The sense of taste is responsible for the basic tastes: s alty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami. This is made possible by the taste buds, which are located mainly on the tongue, but also on the soft palate and the back wall of the pharynx. What do we know about him and are we sure everything?
Contents:
- The sense of taste - how does it work?
- The sense of taste - taste zones are a myth
- Sense of taste - five flavors
The sense of tasteis responsible for recognizing tastes. We can recognizeflavorsthanks to specialized creations - taste buds ending with stamens. The taste buds have around 50 receptors for each flavor. So each of the taste buds can feel every taste.
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The sense of taste - how does it work?
The cups are located mainly in the papillae of the tongue, but also scattered over the soft palate and the back of the pharynx, for example. The number of cups in an adult human is about 10,000. Some of them are destroyed after 10 days, but new ones appear in their place.
These cups, specialized in the reception of various flavors, form a ring that surrounds a bite of food on all sides. They estimate how much bitterness, sweetness, acidity, s altiness and the fifth tastes in it - discovered in 1908 by the Japanese professor Kikinae Ikeda - umami.
Then this information goes to the brain, which analyzes it - thanks to this, we can enjoy the richness of flavors.
Taste rods coming out of the taste cell perceive stimuli only from substances soluble in water (e.g. in saliva). Solids insoluble in water (e.g. plastic) are tasteless.
A newborn feels all flavors much more intensely than an adult. When we are born, the taste buds thickly cover the entire mouth. But around the age of 10, some of them disappear, and our sense of taste ceases to be so acute.
The taste of food largely depends on the olfactory sensations. A person with no smell and closed eyes is not able to distinguish a mild apple from a mild onion.
Read also: Where does the flavor come from?
The sense of taste - taste zones are a myth
For over 70 years, the perception that they are responsible for the perception of taste has persistedindividual parts of the language. The taste was supposedly sweet with the tip of the tongue, 2 side zones on each side were responsible for the s alty and sour flavors, and the back of the tongue tasted bitter.
This myth has its roots in the poorly edited work "Zur Psychophysik des Geschmackssinnes" by a certain D.P. Hanig from 1901. It was translated and published at Harvard by the psychologist Edwin G. Boring. The text suggested different thresholds for the perception of taste (which is not true anyway), but with inaccurate interpretation, and finally also subjected to abbreviated reports, it distorted into the mythical taste zones of the language.
Ultimately, this view was de alt with by Virginia Collings, who not only read the original German's work, but also checked what this feeling of tastes really is like. It turned out that even if there are differences in the threshold of reaction to tastes, they are minimal and have no meaning in practice.
Sense of taste - five flavors
Over the years, we have also been convinced of the four basic flavors: s alty, sweet, bitter and sour. Meanwhile, there is at least one basic flavor that we perceive. What?
The Japanese scientist started to define it and called it "umami", meaning "delicious, delicious". He isolated a natural amino acid from seaweed - glutamic acid. And because amino acids are the building blocks of protein, the taste is associated with products rich in this ingredient.
The taste of umami is difficult to define and isolate. Adjectives such as "deep", "meat", "bouillon" help in this. This taste is felt in combination with other flavors, as if it balances and strengthens the sensations that reach our taste buds. It also enhances the perception of smell.
In traditional eastern cuisine, we can find many sources of umami flavor, such as soy sauce, mushrooms. long-cooked decoctions or broths. In Western cuisine, umami is found, for example, in meat, meat stocks, fish or cheese (most often in Parmesan).
That's why the combination of tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese or a beef burger with cheese and tomato is so tasty. These dishes contain large amounts of this amino acid, which is the carrier of a "delicious" taste.
Unfortunately, we also managed to produce the synthetic umami flavor: most commonly used flavor enhancers, e.g. monosodium or potassium glutamate, are characterized by it.
Currently, scientists more and more often mention that there are probably also other taste receptors in humans, which are responsible for the perception of fatty and metallic taste. We are waiting for your confirmationthese assumptions.
Read also: Synesthesia, or confusion of the senses
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