family and friends and, and for your own body's health.
Sylvia: I love those two different yet really connected definitions. It is more than about taste of foods.
Nasreen: I would love to ask both of you, and, and you might have already answered some of this already, but how does taste impact our entire life?
Regina Mitchell: Okay, this is Regina. So, when we look at taste as being one of our chief senses, it actually is vital for life because it, allows us to choose foods that are good, is good for our bodies.
And then it allows us, to refrain from foods that could cause harm. So it is one of the tastes, which I have, a degree in neuroscience. So that is, that is one of our senses that is vital to survival. That's one of the tastes that's gonna actually warn us. Okay. We can't eat that. That's poisonous. We shouldn't give that to a baby because it's too bitter.
Some of those tastes need to be refined, which we're gonna probably talk about later, but it is really, really important to our survival. And with that being said, Taste also made you think about it. When we eat something, we're so looking forward to it, right? We're sitting down, we can't wait. Even from the simplest bag of chips to the most, the most exquisite meal, it's like that's something we just so anticipate when we have girlfriends over our family, it's.
It's a part of our, our wellbeing. It's a part of family, it's a part of gathering. It's barbecues, it's bridal showers, it's weddings, it's cultural. It's a part of who we are. So from birth all the way to, as we get older, it's so impacts our entire lives and it's, Is vital to every step of our life and every phase of our life.
And yes, our taste is gonna change from when we're toddlers to being preschool, to high school, to college, to getting married, to being older. So we know that the older generation like we've already talked about, they start reframing from certain foods. So it just evolves and this comes a part of us. So yes, taste impacts our lives from birth to when we get older.
Nasreen: How about you Sassy?
Sassy Outwater: Tastes for me is, is life. I have as a late-stage cancer patient a lot of trouble mustering up appetite. It's, it's just not something I have a lot of any more due to medication, due to anatomical changes. And so for me, the thing that actually gets me interested in food at all these days is, Taste and the experience of texture and taste and how those things remind me of wonderful people or times in my past, or how those things can transport me away from what I'm currently experiencing.
A lot of times last year, if I was in a hospital bed, I would eat, yes, hospital food, but sometimes they do it right. And I gotta say, sometimes you get like mashed potatoes and even just the simple act of mashed potatoes I know they weren't the instant kind, they were the homemade ones. And it would transport me to the idea of, you know, a holiday feast where you're eating mashed potatoes and out of the hospital bed mentally.
And it gave me a kind of mental breathing room. And I think that's what I get out of taste is energy, breathing, room, and relaxation. They call it comfort food for a reason. And for me, comfort food might be a curry, it might be a soup. My stepfather makes a soup and he's not really my stepfather he raised me as his own. We call him baba, which is the Arabic word for father or dad, and he makes this soup that we in my household, have taken to calling Baba Guy Soup. It's the Libyan version of chicken soup, but it's made with lamb and tons of lemon and orzo and chickpeas and so many spices. And that soup can cure anything, I swear.
And when I got home from my most recent surgery, which was a massive 10-hour surgery, and I had finally recovered enough to eat a little bit, he made me that soup. And I swore I was like, there's nothing those doctors can give me that helps me feel better than this stuff does. That's what taste is for me, is, is honestly feeling better, feeling more in tune with my life.
Dana: Regina, what is a refined palette and how do we develop it?
Regina Mitchell: Developing our palette, I believe that it's a part of training, training our palette and training our taste buds to really differentiate between all those nuances of flavors that we talked about. Also with Sassy discussed is texture. Texture is huge because not only while we train our palette for flavor, but we're also training our palette for texture.
So for example, bananas, I can't do bananas. Not only that I'm allergic to it, but the texture, avocados, it's texture. Although I really like the flavor of avocado it's the texture.
Sassy Outwater: I'll trade you an avocado for a mango. Oh, man. I don't do mangoes, but I will eat avocados forever and ever. So We'll, we'll do a handoff.
Regina Mitchell: Well, yeah, we can do, do it. But also I do like, yeah. So you may have a fight on your hands for that one.
Sassy Outwater: No, no. Mangoes are slimy. They're evil.
Regina Mitchell: No, they're not evil. Cause you know what you think about it, if you chop it up and you put it in a salsa, Right then. I love it. Okay. I just not like eating it straight out of the skin.
No. Cause then you're gonna have those, the other textures of the red onion and the cilantro, and then you're gonna have a little bit of jalapeno. So it's gonna all work together for you. Also, if you blend it and make a smoothie, then you can drink it. Along with maybe that cooling sensation and that bitter taste of yogurt.
Right. So a mango will satisfy you for sure if I made it for you, you will love a mango. So, so right there. It's almost an example of training your palate. So sometimes what we think we don't like, perhaps if we had it in a different form, we would probably want it and desire it in a different form.
Just like some people don't like cooked fruits. But they'll have raw fruits. So it's all about training our pallets and training our taste buds, and then also experiencing our culture, experiencing different cultures. So sometimes we are one-note eaters and. Is that good? Well, we try to encourage kids, well just eat this.
