why does browning on food, such as grill marks or roasting, taste so good?
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As a few people have commented, but to dig a little bit deeper – you are describing a very specific type of chemical reaction called “Maillard Reactions” and they are all involved in cooking, but a specific type of cooking.
What they are not – They are not “Enzymatic Browning”, for example an apple being cut and left out turning brown. That’s different.
They are not “all cooking” boiling a stew is not a mallard reaction.
They are specifically what happens when you heat A. Proteins & Amino Acides and B. with sugar, and C. *without water*.
The result in fucking delicious. Browning meat, frying bacon, toasting bread, baking pastries, the creation of caramel, even the color, aroma, and flavor of beer. All Maillard Reactions.
It’s hard to describe what’s happening because it’s a whole family of thousands and thousands of specific chemical reactions, it would be pretty impossible to focus on a single one and analyze it.
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