Just flicked through Heston Blumenthal’s cookbook ‘Further Pursuits in the search of Perfection’ (he is a celebrity chef who runs The Fat Duck). In it he uses an MRI machine to measure the pleasure generated by a good chilli.
“Heston took one of his chefs for an MRI scan to discover the effect that feeding him chilli oil nine times stronger than any natural chilli has!”
I love all the science experiments he conducts in the name of finding the perfect recipe but I hadn’t heard about this one!
There’s a link to some of this food-science experiments on the BBC site at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/tv_and_radio/perfection/experimental_kitchen_index.shtml