The deliciousness of Indian food at the molecular level.

It seems impossible, but I tasted Indian food for the first time only in 1989. It was somewhere in Europe; probably Copenhagen, though the memory is fleeting. During the "Public House Era" in the 1990s, a few of the bar flies occasionally organized excursions to Louisville KY's Hurstbourne area (Shalimar?) I can still taste the lime pickle from Cambridge UK, circa 1998. In the late 2000s, an Indian restaurant lasted for a few months in Clarksville.

My point in this historical digression: Can someone from the Subcontinent come to New Albany? Indian food is the missing link in our restaurant scene.

Soon, please. Thank you.

Scientists have figured out what makes Indian food so delicious, by Roberto A. Ferdman (Washington Post)

Researchers have data crunched 2,500 recipes and found the secret to their success.

Indian food, with its hodgepodge of ingredients and intoxicating aromas, is coveted around the world. The labor-intensive cuisine and its mix of spices is more often than not a revelation for those who sit down to eat it for the first time. Heavy doses of cardamom, cayenne, tamarind and other flavors can overwhelm an unfamiliar palate. Together, they help form the pillars of what tastes so good to so many people.

But behind the appeal of Indian food — what makes it so novel and so delicious — is also a stranger and subtler truth. In a large new analysis of more than 2,000 popular recipes, data scientists have discovered perhaps the key reason why Indian food tastes so unique: It does something radical with flavors, something very different from what we tend to do in the United States and the rest of Western culture. And it does it at the molecular level.

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