Thyme to Chat

Listen to our thoughts on the hierarchy of taste and flavor. A conversation of tasting nostalgia, super tasters and the art of tasting your food.

If you laughed or learned something from our show, please share Thyme to Chat with a friend and rate us on your favorite app. It really makes a difference as we build this community.

Connect with us on Instagram: @thymetochatpodcast You can connect with your hosts at @culinaryherbalisim and @tastysaltyreal.

Tasting and Aging

Most of us know a tiny picky eater. A lot of us can recall a strong food aversion or sensory food experience from our own childhood. These recations can sometimes indicate a sensory sensitivity in young people bot not always. Oftentimes we forget that children have way more tastebuds than adults, so eating can be a wildly stimulating experience! For more on how our tastes evolve as we age, check out this article from the Guardian.

Hierarchy of Taste

When we look at this idea of hierarchy in taste we run into two concepts. The first is the pervasive societal idea of what food should be expensive fine dining and what cultural foods we expect to be affordable take out.

And the second is linked to phycological drivers of human behavior and taste. Contrasting the idea of a hierarchy of basic needs with that which drives our desire and interest in food.

Figure 2. A model of human motivation for eating and for the palatability of foods.

Applying this concept to the real world, we can look at how difficult it is to understand the taste and flavor preferences of food bank users. Reading this paper coming out of the UK, we come to understand that an innate power dynamic between the researcher and those seeking basic needs substances impacts the data. Making it very difficult to understand the flavor preferences of program participants.

The Five Brackets of Taste

Generally speaking our tongues have the ability to distinguish between just 5 different brackets of taste. Bitter, salty, umami, sour and sweet. A really great resource for the creative cook mentioned in the show is the incredible Flavor Bible.

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Did you know that food waste in landfills is a big source of methane gas? Yes, the very same gas produced by the meat and dairy industry is created by the food we throw away!

If you want to relieve your own climate anxiety or cut costs, managing your food waste can be extremely beneficial.

Learn how on this episode of Thyme to Chat. Subscribe on Substack for new show alerts and more!

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Delicious Garbage

Current estimates are that we throw away 1/3 of the food we produce for humans. Most of this is a result of weak links in the food supply chain, but we throw away a lot of food at home too. Some say that folks who eat a plant-heavy diet produce more food waste. However, because producing food for the animals takes more resources (and adds a layer of additional waste) your personal foodprint isn’t so black and white.

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Zooming back out to big business, so much edible food is thrown out for absurd reasons. You can find a lot of perfectly good food, just check out these dumpster finds on Tik Tok. If you are inspired to dumpster dive, know that it is important to be safe. Wear good shoes and be aware of your surroundings. Despite the stigma, dumpster diving is legal in many states—so long as you aren’t trespassing. This my friend is where you run into store staff yelling at you or even law enforcement.

Just look at this stand-off between mutual aid volunteers and the popo as folks tried to rescue hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of food. This was food that had to be thrown out due to a severe winter storm that cut power to many people.

I have always had a hard time wrapping my brain around the cruelness that is embedded in these mass systems. Beyond the mind f*ck of mass food waste and food insecurity coexisting. If the industry was more efficient and motivated by serving people—not profit—we would eliminate an absurd amount of injustice.

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In the show, I do mention the sadness in the waste of life, but don’t share the methodology for the mass culling of livestock that occurred at the start of COVID. This isn’t new, but the scope of what happened was. Large-scale depopulation is a common practice that still occurs during disease breakouts.

Anyway... I will stop being a downer now!

Managing Food Waste at Home

If you have experienced any level of food insecurity at any point in life, chances are that you are at least aware of your food waste. You might even overpack your fridge and need it to feel full for emotional security. Whatever the case may be, managing your fridge inventory is a simple but BIG thing you can do to reduce your food waste.

You can do this by:

1. Establishing a date and rotate system
2. Creating a use-first zone AND putting it in your whole household's brains
3. Developing a deeper understanding of your ingredients

• How to store them
• How to know when it actually goes bad

Spoilage is definitely something to be cautious and aware of, but you might be surprised by how long some things can last. We are so dependent on refrigeration that many of us have forgotten how to store or preserve food. If this is something you’re interested in friend PLEASE buy this book. Then message us so we can be nerds together.

Finally, there is the use everything club. We mention some great tips in the episode, but we also love Mei & Irene of Food Waste Feast! Their content is fantastic, and you can search by ingredient on the Food Waste Feast site.

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Which would you rather give up? Have you ever had a foodgasm? Tune in to the first episode of Thyme to Chat's second season to hear a lively conversation about pleasure, shame, and the human experience.

If you laughed or learned something from our show, please share Thyme to Chat with a friend and rate us on your favorite app. It really makes a difference as we push to make this community.

Connect with us on Instagram: @thymetochatpodcast You can connect with your hosts at @culinaryherbalisim and @tastysaltyreal.

*This show contains strong language and is not appropriate in all settings. Listener discretion is advised*

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What is the milkshake?

