Final Class Project and Presentation Guidelines
As a class, we are going to conduct a series of four food tasting experiments. Possible topics could include beer or wine tasting, chocolate tasting, chili tasting, gumbo tasting, or any other food or beverage related experiment you can develop. Brainstorm with your group about topics that are of interest to you, perhaps related to a food you really like to eat and or prepare. Your topic could also be related to a particular pet issue you have with about American food or beverage habits. We will have an on-going discussion via Moodle about these issues over the course of the semester. These discussions will result in four tasting experiments to be conducted during the second half of the semester and presented as final projects. The syllabus contains the dates of the tasting experiments. Homework groups will need to combine to form four teams and will have the opportunity to volunteer for class tasting dates.
It may help to think about a working hypothesis that you have had over the years about a particular food or beverage. For example, I am convinced that I can prepare many types of fish and game in such a way that even the most ardent devotee of the popular myths “…it tastes gamey…” or “…it tastes fishy…” would not even know they were not eating fish, beef, chicken, or pork that was bought from the grocery store. The fact is that “gamey” and “fishy” tastes only result from failure to clean, handle, store, and prepare wild game and fish properly. They are not inherent properties of the foods themselves. Furthermore, there is no more organic or free range protein available than freshly caught, and properly handled and prepared wild fish and game.
Another example comes from the taste distinction between “American style” chocolate, most notably Hershey’s, and European style chocolates such as Lindt. There is an actual difference in the manufacturing process that results in a marked taste difference. However, this taste difference is not as noticeable to Americans as it is to Europeans. We conducted such study on this topic in this class. The study had two independent variables, country or origin (Germany and U.S.), and type of chocolate (Hershey’s, Lindt, Dove, and Ghirardelli). We had three dependent variables (Taste, Aroma, and Texture). Each participant rated all four chocolate varieties on each of the three rating scales. Not surprisingly, the American students generally liked all four varieties. There were some subtle differences, but not major ones. For example, most everyone can notice the smoothness of the texture of Dove chocolate. The German students liked Lindt, Dove, and Ghirardelli equally, but rated Hershey’s lower on all outcome measures. The research design was ingenious and incorporated several design features that you may want to consider for your project. For example, there was not simply a comparison between Hershey’s and Lindt. Rather, Dove and Ghirardelli were included as control conditions of a sort, as they are American chocolates that are manufactured in more of a European style. All participants were blinded regarding brand they were tasting, and participants were randomly assigned to one of several predetermined tasting orders.
You may be interested in similar questions such as like these:
Can the average person really taste the difference between a ten dollar bottle of wine and “Two Buck Chuck”? Similarly, what about the twenty dollar bottle, etc.?
Can the average person tell the difference between a glass of wine that has been allowed to properly breathe and one that has not?
Do any of the mass produced “Miller Lite” type products even have enough taste to be fairly classified as beer, when compared to actual beer?
Can the average person tell the difference between frozen pizza crust and fresh?
Would the average UNC Charlotte graduate student appreciate Dr. Lambert’s homemade brandy? How would it rate against real brandy?
Are Joanne Zhang’s (Shaanxi province) spring rolls really as good as everyone says? Can the average American really taste the difference between her spring rolls and those from a local Chinese restaurant (Often prepared by Cantonese, Fuganese, or even Mexican cooks)?
Think about the Lady Testing Tea video that we watched in class as you ponder your experimental design. Here is link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgs7d5saFFc
Each group is to prepare a final report and Powerpoint presentation about their project. These will be presented on the last day of class. The following components should be included:
Problem Statement
Hypotheses
Research Design
Experimental Protocol
Data Collection Process
Creation of Dataset
Analyses
Results, Interpretation, Conclusions
Lessons Learned for Conducting Comparative Educational Experiments.