DANSMAK spices and flavours

Tastiness is an extremely important notion in food industry. Tastiness is usually a complex oral sensation, consisting mainly of taste and smell, but also of impressions related to sight and touch (consistency, juiciness, feeling of warmth).

All processing manipulations aim at improving the product's tastiness. However, the most meaningful factor in the shaping of tastiness is the choice of raw material of proper quality and the use of additional substances that enhance and diversify tastiness. Those are usually herbal spices, meat tastiness potentiators, protein hydrolysates, artificial flavours of meat tastiness and curing smoke specimens.

The diversification of the features of meat products' taste-smell profile is caused by random influence of chemical compounds, which:

• are products of in vivo metabolism of the slaughter animal
• emerge as a result of autolytic and microbiological transformations of the raw material or as a result of processing and storing of the product
• have been introduced into the product together with technological additives
• are products of the reactions taking place between additives and raw material contents
• emerge as a result of the activity of raw meat material's own enzymes

A very important question concerning meat products flavouring is the process of creating tastiness precursors in the course of meat maturation. During this process, certain biochemical processes take place in the tissues, which result in the emergence of many different substances that possess taste qualities. The result of breaking the in vivo metabolism is something similar to reversing the processes taking place in the cells. Decomposition processes, mainly eznymatic, gain advantage. This process concerns all macromolecular compounds: proteins, carbohydrates, fat and nucleic acids.

Herbal spices used to aromatize meat products can be called traditional additives. The application of herbal spices to food has got a multi-century tradition. In the beginning, herbal spices were probably used to conceal the taste and smell of poorly stored products and prolong their durability. Nowadays, their basic role is making products more attractive and ensuring assortment diversity.