The International Academy of Tastes
Dear Dr. Orange,
When I was in elementary school we learned about the taste buds on the different parts of the tongue. If I remember right these were sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Recently I heard a story on NPR about another taste called umami that was identified in Japan. I just checked it out and found another possible taste having to do w/ fatty acids. This is really rocking my world! How does a flavor get to be classified as a taste? Is there an International Taste Association? What’s the story? How do food artists like yourself use this palette of flavors to create deliciousness?
Curious in PA
Dear Mrs. PA,
When I was in elementary school, they taught us about the four food groups and recommended getting equal portions each of grain, meat, fruit or vegetable, and dairy: thus the invocation to eat three square meals a day. Things change; you turn around and all of a sudden you’re an old fart eating triangularly and trying to taste six things with a tongue you were told is only good for four, wondering when things stopped being the way they used to (whaddaya mean, Pluto’s not a planet? Did my very educated mother just serve us nothing? apparently.).
Most of what our teachers told us is true: a taste is a unique flavor sensation that can only be sensed with the tongue; there is a limited number of true tastes; most of the flavors we know are a combination of tastes and odors; this is the reason food doesn’t taste as vibrant when you have a cold: your inability to smell inhibits your ability to sense flavor.
Umami is a curious taste: it was first identified in 1908 by Kikunai Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University as part of his investigation into why sea kelp tastes the way it does, but it has only recently achieved fairly widespread awareness among the general population. It is the taste of a glutamate, and occurs naturally in many foods such as milk (of all types), aged cheeses, and mushrooms. It is something we taste quite often, though very few of us could identify the sensation: perhaps because its presence is so subtle. One good description comes from Mary Hufford’s description of her first encounter with a morel, “…the flavor spreading over my palate… was a series of hints…. Intensely but ethereally earthy, it gathered the juices into a taste like no other [...] nutty, light, savory, but ultimately elusive”1. As elusive a taste as umami is, it has the power to gain a foothold on your tongue and demand inclusion in all of your meals.
MSG was created in Japan as a result of Dr. Ikeda’s study into the root cause of taste. It is a simple, synthetic glutamate that activates the umami receptors on your tongue. Though falling out of favor (in part because some people claim an allergic reaction to it), MSG was once a ubiquitous presence in many kitchens; “by 1939, a prominent chef interviewed [in Japan] for the journal Aji (Taste) admitted that using Ajinomoto [brand MSG] had now become a necessity; since people used it in everything at home their taste buds had become so accustomed to the seasoning that they didn’t enjoy dishes without it”2. Kind of like salt or the spice in Dune. So, be careful: recreational use of umami can develop into a much more serious problem.
That fatty acids (which is to say more simply, fat) register with receptors on the tongue is a somewhat easier concept to explain. Chefs have been saying since before I was born, “fat is flavor.” The people who study such things tried explaining it away by saying that fat served as a lubricant, providing mouth-feel and serving as a delivery mechanism for other tastes; but that it did not count as its own taste.
A research team from Purdue University demonstrated otherwise in 2001. By measuring blood fat levels in persons who were able to both taste and smell cream cheese and comparing them to the blood fat levels of persons who were allowed to taste it (but not smell it because they were wearing nose plugs) and those who were allowed to smell it but not taste it, they determined through careful scientific processes requiring lots of expensive equipment and the efforts of a paid laboratory staff that which you could show to yourself by sampling butter while holding your nose: fat has a taste on the tongue.
So, enough on the physiology of taste (you’re getting a whole lot more answer than you bargained for, aren’t you, Rev. PA?): how does this knowledge play out in real life? As mentioned above, some cooks add flavor by pouring on the MSG or (more commonly) adding a bit more salt. I have a running argument with a couple of the guys at work who say I under-salt things; I say they over-salt, and that more NaCl isn’t always the right solution. Truth is, everybody’s salt tolerance is unique and is based on their dining experiences. The more salt you’re accustomed to eating, the more your palate will demand. There are other ways to extract the most flavor possible from your food.
One way to do so is through caramelization. As food reaches that perfect golden-brown, the natural sugars are taking on a more robust hue. So, taking a little extra time or using a little bit better technique to spread the caramelization more evenly through your onions and garlic will add more flavor to the finished dish. if you’re making a tomato sauce that calls for tomato paste, adding the tomato paste to the sauteed vegetables and stirring it constantly to caramelize it before adding the liquid will add that much more oomph to the result. Browning your meat well before you braise it is another example of caramelizing for flavor.
Adding smaller amounts of salt at regular intervals through the process of cooking something will help incorporate the saltiness into the dish at a more integral level. By adding incrementally, you should wind up needing less total salt to achieve the same results. Certain ingredients, such as lemon juice, kelp (umami), or the herb savory activate your tongue and help to enhance flavors without salt or MSG.
And then, there’s always the fat. Different fats have different characteristics. Using butter or cream is a great way to enhance the flavor (likewise goose fat or lard, if you’ve got it). These are robust fats that add more body to what you’re making than their vegan counterparts.
There is no International Academy of Tastes, Señor PA; no one “official ” body to declare that something is or is not. Rather, various efforts by various persons in various fields build evidence until it accumulates in a collective recognition by the public through eventual publicity. Are there more tastes than six? I’d say probably, but I couldn’t tell you what tastes not yet discovered might be. Maybe there’s one that will account for so many people who enjoy listening to Barbra Streisand.
1: Hufford, Mary. “Molly Mooching on Bradley Mountain.” Gastronomica, Spring 2006 (volume 6, issue 2), p. 49.
2: Sand, Jordan. “A Short History of MSG.” Gastronomica, Fall 2005 (volume 5, issue 4), p. 38.