How Snobbery Helped Take The Spice Out Of European Cooking

what makes Indian cuisine so exquisite is its tendency to bring together lots of different ingredients with flavor molecules that don't overlap.

That's quite different from how Western cuisine works — previous research has shown that it relies on pairing ingredients that, at the molecular level, share lots of similar flavor compounds.

Serving richly spiced stews was no longer a status symbol for Europe's wealthiest families — even the middle classes could afford to spice up their grub. "So the elite recoiled from the increasing popularity of spices," Ray says. "They moved on to an aesthetic theory of taste. Rather than infusing food with spice, they said things sh