How do Italian and Korean consumers perceive the same food? The case of Perilla frutescens

Perilla frutescens is a plant widely used for therapeutic as well as food purposes in Asian countries, especially in Japan and Korea. It contains several components (mainly perillaldehyde and perillaketone) which significantly influence its sensory quality and pharmacological activities. Perilla leaves are strongly aromatic with a mint-like flavour and therefore suitable for food preparations. In many Asian countries, the leaves are used as spice, cooked as postherbs or fried and combined with fish, rice, vegetables and soups. Despite its interesting properties, this plant is completely unknown in European countries. Since Perilla might be suitable for Italian food preparation, in the present experiment we decided to assess how this product, which is familiar and accepted in the Korean culture, is perceived and appreciated by Italian consumers. To this purpose, 77 Italian (30 males and 47 females, age: 22-61) and 31 Korean consumers (16 males and 15 females, age: 20-62) were recruited and invited to take part in two different tests. During the first test, the Napping® procedure was applied to compare Italian’s and Korean’s olfactory ability to discriminate Perilla essential oils from other essential oils which were previously (Laureati et al., 2010) identified as describing the Perilla odor (anise, fennel, almond, mint, cumin, grass). Results evidenced that both groups were able to discriminate the Perilla samples from the other odors but Italian consumers tended to associate Perilla oils to cumin and grassy odors, whereas for Korean subjects the Perilla odor was specific and not related to other odors. In the second test, in order to evaluate how this plant is appreciated when added as ingredient to a food formulation, 3 soft-drinks obtained by the infusion of different Perilla cultivars were produced and evaluated by the two groups of subjects along with other similar, commercial soft-drinks. Results evidenced that both Italian and Korean consumers preferred the commercial soft-drinks, whereas Perilla samples received low hedonic ratings. However, Korean consumers gave hedonic scores which were significantly higher than those of Italian consumers for Perilla soft-drink, thus suggesting that familiarity with the product play a role in food appreciation.