Food Science: What Makes Flavor?

Why is it when you walk into the house and food is cooking your mouth starts to water and your stomach grumbles? Or when you have a cold why does food taste so bland and boring? How come there are so many different flavors of foods but only 5 senses of taste?

Well, it turns out that smell and taste senses are very interconnected by the involuntary nervous system. When you smell food your body starts to produce saliva and stomach acid to prepare for breaking down the foods, because the involuntary nervous system recognizes the smells and starts preparing.

There are many emotions that are also connected to the flavor of foods because of this connection to the involuntary nervous system. Through adaptation humans began to associate different smells and tastes with poison or spoiled foods. I bet anyone who has ever tasted sour milk will never forget the smell of it. As we adapted away from purely survival mode the emotional connection to taste and smell remained and evolved to remind us of good or bad memories when eating types of foods. For example eating watermelon may remind you of a time you went to a cook-out with a big group of friends and had the best day, even though a big rain storm rolled through right after everyone finished eating. The memories associated with a flavor are often very specific because so many senses are involved, which is why a random food you haven't eaten in 12 years can create a recollection of a vivid and distant memory, even if you can't remember where you set your water bottle down 5 minutes ago.

Smell plays such a large role in the flavor of food because every smell is a combination of tiny molecules or particles that are sensed by your nose. Have you ever made the connection between food and something that isn't food? For example you may say something tastes like fresh cut grass or crayons. Most people haven't really eaten grass clippings or crayons, but molecules present in food and non-living items can be similar. The smell memory of one item can remind you of the taste of a food.

Smell is much more sensitive than taste so it can add more dimension to a flavor, more than just sweet, sour, bitter, salty or savory (umami). However, smell does not provide the same satisfaction as taste does. It really does take the combination of smell, taste, texture, and temperature to create the most flavorful experience with food.

It is believed that flavors can vary from person to person because the molecules are sensed by the tongue or nose and then processed by the brain which incorporates memories, experiences, and other individualized factors.

Next time you're cooking think about how the smell, taste, texture, temperatures, and colors can all come together to create the most flavorful experience!