Adrenaline Cuisine

NEW YORKIn the 1950s, most home pantries had just salt, pepper, vanilla and maybe some garlic salt. Today, the average home kitchen is stocked with some 40 spices, seasonings and extracts, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal.

The article explores the ever-increasing craving for big, bold flavors that has home cooks, restaurant chefs and food manufacturers pumping up the flavor volume to create what the author calls adrenaline cuisine.

The growing presence of ethnic cuisine on restaurant menus, as well as new products being rolled out by major food manufacturers, reflect the rising penchant for palate-punching flavor. Frito-Lay, for example, offers Doritos in First-, Second- and Third-Degree burn flavors, and Wrigley uses Micro-Bursts in its Orbit Mist chewing gum for intense, longer-lasting flavor.

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