Have You Tasted Lately?

The taste buds on our tongue and palate can perceive the five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory. These five basic tastes are meaningful from our evolution history and they are the markers for things that helped us survived.

As we talked about in the posting Dessert Disaster and Food Brain, sugar is a marker for ripeness in fruits and vegetables, which did not come very often in prehistorical age. When our smart prehistorical ancestors encountered a bush of ripe berries, they topped out their carb tanks to provide the energy for the existence, and thus had the chance to pass on the genes with the predisposition to sugar.

Saltiness is a marker for sodium, minerals, and micronutrients that we need to regulate our fluid balance and body functions.

Sourness is a marker for under-ripeness or even spoilage. It is to alert us to think twice before eating that further. Without that, we might eat too much of unripe fruits and get sick or a stomachache.

Bitterness is a marker for alkaloids in a plant-based diet, which are often poisonous. It is a warning that it is risky to put that in our mouth again, as it might kill us.

Savoriness, or called Umami in Japanese (a trendy term used by chefs), is the flavor of protein that has begun to break down through enzyme activity or through long cooking process. Savory flavors can be found in soy sauce (brewed and fermented with enzyme), cured meats (fermented), aged cheese, miso (Japanese fermented bean paste), and broth or stock (cooking fish or livestock bones for a long period of time).

Enter flavor.

Isn't it the same thing? Not quite. Be right back ...