We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is cherry tomatoes, which inspired us to consider the meaning of “bursting.”

We use the word “bursting” to describe food that explodes with flavor. Often, summer foods like cherry tomatoes, grapes, blueberries, cherries, corn, and very ripe peaches and nectarines have a bursting quality, what Chip describes as “taut skin/surface giving way to juice/pulp/tender flesh” and Corinne thinks of as “a sudden flood of flavor and juice.” But the yolk of a poached or fried egg can be bursting, too. Or the briny flesh of an olive.

Corinne points out that fruit doesn’t have to be raw to be bursting: “Berries in pies or jams or muffins can still be bursting,” she says. Claire says that bursting tastes and feels like “a flood in the mouth, and a tension right before the bite sinks in.” She craves bursting foods when she’s feeling down, or worn out — “it makes me want fresh, flavorful, juicy, bursting things.” The only downside for her to bursting foods? “Chin dribble.”

But bursting can also be a concentrated sensation and taste, encapsulated in an exuberant drink like a watermelon basil agua fresca, a berry-filled summer fruit soup or a vibrant cilantro chutney that seems to burst open in the mouth.

Posted by kristin in mood of the week | | Subscribe to this feed