I’ll read how a cooking oil will become rancid, or the oil in nuts, or the oil in whole-wheat flour. But I never notice. I never find that something has now become disgusting in that way.
(Although I’m not crazy about nuts to begin with, and I’ve never had a fresh one from a tree or anything, so it’s possible I’m reacting to something there.)
How much do you notice rancidity? Do the people around you detect it similarly?
Some discussions online mention rancidity in connection with supertasting, but I strongly suspect I am a supertaster because I have to go very light on most bitter ingredients, cut back on sugar in a recipe so it doesn’t just taste like sugar, find too much fat to be gross, and so on. [Reading about supertasting is such a blend of sadness and vindication. You mean grapefruits are genuinely supposed to taste good? And an avocado all by itself? And raw pineapple? Honestly?]
I read an article once that suggested that rancidity is something you learn to pick up on and that the inclusion of certain preservatives such as hydrogenated oils in US foods means a lot of us have lost the ability to detect rancidity vs people in other countries that don’t use these preservatives and food has a shorter shelf life. It took me a very long time to recognize what rancidity smells like, but now that I do, I can smell it in a large variety of items. I’ve smelled it in dry cereal, corn chips, nuts, oils, etc. sometimes it’s stronger and more obvious and other times it’s faint. It can have a slightly different smell depending on what’s rancid, but that base smell always seems to be the same. Here’s my suggestion, and it may sound weird… Go to a Mexican grocer or local Mexican restaurant and get some tortilla chips that they fry in house. Put them in a paper bag and leave them somewhere and forget about them for a few months. When you open the bag again, you will get the strongest whiff of rancidity you’ve ever experienced. Hopefully you’ll know after that, what to lookout for. I don’t know what it is about fresh tortilla chips, but damn they get rancid in the worst way 🤮
I understand what you are saying, I don’t know that I taste it, even in the same batch that others do. My thoughts are it comes to experience. I don’t use olive oil, or butter, alone, just in cooking, but if I sample it, it always tastes fine. But with tea, then ya, it was too hot water, or over steeped. But I do drink a lot of tea. Maybe we both could benefit by going to some tastings. And bring some rancid oil with us to compare? Not sure how popular we would be ☠️
I can’t taste the rancidity either. They say if olive oil smells like crayons, it’s rancid; if it tastes peppery, it’s good. I bought a bottle of the California Ranch brand everyone says is reliable. It smells like crayons and tastes peppery just like every cheap bottle I’ve tried
Hmm, I have had olive oil be a bit peppery…but I can get that from pepper… Sometimes people talk as if good olive oil is a life-changing experience, but… I think of the day when someone insisted to me that plain fat, like a hunk of fat from a piece of meat, was supposed to be tasty to chew and eat by itself intentionally. (He was enough older than me that he was giving me some dad attitude as if I were simply wrong because I was younger.) I’d never guessed someone would want to do that. But that was his taste perception somehow.
I don’t think I’ve ever perceived crayon smell.
