Official Flavor Criticisms of Dairy Products Judged in the National Contest

Abstract

Summary A study of the official flavor criticisms of butter, cheese, milk, and ice cream samples used in the Students' National Contest in the Judging of Dairy Products during the period 1927 to 1938, inclusive, shows that relatively few flavor criticisms are used by the official judges, despite the relatively high percentage of samples criticized in that respect. Predominating flavor criticisms of butter were old cream, neutralizer, unclean, coarse, burnt and acidy; of cheese , unclean, bitter and acidy; of milk , feed, cooked and unclean; and of ice cream , old ingredient, unnatural and lacks fine flavor. With the possible exception of milk, two or more criticisms were used to describe the flavor of the lower scoring samples. The result of this study and analysis of trends in official flavor judgments is in no way intended as a guide to future scoring, but merely to classify and make available the flavor criticisms for those who may not have access to the official scoring records. Inasmuch as the samples used were selected in many cases for a specific flavor, the percentages distribution reported herein may not necessarily apply to commercial products as a whole. However, the flavor criticisms encountered in these studies appear to be representative of those encountered in the commercial products throughout the country.