Sound: Apple crispness, crunchiness

“Sound generated during eating of apples plays important role in its texture evaluation by consumers.”

A finding which has recently been backed up a Polish research team at the Institute of Agrophysics, Lublin, working in conjunction with the Research Institute of Pomology and Floriculture, at Skierniewice. The investigators employed recently developed Contact Acoustic Emission (AE) techniques to measure the sounds made as crunchy (and not-so-crunchy) apples were perforated. The instrumental measurements were then compared with the results of sensory evaluation by panelists. And the comparisons were favourable.
“Contact AE can be considered as a useful method for the evaluation of sound properties of wet-crisp foods.” the team conclude in their report Crispness and crunchiness judgment of apples based on contact acoustic emission. which can be found in the Journal of Texture Studies Volume 41 Issue 1, Pages 75 – 91, 22 Jan 2010.
The new paper backs-up previous AE/apple research from the lead author Dr. Artur Zdunek in which three varieties of apple (Elstar, Gloster and Jonagold) were tested via AE.

“Especially high correlation coefficients between attributes related to cracking processes (like juiciness and mealiness) and sound loudness detected by panelists (like crispness and crunchiness) were found. The moist [sic ?] important attributed [sic] for overall texture evaluation was juiciness, crispness and crunchiness.”

It’s hoped that in the future the AE technique may be extendable and applicable for evaluation of other (as yet unspecified) wet-crisp foods.