Bubble Gum and Cyanide

conan o'brien needs a fan want to talk to conan visit teamcoco.com call conan okay let's get started hi jeremy welcome to conan hello man we have conan and we have special guest taylor tomlinson here hi hey how you doing jeremy i'm good how are you guys we are doing great um and i have so many questions for you because the only thing i know about you jeremy i know two things i know three things you're from boston you're now living in san francisco and it says here you're a flavor scientist all of those are true i have my uh red socks mug that i'm drinking out of to prove i'm from boston very good and they don't just hand those out yeah they don't you gotta earn that no they they do they they hand them out you yeah um yeah i'm a flavor scientist in san francisco okay now there's so much to talk about here because i really don't know what a flavor scientist does taylor i can't speak for you do you know what a flavor scientist does that's what i went to school for so yeah i'm very familiar you know what i did know that i can't believe i forgot that no i didn't know i did not know the term flavor scientist that's one of those jobs that i feel like when you get high and you're eating snacks you go whose job is this how do i get that job so i feel like i'm so excited to talk to someone who has that job like how did you get that job yeah jeremy what happened yeah yeah so i can kind of break it down for you guys um i moved out to california in 2014 for my phd in physical physical chemistry at berkeley and while i was at berkeley i was using a bunch of uh high-end analytical instrumentation to look at tailpipe emissions from cars and to look at um emissions coming off of was this a hobby or part of your work it was part of my work i wrote up a dissertation i wrote up like papers on this and um part way through i kind of realized that the same technology that i was using is all so used in perfumes and fragrances and flavor to identify those molecules are responsible for individual flavors and sensations and i've always loved cooking and mixology and like i make my own cocktail bitters and limoncello so i really wanted to do something where i could kind of combine the science with my passion for food and baking and being a flavor scientist seemed like that perfect opportunity all right we have i think a photo of you doing your work i think we're we're going to show here there you are okay um boy does that look that's me all right so uh did you sign off on this picture jeremy you're acting like i did no one no one told you about it jeremy you supplied this picture so only yourself to blame jeremy goes i thought that was between us i i didn't know what's happening here jeremy you are your nose is attached to a device yes so um this is an analytical technique called uh gas chromatography olfactometry or gco yep that's how i call it yeah i call it gco and um the different flavors uh go through the instrumentation we're able to identify what molecule they're they um pertain to and they also come out of this sniffing port so that is me sniffing individual flavor molecules and then writing down what they smell like if it's butter or grassy or chocolate and then i can look at the data afterwards and be like oh this i got a butter flavor at this particular time and this compound came out of the instrumentation at this particular time therefore this compound has a butter so no you look so amazed i love that i am with can you can you imagine eating doritos with this guy the rest of us are just munching away on cool ranch and he and and jeremy's here he's got vials and dials hooked up to his nipples and he's going yes so untrue that is so cool it's amazing do you have something that you smell in between smells to like cleanse the palate very good you do yeah yeah that's a great that's a great question so um in tasting if you're doing like a tasting sensory you want to uh rinse with lukewarm water because cold water numbs your taste buds so it's not as sensitive or you should have like an apple slice or a salt cheese cracker something very kind of bland or fresh and then for smelling you want to use the back of your hand or like your shoulder or something or you can use a coffee beans you may have seen that like wineries or something they'll have like coffee beans for you to like smell to kind of cleanse your nose yeah what if i mean what if the best thing to use was a pair of 19th century underwear women's underwear and it unfortunately was the best thing to use so you had to take this fierce snip of 1895 panties for some reason we don't understand do you go for coffee beans or your hand usually like do you do you have a little i usually go for my hand i have like the back of the shoulder or the back of the um yeah like your wrist and then you can just like sniff it that way and cleanse your palate okay um let's get off the sniffing for a sec because it's okay it's taking me down a dark road uh well i mean i had one more question about the sniffing and it's appropriate yeah go for it and if you and you get to i have six more after this have you always had like a particularly strong sense of smell or are you i've always could anyone do this do we is there a so the answer is yes the answer is yes and yes um i love cooking and i love like flavor that's been big part of my life since like college graduate school so i do have like a certain knack for it but this is also trainable like if you have if you know you're going to be tasting like um the same thing kind of over and over again you are trained on what is it supposed to taste like these are the flavors these are the texture and then once you know you have that kind of authentic