In the Mumbai airport, the mosquitoes were the size of hummingbirds.
Naturally, the DEET repellent was in my checked bag. But in years to come, it seems, we may be slathering ourselves with repellents spiked with pepper-related acylpiperidines to avoid malaria, yellow fever and West Nile virus.
A good thing, too. DEET was no match for India's stealth mosquitoes.
In “New Repellents Without DEET Show Promise in Tests on Humans,” (The New York Times, May 27, 2008, Science Times, p. ), Donald G. McNeil writes that studies conducted at the University of Florida and the United States Department of Agriculture showed that certain “acylpiperidines could repel mosquitoes for up to 73 days while DEET typically lasted only 17 days.” These results are for industrial strength repellents—a 2002 study found that commercial DEET repellents lasted only 5 hours—and involved the wearing of thick gloves with holes “over which were taped pieces of muslin soaked in repellent”—not exactly the gear one ordinarily wears in high heat, high humidity regions. Stay tuned for further testing.
Acylpiperidines are related to piperine, a naturally occurring alkaloid analog-compound that contributes to pepper’s spicy taste and aroma. For more on pepper’s chemical constituents, see Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages.
In “A Man of Taste,” (The New Yorker, May 12, 2008, pp. 82-93), D.T. Max profiles Grant Achatz, chef at Alinea in Chicago and well-known proponent of scientific cooking, and his year-long struggle with tongue cancer. One of the key issues he explores is Achatz’s loss, and partial recovery, of his sense of taste as a result of radiation treatments.
Midway through his chronicle of Achatz's illness, Max detours into current research on taste and flavor. The venerable “map of the tongue,” which originated in the early 20th century, located taste buds for sweet, salty, bitter and sour flavors in specific regions of the tongue. But researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia now suspect that all parts of the tongue have receptors for those basic tastes, as well as umami or savory flavors—and possibly for the taste of metal, water, and other substances.
As Max notes, our ability to taste is inextricably tied to the sense of smell. Unlike the tongue, the nose can pick up thousands of specific scents, helping us to distinguish between, say, an apple and an onion. Achatz never lost his sense of smell, but found that losing his sense of taste was profound. Describing a Haagen-Dazs milkshake, he said, “You think you know what’s it’s going to taste like, and it tastes like nothing. All you get is thick texture. You get vanilla because you can smell it, but there’s no sweetness. It’s bizarre.”
Fortunately, the chef’s sense of taste has begun to return. And his new understanding of it has produced a host of creative dishes, including a dessert that begins with the scent of violets, segues to the sweetness of chocolate and the saltiness of olives and ends with the sweetness of strawberries. It is, as Max writes, “a voyage through Achatz’s lost time.”