抄録
Texture of material for imitation crab leg was characterized by creep/recovery behavior, and the relationship between sensory response and rheological property was discussed psycho-rheologically. The creep/recovery measurements were carried out on compression type parallel-plate viscoelastometer. The constant stress was applied for 300s to determine the creep, and the stress was removed to determine the recovery for additional 300s. The creep data were fitted to creep equation by regression analysis, and the theoretical recovery curve was predicted from the creep response. The requisites to material for imitation crab leg were great jelly strength in plunger penetrafion test and large strain in creep measurement. Material for imitation crab leg (high grade) exhibited small Young's modulus of Hookean body, small Young's moduli of Voigt body, and small viscosities of Voigt body. It also exhibited medium (moderate) retardation times and moderately large viscosity of Newtonian body. Since the strain was extremely large in creep behavior, perfect creep recovery was not observed due to the slight destruction of network struc-ture. In sensory evaluation, the requisites to material for imitation crab leg were large sense intensity of jelly strength and high degree of softness. There was reasonable agreement between sensory evaluation result and instrumental/rheological data.