reference in your head you can then do study what if we changed like a new flavor added like a new ingredient does this change it and you are now trained to know like oh there is a difference between this and the control so part of it is definitely trainable like over time a lot of it's just repetition okay and you can because it is amazing when you eat a snack these days and you know that this is not chicken this is a pretzel it says chicken flavored pretzel sticks and you bite into it and you swear you're eating chicken is that because it's made of essence of chicken or you've just chemically recreated the the same molecular structure of what a chicken tastes like so in those examples it's less the molecular structure of chicken and it's more just um the overall kind of like sensation or i won't say vibe of what chicken is you have those like umami notes so slight chicken vibe yeah yeah so you're a vibeologist you can find out later on it's all vibeology those machines just say good vibe or bad vibe perfect mixture yeah because you worked on impossible nuggets sometimes yeah is that right it says it did yeah you you worked on impossible nuggets yep i was one of the people who worked on the flavor system for that did a lot of history studies and optimization to get that chicken flavor like right so consumers to like increase the consumer acceptance of the of the product crazy yeah do the chicken people hate you i wouldn't say that does big chicken want your head there's a bounty yeah on his head from big there's a there's a chicken out there with a high-powered rifle no the chicken likes him the the chickens are very pro jeremy unless it's a self-hating chicken it wants to give its life to bring others joy it says here over a period of six months you did over a hundred sensory tastings cake brownies cookies cupcakes meringues mayonnaise buttercream i would think that your brain would just go into overload at some point and just not be able to tell one thing from another well well that's also a really great point um we do um you have to like limit your sensory tastings so in a given day um a sensory scientist or a panelist should only probably do like one to two hours of tasting because then you just get taster fatigue and you have to limit the number of samples that you have so in a good like sensory study taster fatigue is very real you should have it actually is taylor i know i believe you people in the room are chuckling well it's just blay everyone else was very listening and showing you respect and blay was giggling um no i actually that i was gonna ask uh about kind of along that line with the taster fatigue are there certain flavors that are you pretty open-minded like you like everything like you'll eat anything or there are certain flavors that you hate that you're like someone else has to do this one because this makes me sick i'm pretty good like i definitely have tasted a lot of weird flavors and kind of odd things over the over the years um there are definitely some other individuals where it's like super oxidized or super rancid they taste it and you'll hear like gagging or you'll hear like nope from like their little corner yeah you're like okay maybe they can maybe they should skip like the next round of tastings here yeah is there a flavor that no one really likes that's a good question yes uh scatol s-k-a-t-o-l that is feces i was gonna say i was like that's what i have a personal question wait you're just gonna skip over that sorry well how many times have you tasted feces i'm sorry i thought i wasn't gonna take you to come to that conclusion let's give it one more try taylor's like yep okay anyway jeremy's got shit all over his mouth we're gonna try this one more time we've all been there i think we did i had an i had an intern once who was using that compound that's like an authentic standard and she accidentally spilled some on her lab coat and for the for the rest of the day it was like poop i think she made that up i think she said oops i poured some scatol she shit her pants that is the oldest cover ever i'm gonna remember that next time i shit my pants now my vial of scatol must have fractured what is the what is the scatol for then what what's that used in there's a lot of if you're looking at like um different meat products usually animal based there's some like trace amounts of like you look at like okay it's also a bunch of flavors a bunch of different things yeah it's also the base flavor for i think oreos they start with just how dare you no they start i'm saying they start with eyebrows went up they start with scatol did i hit something jeremy admit it nope no they're good are we eating poop i eat so many oreos no i'm just saying it's the base flavor that and then they add a few other things and it tastes amazing but it's mostly shit what is it in what snacks is it in that i don't actually know i just know that um someone's media trained yeah yeah oh he took another sip big sip i don't know except no like um it's really cool i think take these you can like get all of this stuff and like get all you can look at these different compounds and like part per billion part per trillion amount so it's kind of like um it's an interesting study where just because some a compound like scatol exists it might not be odor active there's a thing in flavor science called your odor activity value or oav and if it's above a certain concentration then you get the overall feeling and like the sensation of it but if you're able to quantify this compound like scatol at like a part per trillion or part per billion level it's so amount it's so tiny it's not gonna really do anything you know what i'm gonna do we have the