Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

By studying the Taiwanese aboriginal people’s diets, many unique native spices could be found in their daily foods. Through these plants, many treasures in Taiwanese aboriginal people’s diet culture could be unearthed, and new food/beverage products with local characteristics could be also developed. However, the strong and unique flavors of some spices also make the developers wonder: “How much can these spices be accepted by the common consumers?” In this study, we tried to apply three Taiwanese aboriginal spices, Zanthoxylum ailanthoides, Toona sinensis, and Lindera cubeba, to the production of jerky which is a specialty food exhibited on the souvenir shelves of many sightseeing spots in Taiwan. Three ratios (0.3%, 0.5%, and 0.7%) of Z. ailanthoides, T. sinensis, and L. cubeba were individually mixed with the pork slices of 0.2 cm thickness. After pickled with salt, dried and baked, the jerky produced was sensory evaluated by 80 respondents with a 9-point hedonic scale. For comparison, a well-sold commercial jerky product was purchased from the market as a reference sample. The results showed that when applied in low ratio (0.3%), the jerky with Z. ailanthoides could be as acceptable as the reference sample. However, when more Z. ailanthoides (0.5% and 0.7%) was used, the overall preference would be lowered. The acceptability of the jerky with T. sinensis and L. cubeba were significantly lower than the reference sample even though these two spices were used in low ratio. More study of recipe modification is necessary for the practical application of these spices.