International Symposium FLAVOUR RESEARCH -CONCEPTS AND METHODS
Opening lecture
Flavour identity and stability dilemma D. J. TILGNER' Food specialists will have to pay growing attention to the aroma and flavour content of raw products and processed food because of their fundamental psycho-physiological importance and the interlinking with the gastronomical culture of the civilized consumer.
The highly industrialized and intensified agricultural production underestimates flavour attributes in their genetic engineering research and mass production. Supplementation of aroma and flavour components is therefore unavoidable and requires a close cooperation between the food and catering industries and the flavouring industries to solve various problems of flavour identity and stability.
Developments in the instrumental analytical techniques have led to an overwhelming progress in the identification of aroma and flavour components of most foodstuffs. In flavouring application and potentiation very complex reactivities and diverse stability dilemma are due to complicated reactions which are only vaguely explained. Flavour identity assessment requires the characterization of sensory quality, intensity, volatility and duration, but the multiplicity of nuances increases the difficulties in objectivised sensory judgments which form the key to the evaluation of flavour constituents.