analytical power to identify that jeremy next time i'm at a wine tasting i'm gonna take a really fancy i'm gonna take a little sip i'm going i'm getting uh i'm getting scatol people will know what you're talking about yeah you i had a question about and again it's a little personal so if you don't want to say i don't know are you in a relationship are you i am i am not i am currently single are you on apps with flavor scientists because if i saw a flavor scientist on a profile i would be like what is that yeah it does work it's definitely a good i'm just gonna say a lot yeah yeah people definitely ask me that and um sometimes during a date though it turns into a date and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna more of a job interview to just like keep on asking questions about the flavor science and i'm like let's talk about you or like there's other areas of my life we're going for like a walk and it's like oh what do you think this like cookie tastes like and i'm like tastes tastes like a like a cookie you got from a bake shop yeah yeah it's good can't you just like me for me not not my flavor ability no that's i mean that was my like first question it's super fun yeah because when you see people with like cool jobs on dating apps it's like kind of really well no that's definitely a conversation starter yeah especially in san francisco where a lot of people kind of work in tech or ai it's like this kind of career is a little bit i would argue so do you i think this is tech i think it's tech but it's also you're a mixologist you bake um you've got that cool red socks mug and those as we established are hard to get uh yep unless you live anywhere near the East Coast or the West Coast. But no, I would say, I would think that that would be fascinating to people. It's fascinating to me. That's why I'm really happy we got a chance to talk to you because this is cool. It's such a big part of our lives. And the way that chemically flavors can be created in so many different ways, we're not even thinking about it. We're eating these foods. We're eating these snacks. We're tasting things. And all these different parts of our brain are lighting up. And it's been, a lot of times, manipulated. Yeah, it's super interesting. And the reason why I love this job is the goal is to bring joy to people through flavor. People love new foods or new beverages or just exotic. We see it coming in from different areas of the world with boba tea or Dubai chocolate. These are all different flavors that are being introduced. And like the U.S. and like vice versa. And it's just a really cool experience to understand where they come from and then to create a product or an ingredient that people want to use and have like a good versatility. And all of that is just, you know, bringing that excitement of food and flavor to everybody. Now, could you use, and I'm going somewhere with this, could you use your skill to make a deadly poison taste nice? Do you know what I mean? Could you take. Yeah, I could do that. What is the most. Do you have somebody in mind? But like, for example, I've always heard that cyanide, it's very bitter. Could you make cyanide taste like a bubblegum flavored cyanide? Oh, yeah. That would be quite simple, actually. Yeah. Okay. How do I reach you independently of this podcast? Well, I was going to maybe save this at the end, but I know that you like to go to outside lands every year. Yeah. In San Francisco. I was just there. Yeah. Yeah, I was there too. I think I saw like an interview with you watching Wet Lag and I was in that same crowd. So maybe if you want to go to outside lands next year or you're in the area. No, this killing has to happen sooner than that. I need this person dead much faster. Oh, my bad. Okay. Okay, we'll figure it out. I'll just get to San Francisco. I'll find you. This is, I mean, I'm just. And Sona. You might be able to speak to this because you. Love food. Well, also, you're Armenian. Yeah. You're a proud Armenian. Yes. And there are very strong flavors associated with your cuisine. Is that right? Yeah. What would you say are the big flavors? I mean, we use, you know, the spice sumac a lot. We use a lot of. That's all I've got. A lot of cumin. It's a lot of, you know, it's very filled with. Very Mediterranean. Different kind of spices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a lot of tahini. But you're saying your upbringing and my upbringing is different. We had no flavors when I was growing up. Food had no flavor. We had butter. Sorry. We would put butter on things, but I think that was. And salt. But those were the flavors that I grew up with. There was potato and there was fried ham. Then there was more potato and more fried ham. And then there was fried ham and then there was potato. Yeah, mine's different. Yeah. Okay. I had a heart attack when I was nine. They had to crack my chest. Taylor, did you grow up with a lot of flavors? No. No. No one can. I can't cook. My parents would, like, assemble food. Like, more so than, like, cook, I would say. When you say assemble, what do you mean? Just, you know, like legibles. Push them closer together to the center of the table. There's four cans, and the contents of those cans need to be heated up. And that takes some time. And that's cooking, I guess. I guess. Jeremy, if I just opened a. And I like SpaghettiOs. This is no diss on SpaghettiOs. But if I opened a can of SpaghettiOs in your presence. This episode is sponsored by SpaghettiOs. I wish. But let's say I was hanging out with you and I emptied some SpaghettiOs into a bowl. And then I handed it to you. Could you, using lab equipment and various chemicals, make that taste remarkably. different