A wee question or two

Why does coriander taste soapy to some people? And what is it with asparagus?

And now ... what's trending in food books*.

Chocolate. Nourishment/ health. Nostalgia. Meaty stuff. Things Nordic (as if Scandinavia were discovered just last year). And celebrity, of course; that telly/book nexus thing is a tonic to publishers everywhere. I'm not stretching my briefcase to take much of it home for road testing, to be perfectly honest. But a book titled Why Does Asparagus Make Your Wee Smell?

Crikey. I'm a puerile male, am I not?

Before we answer this profound question (the asparagus smell, not the puerility) and "57 other curious food and drink questions", as this fascinating little book is subtitled, let me say that I have always been led to understand that while this wonderful member of the lily family makes everyone's urine smell, only half of us are able to smell it. This, apparently, is a myth, rooted in (some) fact.

In a book that does its best to scare off the bookshop-browsing potential purchaser with an opening gambit entitled "A brief introduction to organic chemistry", author Andy Brunning sets the record straight.

"Interestingly, the ability to smell the aroma of asparagus-influenced urine is not universal," he writes. "It was initially thought that everyone produced the odour, but only some could smell it; however it has been since suggested, after a range of research, that not all people exhibit the effect after eating asparagus, with [one] study placing the figure of people who do produce asparagus urine at 43 per cent." Clear? And yes, I do/can.

Brunning, a chemistry teacher who writes a science blog called Compound Interest, asks and answers a few questions to which my immediate response is, "Who cares?" Why does orange juice taste bitter after brushing your teeth? What do dill and spearmint have in common? Why are some mushrooms poisonous? Why does whipping cream make it thicker?

It's just how it is, all right? And really, there are so many more important things to think about.

Like ... why does coriander taste soapy to some people? (There are things called aldehydes in coriander leaves that are also commonly found in soaps and lotions but, for genetic reasons, not everyone has receptors that are sensitive to the flavour of aldehydes.) And ... why do beans give you flatulence? (They contain compounds called raffinose and stachyose that are resistant to digestion; unable to be broken down sufficiently to be absorbed through the wall of the small intestine, they carry on to the larger one, where natural bacteria finish the job. However this process has a by-product: hydrogen sulfide. Smelly flatulence.)

Or, finally, can mixing drinks worsen your hangover? (To cut a long, scientifically argued story short, no. "It seems clear that the primary cause of a hangover is simply the amount of alcohol you drank the night before," says the learned Brunning. "The mixing of drinks itself doesn't seem to have any effect on the severity ... We can chalk this one up as a myth.") For the scientific foodie and/or trivia tragic in your life ... don't wait until Christmas. Because this book will also answer that profound question: does eating turkey make you sleepy? Hint: it may have something to do with the booze.

*Based entirely on a pile of food books in the office that nobody cares to take home.

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