Welcome to Brainstuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Bolga bam here. While it may sound like a far off concept baked up in a sterile science lab, you've almost certainly eaten food that has gone through the Mayor reaction. In fact, you probably eat foods several times a week or day that have gone through this peculiar process, sometimes dubbed the flavor reaction. The Mayor reaction is a pillar of food science and the answer to the question
what makes cooked food taste good? So one in the world is it discovered more than a hundred years ago by French chemist Louis Kami Mayar. The Maya reaction is a series of consecutive complex reactions between amino acids and sugars when food is cooked. In Layman's terms, it's the chemical reaction that occurs when you brown your food at a temperature between two hundred and eighty five and three fifty five degrees ahrenheit that's one forty and one seventy
nine celsius, creating deeper colors and tastier flavors. During this process, flavor compounds in the food breakdown to create lots of new flavor compounds. Those compounds then break down, and so on and so on, so that delicious savory flavor that you get with each crunch of your seared steak is in part a direct result of the mayor reaction. Here's a step by step guide what happens at a microscopic level. When heat is applied to foods containing sugars and particular
amino acids. Those molecules react and form a compound called the Hinds or Amadori compound. These then further react to form aromatic compounds. In the final step, large complex molecules called melanoidons are formed. These eventually produced the food's brown color. So how is the mayor reaction different from caramelization? We spoke with Chef Alex Loovic of the Napa Valley Inglenok Winery.
He said, simply put, caramelization is the browning of sugars, while the mayor reaction is a bit more complex and involves the interaction between amino acids and sugars. The mayor reaction begins to occur at a lower temperature than caramelization and produces many complex flavor compounds. It's one reason why food that has undergone This reaction is often desirable and
can be considerably more exciting and interesting to eat. Both caramelization and the mayor reaction are responsible for some of the colors and flavors in foods that we know and love. A caramelization results in the sugar crust on top of kremboulet, the sweetness of onions that you cook down on the stove top, and pineapple that you cook on a grill or in the bottom of a pan for a pineapple
upside down cake. Caramelization leads to more toasty flavors. Think of the hints of toffee, butter, jam stone, fruits, and cotton candy that you might encounter in the or mentioned foods. Meanwhile, the mayor reaction creates more roasty flavors. Think of the hints of toast, citrus, currants, chocolate, and coffee that you might get in the crust of a seasoned steak or fish, or a roast chicken or brisket, or in a dark beer like a stouter porter, or in chocolate or coffee themselves.
It can be difficult to separate the results of the two processes, sometimes as many foods involved both, like toasted bread, caramels that are made with dairy and amber colored beers. Interestingly, while mayor reactions occur fast in cooking, they can also develop slowly over time when food is stored at low temperatures. For instance, cheeses that ripen over time develop intense flavors in part because of the mayor reaction. Today's episode was
written by Jeremy Glass and produced by Tyler Clay. For more on this and lots of other complex topics at how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,