or, you know what I mean? Could you really change the game for that bowl of spaghettios i think so yeah like um i think it would help if you kind of guided us and like um guided me and what kind of flavor you would like it to taste like um yeah yeah you can definitely i mean you can do that in your own kitchen i have take like some vanilla oh yeah i just pour extract in there and i eat it yeah yeah do you have a certain food or snack really that you're that you've worked on that you're most proud of is it impossible nuggets i don't want to leave the witness pretty proud of besides impossible nuggets i think we all know impossible nuggets is incredible besides yeah yeah i was i was very proud of that it's really cool to see like i mean it sounds cliche but like you're at a grocery store just doing your thing and then you see somebody like reach for your product they look at it and then they put it in your um in their grocery cart that's not cliche most of us haven't had that experience where we someone see someone picking up impossible nuggets and go i did that i i think that's amazing there but those are movie theaters now like those are those are good yeah when we got that partnership it was super fun yeah it was really cool they're impressive and what is in there if it's not chicken i know that what is in there yeah so the main protein is uh soy and then we add various um um yeast yeast extracts and glutamates and make it kind of more savory and like mommy tasting and yeah just you know using science to create a new product that will give somebody the same earlier vibe of chicken and then a lot of it is just the scale up to where you get just because i did it on a bench in like my test kitchen like we're talking a lot about like you know millions of chicken nuggets all have to have the same flavor and the same texture i haven't had these they're good they're pretty good you should do a taste test are you are you put them out are you a meat eater yeah i eat meat but for a while i've done stints of veganism and i have like vegan friends and stuff and i like i'll eat impossible nuggets sometimes just because i think they're i play music i play music with these guys in this band and all of them uh to a one they don't touch meat and i'm always wanting to they're always taking me to you know uh some vegan restaurant and saying whatever you want conan and you know it's uh it's it's not my vibe but maybe i can change maybe i can start eating these impossible nuggets yeah they're really good yeah very impressive and we have a uh spicy version as well so there's like the plain impossible nuggets and the spicy ones i personally like the spicy ones myself that's my uh go-to okay um hey jeremy do you have a question for conan yeah so um we were talking about kind of flavor and um products earlier and i know there's a bunch of weird flavors in like potato chips these days you have like maple or bay crab seasoning or whatever it's not just like blue ranch and nacho so in your kind of average day everyday snacking conan what new flavor would you want to have in that product well i open this question i open this question to you too taylor so this won't just be my question i don't want to answer that question how did you all do an improv how did you need more time to answer he goes how about you taylor what kind of chip do you want i'm happy to go for it i'm happy to go for me on the sword try to be inclusive as a host but uh i'm curious to hear your answer too um you know it's funny i know that theoretically i'm supposed to love vinegar flavor but i just don't so you know when people say oh my god these vinegar chips are amazing and my wife likes that flavor my kids like that flavor and i just like i i just doesn't it's tastes off to me so i haven't been able to go with that um i am just such a sucker for any kind of any kind of barbecuey sweetness that has a little honey in it that's my go-to that's my jam in terms of a new flavor that i've never tried before eel oh i've never tried it before i've never tried it before i've never tried it before i've never tried eel i don't like eel but uh i'm interested in trying something that has an eel kind of flavor i love eel and i would love an eel potato chip eel chips that's what i want to see you working on okay yeah it's like some unagi kind of thing okay i like that i can i can do that yeah okay delicious well sir it has been an honor talking to you you're very smart you're very accomplished i like what you're doing you're making people happy and uh so i i salute you and uh i can't wait to see what you come up with next and this is not a plug we're making no money i'm gonna try these impossible nuggets yeah because i haven't had them and i try it because then i can eat with my bandmates finally i think you'll be impressed i really do yeah okay maybe it is an ad now someone call it impossible nuggets i did commercial tell them i want fifteen thousand dollars in a bag um we're fans jeremy we're just fans we're fans jeremy we're fans of your work you're a fan of me i'm a fan of you thank you very much sir take care great thank you you too and make that poison all right conan o'brien needs a fan with conan o'brien sonam of sessian and matt gorley produced by me matt gorley executive produced by adam sacks jeff ross and nick leo incidental music by jimmy vivino take it away jimmy supervising producer aaron blaird associate talent producer jennifer samples associate producers sean doherty and lisa burham engineering by eduardo perez get three free months of sirius xm when you sign up at siriusxm.com slash conan please rate review and subscribe to conan o'brien needs a fan wherever fine podcasts are down