Reference point
Cook granulated sugar to a deep amber, turn off the heat and smell the rising steam at once.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Burnt-sweet, slightly sour, with a buttery note. It is full and warm, with nothing cold about it.
Take it a little too far and smoke and bitterness appear, and at that point the smell has left the gourmand family for the smoky and mineral family. Very few smells let you watch a change of family happen before your eyes within thirty seconds.
That is also why Vietnamese braised dishes demand skill: the line between good caramel sauce and burnt caramel sauce is so narrow it is measured in seconds, and cooks judge it by nose, not by the clock.
How to smell it
Put two spoonfuls of sugar in a dry pan over medium heat. Smell continuously throughout: when the sugar first melts, when it turns golden, when it reaches deep amber, and when it starts to smoke. Write one word at each stage. It is the best exercise in the whole dictionary for understanding that a smell is a process.
Why this one is hard
Because you have to smell while your hands are busy and your eyes are on the pan. Do it twice: the first time only to cook, the second time only to smell, accepting that you will burn a pan of sugar.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Caramel
Gourmand family
Caramel is pure caramelisation — only sugar and heat. Cane molasses keeps the minerals and organic acids of the cane juice, so it has a sour, earthy note that caramel lacks.
Scientific note
Caramelisation is a reaction of sugar alone under heat, unlike the Maillard reaction, which needs both sugars and amino acids. Caramel goes through several stages: first furanones form, giving the burnt-sweet part, then the molecules keep breaking down into smoky and bitter compounds. The line between the two stages is so narrow it is measured in seconds.
In Vietnamese life
Nước hàng, nước màu, kẹo đắng — the same thing under three regional names. The difference in names reflects the different degrees of caramelisation each region prefers, and so reflects three slightly different smells.