A Taste for Ingredients at Flavorcon 2017: Day One

Jon Seighman, senior director, Product Development and Applications, WFSI
Jon Seighman, senior director, Product Development and Applications, WFSI

Flavorcon 2017's educational track focused on ingredients, formulations and trends. The first day focused on BBQ flavors and confectionery. If you missed out on these sessions, Perfumer & Flavorist is here to give you a brief scoop!

BBQ's Rich Culture

Jon Seighman, senior director, product development and applications, WFSI presented various BBQ flavors in his presentation, BBQ Without Boundaries. According to Seighman, BBQ is in human DNA, dating back millions of years ago when early man discovered cooked food to contain more nutrients. He broke down various BBQ flavors from Japan, Mongolia, South Africa, Armenia, Argentina and Syria, in addition to various U.S. cities. Seighman explained how BBQ is enjoyed as a social event in many countries.

“This is a theme,” explained Seighman. “BBQ is about people and getting together and tasting this as a food.”

Diving into each country’s BBQ flavor, Seighman explained the type of meat each of the countries prefer: pork, beef or chicken; and sauce flavors such as vinegar or various spices. In U.S. cities and states, Seighman briefed on the Carolinas, Texas, Kentucky, Washington D.C., Kansas City and Chicago. While each has its own style or a borrowed style of flavor, BBQ is rooted in its rituals, culture and ingredients.

“BBQ is for the people, it doesn’t have to be expensive,” said Seighman. “It’s about the culture and it’s about the ritual.”

To offer the listeners an even better experience into the BBQ flavor, Seighman provided three BBQ flavors with potato chips to test out after his session: Lillie’s Q South Carolina Mustard Sauce, Lillie Q Eastern North Carolina Sauce and Lillie’s Q Ivory Sauce.

A Mouthful of Confection

Stephen Wolf, CFS senior director of technology at Robertet USA presented the history of confectionery in his presentation, Confection Confessions: The History, Art and Science of Confectionery. To successfully flavor confectionery, one must ask four questions: What is the product matrix? How is it made? What sort of flavor and usage is the customer comfortable with? Are they using science or “art?”

“Fortunately for the flavor world, confection requires flavor,” he said. “Strawberry taffy without strawberry is just fat.”

Wolf’s main takeaway was explaining some necessary principles in flavoring confections. In the 1800s, for example, when the French ran into a shortage of sugar cane, they researched how to substitute sugar without modifying the flavor and discovered that sugar beet can also be used for sugar—both ingredients have 20% sucrose.

“It’s not a replacement at this point, it’s a complete reinvention,” explained Wolf.

To satisfy the sweet tooth further, Wolf provided a few samples. Aged chocolate and mint—six to seven weeks old—with fresh chocolate and mint—one week old. The audience noticed a different taste in the two as the fresh samples were more potent than the aged samples.

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