In Hidden
Scents, I downplayed the clandestine nature of the flavor and fragrance
industry, but it is a big part of the language of smell. This was actually one
of the things that motivated me to write the book. Not only is smell (and
flavor) inherently evasive to language, but the industries that work with these
senses are required to keep their work under wraps.
Well, I guess they aren’t required to keep it secret, but they do, and because of the way this
particular industry works. Food, as well as fashion, is not protected by
copyright law. If you want to make a song, you can be sure that your hard work
will pay off, because your song will be protected by copyright, which means
that nobody else can say it’s theirs, and only you can reap the benefits. In
flavor, fragrance, and fashion, that is not the case. You can’t copyright the
Bernardo sandal (surely, they would have). So
how else do you protect your hard work? You keep it a secret.
On a side note, I was in the Firmenich flavor plant in
Newark, NJ, and our tour guide says that they have research facilities all over
the place (primarily NJ, since this is the artificial flavor capital of the
world), but that nobody knows where they are, and that you wouldn’t even notice
if they were right next door, and in fact even he doesn’t know where they are.
So in short, these experts are expected to be secretive
about their work; they have to. Still, it is one of the main obstacles in
learning about the language we use to describe these flavors and fragrances –
if we can’t even know what it is, how can we describe it? And as I’ve pointed
out before, there are public arts funds for visual art and for music, but none
for flavor/fragrance.* This guarantees that our public knowledge and public
discourse about these topics are mediated by the commercial industry and not by
our own personal, social experiences with them.
Flavorists, Experts in the Field of Natural and
Artificial Flavoring, Work in Top Secret New Jersey Labs
“It’s a pretty secretive industry,” says Steve Ruocco,
president of the Society of Flavor Chemists and a master flavorist at
Maryland-based McCormick, the spice company. “You can’t disclose who your
customers are,” because secret flavor formulas are often the bread and butter
of the food and beverage manufacturers that hire flavor houses to innovate or
improve their products. The formulas are what separate Hunt’s ketchup from
Heinz and Skippy peanut butter from Jif.
*I would never neglect the only exception to this, the Institute for Art and Olfaction, based
in Los Angeles. Started by the inimitable Saskia Wilson-Brown, the institute
experiments and educates with scent to allow the public access to a world that
is completely taken over by consumerism, and thus off-limits to those without
the money to participate.
POST SCRIPT
Can’t talk about this topic of artificial flavors without
mentioning Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food
Nation, 2001. Great way to get inside the hi-tech flavor game (I say
hi-tech, knowing the book is almost 20 years old; I’m sure there’ve been lots
of developments since).
POST POST SCRIPT
The Bernardo sandal? Yes, this thing which I assume
everyone takes for granted as having been a part of “fashion” for as long as
people had two feet, is actually credited to Bernard Rudofsky and Berta
Rudofsky. He was an architect and wrote the book, Are Clothes Modern, after curating a show at the MoMA by the same
name. She was a teacher at the Black Mountain College, a school focused on the
arts, and one known for producing influential people (Buckminster Fuller was a
big name) in the art world and beyond, despite its short life. One summer they
came up with this sandal, and it has completely taken over the world of
open-toe footwear ever since. Perhaps, like Jonas Salk with his penicillin discovery,
they may have given it away for free, as in, “how do you patent the sun?” But
who knows. Bottom line, they couldn’t do it if they wanted, because you can’t
copyright fashion.
Image source: link
No comments:
Post a Comment