Flavor creativity has been the most significant part of my professional career. From the very beginning and through the many years of my becoming an experienced flavorist I have found it difficult to discuss the subjective intricacies of a flavorist’s theme, the underlying or essential artistic representation, which is factual in practice yet nebulous and indefinite in expression and considered by the layperson as mystical.
PersonaI zeaI and patience over many years of training and practice are primary and indispensable to a flavorist’s fulfillment and acquisition of a vast knowledge of scientific and artistic materials.
Fifty or sixty years ago there weren’t more than 75-100 chemicals that were satisfactory for flavor compositions. There was a much wider range of natural products, resins, solids and liquid extracts, and essential oils. The problem, therefore, in creating flavors can only be appreciated when we consider today’s immense number of materials available to the flavorist.