We have all experienced this before, walking into a home or restaurant and instantly feeling hungry when the smell of delicious food wafts our way, whether it was onions and garlic, bacon, coffee or roasted meats. We have all experienced this sensation at one time or another. The funny thing is in this instance we are not seeing or tasting anything but the environmental cues, specifically smell in this case, tell us that something good must be cooking and we are hungry.
You see as complex as we think some foods and flavors are it all comes down to taste. As humans, our mouths can actually only identify five primary taste sensations: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami*. Now, taste in general can be easily confused with flavor. But these are two very different things and they each play a significant role in how we perceive food.
These tastes, along with texture, temperature, irritation, sight, sound and smell produce the perception of flavor. Surprisingly, flavors are recognized mainly through our sense of smell, not taste. For example, let’s say you have two red jelly beans, one cherry flavored and one strawberry flavored. If you hold your nose and eat one of them, you would be able to distinguish the sweet taste of sugar, but not able to pick up on the flavor unless you stopped holding your nose. We need to experience the aroma to help recognize the familiar flavor of cherry or strawberry. When the nose and mouth work together, the combined aroma with the five basic tastes allows us to enjoy thousands of flavors.
So what does all this have to do with cooking? It’s simple. If a certain food does not taste good, you can alter the five primary tastes so that it goes from undesirable to mouthwatering. For example, if a piece of meat is bland, it may lack salt. If a soup is dull, it may need just a touch of sour lemon juice. You can make any food delicious when you know how to control the tastes and perceived flavors. Each additional ingredient or seasoning and the chosen cooking method change how a food will taste. When you taste each step of the way, you begin to know what the subtle changes will do and how to control them for the best desired results.
Learn to trust your tastes and know that others’ tastes may be different than yours, and that’s ok. The next time you taste something good try to identify where that taste comes from, is it sweet, sour, bitter, salty, or umami. Make a note of this and try adding these type of flavorings as you cook and experiment at home. Once you know the basics of taste and controlling them with seasonings your cooking ability and flavor profiles begin to expand easily. Delicious food is more than just how it tastes, but how the senses perceive it.
Want to learn more about how to incorporate this into your everyday cooking? Contact me about classes or a private V.I.P day to work on your specific interests.