Wikipedia says that according to Kelis the milkshake is a metaphor for "something that makes women special." While unclear about what exactly that is, we can all agree it is a euphemism. For those of us who need a little help in this department, we can thank the internet for this recipe for bringing boys to the yard.

Fuckable...what?

It is wild how even in casual social situations we manage to sexualize food by making it feminine and consumable. In previous episodes we have talked about how women are depicted as food, but what about when our species just wants to fuck food? Consider this Fox News anchor's breakdown about how the green M&M is suddenly less sexy and no longer a turn-on for him. As promised here is the Skinny Cow logo mentioned in the episode. And just to give you something else that makes you go hmm...we give you sexy fish sticks. Yep.

Monkeys and Meat

It's a true story dear listener. They really do this!

Why do we sexualize breastfeeding?

The book mentioned here is Inventing Baby Food: Taste, Health, and the Industrialization of the American Diet by Amy Bentley. You can find an excerpt here. To see the Time cover for yourself and learn more about the story behind the image see this article.

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Did you know the original Slumber Party Barbie came with a scale and diet book?

Obviously the size of our body should be top of mind when we begin to explore our personal independence and foundational friendships.

In this conversation, Rose and Kamea wonder if a sleepover is a rite of passage or an early experience that results in deep insecurities.

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The Fantasy

Over the generations slumber party shenanigans have been one of the main spaces where we can see depictions of female friendship and mentorship in film.

Consider this scene in the cult classic Grease:

Or this one from the Princess Diaries:

While these frequently don’t pass the Bechdel test, they do provide space for female characters to speak to each other and try on different social roles. In some cases this can be supportive and lovely, in others we see toxic internalized misogyny or diet culture seep into girls role play.

The fantasy of what occurs at slumber parties extends well beyond the wholesome depiction we were fed as children. To many there is something erotic about catching a young feme in a vulnerable place. Slumber parties provide a situation in which the viewer does a bit of the emotional labor to imagine the girls in isolation. Therefore it continues to frequent the storylines of phonographic material as well as horror and slasher films.

The Slumber Party Massacre mentioned in the episode does in fact pass the Bechdel Test, and even though all the women end up dead, it is considered to be a feminist leaning slasher.

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A Vulnerable Age

The prime slumber party ages are during those ripe stages of puberty when we are starting to explore our independence. Depending on who you are surrounded by you might be peer pressured into activities or even actively hating your body. Consider this scene from Mean Girls:

It is nauseating that the average age of a girl going on a diet is just eight years old. This scans with both of your hosts lived experiences of choosing to diet around the age of 10. Did this sh*t come up at sleep overs? Absolutely.

Trying on the Occult

Bloody mary, bloody mary, bloody...

Light as A feather stiff as a board, ouija boards, and divination games. Slumber parties are a space where young folk test their bravery and power through “games”. Again, the energy of these spaces drastically changes based on your friends and your family’s relationship to spirituality or demonic ideas. When adolescence is raging, these rituals are used as spaces to try on different social roles.

Who is the sceptic and who flickers the lights to make the others scream? Who pulls out the Ouija board?

Tell us about your slumber party memories in the comments!

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Revisit the recipes and tasting notes from our most recent–two-part conversation–Silly Boys: Bartending is for Women

Listen for tutorials on mixing a Gin Old Fashioned, Manhattan, and a delicious Negroni.

Rose’s full recipes are just below. Mix it up, and tell us your favorite by tagging Thyme to Chat Podcast on Instagram.

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Gin Old Fashion

Ingredients:

1 Sugar Cube or 1⁄4-1⁄2 tsp of sugar

2 Dash Angostura Bitters

3 Dash Orange Bitter

1.5oz Barrel Aged Gin

Cherry (luxardo, maraschino, amaretto, or any canned cherry)

Orange Peel

Procedure:

-Place your sugar cube into a rocks glass or mason jar, Use your bitters to saturate the top of your sugar.

-Using a muddler or handle of a wooden spoon, crush your sugar cube and lightly mash the sugar into the bitters until incorporated

-Fill glass with ice about 3⁄4 full, then pour your spirit over ice

-Using a bar spoon or soup spoon stir. Remember to keep the back of the spoon gently pressing against the inside of your glass to ensure a smooth swirl.

-Continue to stir until the outside of the glass is opaque and cold to the touch

-Garnish with an orange peel and cherry

Manhattan

Ingredients:

2oz Rye Whiskey

1 oz Sweet Vermouth

3 Dash Orange Bitters

Cherry (luxardo, maraschino, amaretto, or any canned cherry)

Orange Peel

Procedure:

-Using a stir glass, mason jar or pint glass pour your spirit, vermouth and dash your bitters

-Fill glass with ice. About 3⁄4 full

-WIth a bar spoon or soup spoon stir. Stir for about 1 minute or until completely chilled

Strain and serve up (no ice)

-Garnish with an orange or lemon peel and cherry

Negroni

Ingredients:

1oz Sweet Vermouth

1oz Campari

1oz Gin

Orange Peel

Procedure:

-Using a rocks glass or mason jar add your spirit, vermouth and Campari.

-Top with ice and stir until chilled

-Garnish with orange peel

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