Arielle Johnson might have the ultimate food nerd’s dream job. With credentials from New York University and UC Davis, the flavor scientist regularly collaborates with the world’s top chefs and mixologists, including Rene Redzepi at the legendary Noma, where she co-founded its Copenhagen fermentation lab . With a foreword by Redzepi and her own illustrations, her book, “Flavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor” (Harvest, $40), hit bookstores this spring with 320 pages devoted to the science of flavor and its expression via nearly 100 recipes.
We recently connected with her via email from Copenhagen to learn more about her work. Given the time of year — tomato season! — we peppered her with questions to discover what, exactly, makes tomatoes so special. Q: Tell us about your background as a flavor scientist.
What does your day-to-day look like? A: I (studied) chemistry at NYU, where I did projects on food wherever and however I could, then I went to UC Davis to do a Ph.D. in agricultural and environmental chemistry, where I specialized in flavor chemistry.
My job is great because my day-to-day is never the same. As an academic, it could look like analyzing flavor molecules on the gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer, training or collecting data about flavor sensation with volunteer tasters on a sensory panel, or analyzing data using multivariate statistical models similar to those used in econometrics. I might be looking through academic papers .