Note by note cuisine, odorants, and flavourings

I have been fighting the bad uses of the word “aroma” for thirty years!

Let me clarify: I have nothing againt the word aroma when it is used to designate the smell of a single aromatic herb or aromatic. Of course.

But I am agains using this word for a perception of any odor, of meat, of wine, etc.... because these ingredients are not aromatic herbes.

Now how to mane a preparation —as wonderful as it may be— used to bring flavor to a food product? In English, it is not a flavor, but a flavouring.
Alas, in French, it is called "arome", the same as aroma, and I fight this confusing use, because it is not sound. Such a product should be called "gustativant", or at least "aromatisant".

Why is "flavouring" right, and why should French people speak of "gustativants" ?
Flavourings  bring smell, or  taste, or both. As odor, taste and other perceptions are grouped to make the flavour, it is fair to call it a "flavouring. And in French, it should be a gustativant, because "goût" is the equivalent of flavour.

Alas, Idon’t think the word gustativant has much of a chance to make it through. There is more hope of success for aromatisant, an equivalent of the perfectly accepted English words “flavour” and “flavouring”.

I believe that this improper use of the term “aroma” has brought much misunderstanding throughout the scientific world. I have read mentions of “aromatic components”, and here, there is a confusion with benzene and phenols, for example.
But meat, for instance, is not an aromatic and has no aroma, so you cannot refer to the aroma of a piece of meat or of a glass of wine. For wine, besides, bouquet is the dedicated term.

Every time the meaning of words is twisted, there is a risk of abuse in the commercial world, and some companies can take advantage of the confusion.

If we want the larger public to feel comfortable with these interesting substances, we have to change their name. I may be close to succeeding: in public meetings and conferences, even my detractors now directly refer to aromatisants (in French), which I consider a victory, and the scientific world is beginning to use the word odorants for compounds that have an odor, a term that I endorse.

Of course, some will split hairs and bring up the distinction between antenasal odorants — the smell you experience from the front of your nose — and retronasal odorants — the smell that comes from the mouth through the back of the olfactory system.

My answer is that the same odorant compounds are involved in both cases, and my opponents are losing the game anyway, since odorant has now been adopted in the international scientific community.

We made it! Or just about. Still, for now, I propose aromatisant to replace aroma in the commercial use of the term.