96 Abstracts

Influence of product, consumer group and presentation order on the hedonic assessment of steaks S. Rousset,a P. Schlich,b J. F. Martin,” A. L. Cadic” and C. Touraille” “INCA, Station de Recherches sur la Viande, Theix, 63 122 Saint Genes Champanelle, France bINRA, Station de Recherches sur les Ar&nes, 17 rue Sully 21034 Drjon Cedex, France

The aim is to specify the significance level of pro- duct, order of presentation and consumer group effect and order-product interaction on the tex- ture, taste and overall acceptability scores using a split plot design. Raw data of acceptability show that all products achieve all the scores between 10 and 90. That means that consumer effect is very strong. So it is necessary to subtract this effect from the total variance to analyse product and order effect. Variance analysis shows a significant effect of product and an even more important effect of order of presentation. The last position in the steak tasting is more favourable to higher ratings for hedonic assessment.

Sensory properties of fermented oat bran H. Salovaara, C. Sommardahl, A. Nieminen and H. Tuorila Department of Food Technology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

This experiment is part of a product development project in which the utilisation of oat bran in a novel snack product is investigated. The new pro- duct can be described as a yoghurt-like fermented oat bran, or fermented oat bran muesli. Chilled samples (15”C), either unflavoured or flavoured with a combination of sucrose (6%) and homo- genised blueberries (2.5-3.5%)) were presented to a sensory panel. Flavoured products were pre- sented to a consumer panel (n = 41) for pleasant- ness ratings. The samples with high dry matter (15 and 17%) were smooth by appearance, thick and grainy by mouthfeel and had a strong cereal-like flavour, whereas those with low dry matter (6 and 8%) were glossy by appearance and watery by mouth-feel. Added sucrose and blueberries re- duced perceived sourness. The consumer panel preferred the flavoured high dry matter alterna- tives.

The development of a language to describe the sensory properties of fresh strawberries Katherine Sanford, Andrew R. Jamieson Agriculture Canada, Research Centre, Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, B4N lJ5 and Elizabeth M. Johnston School of Nutrition and Food Science, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada

The need to improve the sensory analysis of culti- vars in plant breeding programs stimulated the development of a standard system to describe and quantify the sensory properties of fresh straw- berries. Panellists selected 28 terms to describe the sensory attributes of strawberries. The lo- member trained panel tested the effectiveness of the profile for quantifying differences among 12 cultivars harvested twice in each of two seasons. This comprehensive description provides the plant breeder and grower with the data to select new cultivars for different markets. A database for relating sensory perceptions to instrumental and consumer measurements is also established.

Contextual effects in taste mixture perception Hendrik N. J. Schifferstein and Jan E. R. Frijters Department ofFood Science, Agricultural University, Bomenweg 2, 6703 HD Wageningen, The Netherlands

The stimulus frequency distribution affects inten- sity ratings for unmixed tastants. To investigate if experimental context differentially affects responses to mixed and unmixed stimuli, three experiments were conducted. Bitterness ratings for quinine HCl/NaCl mixtures were somewhat less affected by context than ratings for unmixed quinine. Sweetness ratings for fructose/citric acid mix- tures, however, were sometimes more affected than ratings for unmixed fructose. The taste quali- ties in the stimulus set apparently affect the dif- ferential context effect. The number of mixtures in the stimulus set affects the degree of mixture suppression. A response variability analysis sug- gests different types of processing for mixed and unmixed stimuli.