Just try this just taste it right? How many times have her moms said, or our caretakers sit, just taste it. Just take one bite. And what they're trying to do is train your towel your pallet. So later on your pallet is refined. Now what is a refined palette? Does that mean you're open to anything? Well, no, not really.
But what it means is that you, you are wanting to be open to tasting other cultures, to tasting other textures, to trying different foods. So what is a refined pallet is one that's, it's still being trained.
Steph: Wow, Regina I just love how you broke that down for us, and I really like the engagement between you and Sassy. I could sit here all day and listen to the two of you talk about this because I have a very unrefined palette, but listening to the two of you talk about it, it just sounds almost magical to me.
Now, Regina, I know you've already touched on this, but I, I wanted to dive into it a little bit deeper if we could for a moment. You already said that our sense of taste does change or evolve over time, but do you have an idea or can you sort of share with us why that happens or how that happens? How our sense of taste changes over time?
Regina Mitchell: Okay. Our sense of taste. It changes over time and often, you know, it can shift and then it can evolve. So how does it shift? Cuz you know, sometimes the things that we liked a year ago, all of a sudden we're finding ourselves not really eating those certain things the way we used to or the appetite the way we, we once had. It can shift. Because we can cause that shift, that shift can be caused for many, many reasons.
It can be caused for medical reasons like Sassy has gone through those stages, which, which can affect our taste buds. It can shift because we have to change the diet. So w we can be diagnosed with diabetes, we can be diagnosed with hypertension. So those foods now have to be adjusted. It can shift because we want to change for lifestyle changes.
What if we go from being a meat eater to now being a vegetarian or being a vegan or you know, for many people being a flexitarian. But those things change so, The shifts, we can be a part of that shift voluntarily. It can also shift just because of time. Because of age. You wouldn't eat something that you ate.
Oh, when you were, you know, 16 years old. I remember when I was a teenager, I would get on the bus. And go down to, we all remember Bob's big boy. Bob's Big Boy, had just a menu of desserts and I would sit all by myself at 16, 17 years old. I do my, my little. Chores and I got some money from my grandmother, and I would go and sit and eat a three-scoop sundae with like the like strawberry sundae, not strawberry, but the strawberry shortcake.
And it would have the shortcake, it would have ice cream, it would have all this wonderful ooey gooey syrups. Well, I can't do that today, although I would love to do that today. First of all, with my husband and I call a rich stomach. I just can't ingest that anymore. So our taste ships over time now. It also evolves.
Okay, and what does that mean? Evolution. Evolution of taste can be from. Oh, our experiences, right? So, you know, we can be open to different cultures. So I've traveled extensively in culinary and what I used to eat as a teenager, I wouldn't have thought ever I would enjoy after traveling, having lived in Scotland.
And then I actually being a part of their breakfast service. So what is that? That's black pudding and fried egg and baked beans. Okay, what is that? Right? Or, or being in Japan. And then their, their breakfast is totally different. It's mostly fish and a little fried egg with seaweed. Okay, so that's a morning breakfast.
Or then being in France or being in Spain and having their foods, what it opens you up your, your taste buds evolve. And they mature and they grow, and also they become refined. Stephanie, they become refined. So the things that we used to eat aren't sometimes what we're eating now, they have grown or they've been eliminated based on our life experiences, our medical situations, our, our destination and life and our diets.
Sylvia: Sassy besides food, how can we experience taste to its fullest?
Sassy Outwater: Taste is, I love what, what Regina began talking about later in that answer around traveling and eating as they eat in a particular country or, or locale. And it brought up so many memories for me as she was mentioning Scotland, I'm like, oh, be careful cuz I'm Scottish and okay, she's good. She didn't knock it, she didn't mention what's in Blackfoot, but if you look it up it's blood.
And there are so many things in American culture that we eat that others would not touch and vice versa. In other cultures, they would eat certain things that we don't find appealing. If you go to Europe and you have their desserts, even in Paris where they're renowned for patssi, they're not as sweet as as what we do here in America.
They're really not. There's more cream. And they use the sweetness that is innate to dairy in cream and butter, and they use those tastes more than they'll add extra sugar. If you go to Spain, I will never forget sitting right by the Mediterranean Ocean where I could hear the waves and I was eating a breakfast of Serrano ham.
Watermelon, olives right from the trees above my head and feta sheep's milk cheese, and the salt of the feta and the olives. This is a, a very traditional North African breakfast, Mediterranean breakfast, Spain Gibraltar. They all kind of do a variation of this. The ham, the olives, and the cheese all have that similar kind of umami, salty texture, and taste.
And then you have the watermelon and mint and yogurt sometimes, and those flavors all kind of go across the palette and it's a rainbow of taste, contrast, taste, combination, taste. Complimentary and that is kind of, there's still tastes, but to me, as I said at the beginning, they're evocative. Taste doesn't just have to be in the, the food you put in your mouth, it's in the, the things that you experience as you're doing it.
