Traditional or Indigenous foods—often defined by locally grown ingredients, unique preparations, and centuries-old customs—“hold a special place in the cultural fabric of societies across the globe,” the Journal of Foods describes. But the climate crisis is altering the ecological conditions that define food flavor, threatening familiar tastes and culinary traditions.
Flavor is shaped by the interplay of chemical, multisensory, and aromatic elements, with nerve cells in the mouth reacting to food’s chemical compounds. Combined with sensations like texture, temperature, and smell, this reaction forms the experience of flavor.
Ecological factors such as temperature, soil, rainfall, sun, and pests shape the chemical compounds in food, explains Our Changing Menu. A book structured like a menu, Our Changing Menu explores how climate change affects each course of a meal.
And, as the climate changes, so do ecological conditions, Michael Hoffman, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University and Our Changing Menu author, tells Food Tank.
High temperatures, for example, increase sugar levels in tomatoes, making them sweeter, according to Hoffman. Conversely, warmer conditions increase lactones in lettuce, making it more bitter, Aurora Díaz of the Aragón Agri-Food Institute explains. And, Daniel Jackson of the University of Georgia describes, drying soils make onions more pungent and sulfuric.
Berry flavor depends on sugar, acid, and aromatic compounds, Marvin Pritts, Professor at Cornell University, tells Food Tank. “If any one of these is out of balance, then the fruit won’t taste as good.” Highly weather-sensitive, sugar levels dilute in rain and intensify in sunlight, Pritts explains.
Animal products like cheese are also climate sensitive. In 2012, extreme drought and heat in Wisconsin caused major crop losses, reports the Wisconsin Bureau of Environmental and Occupational Health, significantly altering local cheese flavor, Kathryn Teigen De Master, Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, tells Food Tank.
With limited access to fresh grass to feed their cows, De Master says dairy farmers turned to hay. The change in diet altered the milk’s composition, directly affecting the cheese’s flavor profile and stripping it of the distinctive “taste of place” that defines Wisconsin’s artisanal varieties—an expression, local cheesemakers describe, of the Driftless region’s unique environment and multi-generational local cheesemaking knowledge.
As the climate and food flavors change, “we are potentially not only facing catastrophic destruction in terms of physical infrastructure, but also cultural infrastructure,” says Jonathon Keats, artist, writer, and experimental philosopher.
Yunnan wild honey’s unique taste, for example, is shaped by nectar from wild mountain flora. The Ark of Taste, a Slow Food Foundation catalog of endangered heritage foods, reports that rising temperatures and erratic rainfall are reducing nectar diversity, altering honey aroma and complexity. These changes diminish flavor thereby endangering the centuries-old harvesting traditions practiced by the Yi people in the region.
Intensifying heat similarly is threatening Korean cabbage aroma and flavor compounds, and may eventually destroy the crop, according to the National Institute of Crop Science. Cabbage is the primary ingredient in kimchi, which the Journal of Ethnic Foods describes as “the identity and pride of Korean people” and “is something we cannot not have on the table,” 71 year old Korean cabbage farmer Kim Si-gap says. “What are we going to do if this happens?”
Olla podrida, a traditional Spanish stew, dates back to 1570, when it appeared in one of the ‘most important court cookbooks of the early modern period,’ according to The Gastronomical Arts in Spain. Spanish red beans, a key ingredient of olla podrida, may no longer sustainably grow in Spain within the next 50 years, Keats says.
And Audubon Vermont explains that maple sugaring, vital to Indigenous communities for millennia, is threatened as rising temperatures degrade soil and shrink maple trees’ range. As a result, De Master notes, maple syrup may become scarcer and of lower quality.
As the climate threatens local crops and practices, innovative solutions are helping preserve familiar flavors and culinary heritage. Pritts, for example, is experimenting with growing berries under plastic tunnels to safeguard their flavors from erratic weather.
Polish cheese producers are redefining food traditions to adapt to climate shifts, De Master tells Food Tank. Oscypek, a smoky cheese originating in the Polish mountains, is traditionally made from sheep’s milk. To meet increasing demand in a changing climate while preserving the cheese’s cultural significance, producers now make oscypek with heritage Polish red cow milk and sheep’s milk, De Master explains.
Tasting Tomorrow, a University of Arizona-led project co-created by Keats, aims to preserve culinary heritage by inviting users to share traditional foods made with local ingredients, including preparation and flavor descriptions. Others can explore these entries to assess whether they can grow and adapt the ingredients for their own traditional recipes.
According to Tasting Tomorrow, by sharing past knowledge and learning from others, we may one day find the “wherewithal to flourish.”
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Photo courtesy of Stella de Smit, Unsplash
