The SCIENCE of COOKING - Dr.Stuart Farrimond
TASTE & FLAVOUR
How do we TASTE?
Taste is a surprisingly complex process.
A multisensory experience, taste involves aroma, texture, and heat, all combining to create an overall impression.
As you lift food to your lips, before any food actually reaches the tongue, aromas flood the nostrils. Teeth then break down food, releasing more aromas, and the food's texture, or “mouthfeel”, becomes critical to its appreciation. In the mouth, the aroma-carrying particles waft to the back of the oral cavity, up to the smell receptors, but now they are experienced as if coming from the tongue. Sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami, and fatty taste receptors (see the opposite) are stimulated, and a cascade of messages filters to the brain. As you chew, hot food cools, increasing taste intensity: at 30-35 C (86-95F), taste receptors are most active.
SALTY
Salty taste receptors are stimulated by sodium (typically in salt), important for keeping the body's internal salt levels balanced.
SWEET
Primarily triggered by sugars, sweet taste receptors signal that a food a source of easily digested energy.
SOUR
When receptors detect acids in fruits, this suggests a source of vitamin C (ascorbic acid), or acts as a warning that a food is decaying.
BITTER
Bitter taste receptors are triggered by a wide range of potentially harmful natural toxic substances, alerting the body to dangerous food.
FATTY
In the last decade, research has shown that taste receptor cells can sense fat molecules in food, indicating that the food is a rich source of energy.
UMAMI
Umami receptors detect savoury, meaty tastes, stimulated by glutamate from an amino acid, which suggests that a food provides protein.
(MYTH-BUSTER)
-MYTH-
Different tongue regions detect different tastes
-TRUTH-
In 1901, German scientist D.P. Hanig promoted the idea that different tastes were stronger in different parts of the tongue. This research was later used to create a “taste map”. Now, we know that all tastes are sensed across the tongue and difference in sensitivity across the tongue is negligible.