The wind through those olive trees. The sound of the water nearby the sun on my face in that particular region where it's so warm, but not like to the point where you're just baking. I didn't wanna be a baked jacket potato. I wanted to be a, I wanted to be able to just go jump in the Mediterranean and swim through cool water and then get out and warm up, not toast.
And all of those experiences go along with what you're eating in the moment. How many times have we heard the song about you're sitting on a beach with a cold drink in your hand, a pina colada or a margarita? I mean, there are countless songs about that. How many times have you associated a particular taste with a place or a person?
The smell of coconut will always evoke, you know, the memory of a beach and the taste of it will always evoke an evening beach concert. Or a, a date night on that beach that when you met somebody at a resort that you weren't expecting to meet in college or the, the taste of a particular cheese or the taste of a particular wine.
I, I spent a lot of time working through the Southern United States and the variations in barbecue sauce will always remind me of various picnics, parties, people. Things that I did down south, be it Carolina barbecue sauce with that vinegar behind it, or the sweeter barbecue sauces, or the way that Texas does it when it's not about the sauce, it's about the rub.
All of these things, yes, they have a taste component, but they're more tied to what you're experiencing in the moment that the food just happens to be sitting on your plate, but you're paying more attention to what's around you. That taste still soaks into you and comes back up in your memory to, to trigger something, just like a song or particular scent will always bring a memory back. A taste will bring that memory back.
We can drink it in tea, we can sip it in a drink. We can breathe it in as we're getting ready to lift a spoon to our mouth. Those are all ways that, that it's not about the taste, it's about the, the person experiencing the taste in the life in that moment.
Sylvia: I so agree. It goes back to taste is really experience. It's memories. It's. It's all of those things. And when I think about certain experiences, I, I'll say that recently I had a little, I had some relatives visiting and they happen to say they had visited 40 years ago, and my cousin said, the thing I remember most is this one thing your mom made.
And 40 years ago. And so I, we had a little barbecue at our house and I made that thing, and the whole family was like just attacking that because it, it is not even, it doesn't even taste good, I'm gonna be honest. I was like, okay, I, I can go another 25 years without that. But it was essentially, we call 'em Coney Island, you know, this is hot dog with chili, but it has, but when I eat that, it has this memories and.
Last year I was with my siblings at a, like a, a local fair kind of a thing, you know, one of festivals and someone was selling and giving samples of mo cane syrup. And literally my brother and I were standing beside each other and we took the sample and we just turned to each other and went, oh.
Because what it reminded us of immediately and we said it biscuits and syrup with granny. And that was when we were small children, and it's those kind of things that you're talking about, is that always when I think about. Traveling. I often think about the food and the experiences of that and I will encourage everybody if you don't try other foods from other places, get out there and do so.
I was out on Saturday night with family, and we went to this African fusion place and we all ordered something different from different regions of Africa so that we could get that experience of every single taste. And it's just magical food and taste can be magical if you allow it to be. This has been a fascinating conversation, I think, really fascinating.
Nasreen: I wanna thank you, Sassy and Regina for sharing your insights on the sense of taste. How can our listeners find you, Regina, Sassy?
Regina Mitchell: They can email me at friendinthekitchen@gmail.com. And they can go to my website, which is being developed and that is chefregina.com.
Sassy Outwater: And you can find me on Facebook at paws (like dog paws), @pawsitivelysassy.
And you can also find me at Jolie Tea Company if you call them and ask them for one of the sassy blends. I've done two so far and I'm planning to do more if you like tea. I did one that is my version, my upped version of a London Fog if you know what that is, then, you know It's, it's an Earl Gray base with additional hints and notes of this and that.
And Jolie Tea Company is based in Salem, Massachusetts, where I happen to live. And so we, we call them Sassy Brew as in witchcraft. And then the other one is as Beltane Brew. And that's based in a, a Scottish idea it's a very smoky blend of teas. And the idea is that you're sitting outside at a fire and you are sipping tea and being with your closest friends who, who love you.
So I will be doing more, but hang out with Jolie Tea Company and explore their teas. They have amazing stuff there and I love making teas and go concoct your own. Go play with spice. Go play with taste and see what falls out. It's fun.
Nasreen: Thank you, ladies.
Sassy Outwater: It's my pleasure
Sylvia: so much for being with us. Thank you.
Sassy Outwater: Thank, thank you.
Sylvia: It was fabulous.
Nasreen: Thanks for listening to Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R. with your hosts, Stephanae McCoy Nasreen Bhutta, Sylvia Stinson Perez, and Dana Hinnant. If you enjoyed this episode and you would like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post it out on your socials, or leave a rating and review to catch all the latest for Bold Blind Beauty.
You can follow us on Instagram, and Facebook, and check out our YouTube channel at Bold Blind Beauty. Thanks again for listening, and we will see you next time on another edition of Bold Blind Beauty on A.I.R.
