analyzing taste

It's difficult for a chef to comprehend the physiological side of taste... even though it's been a long stretch of years since the writing of 'The Physiology of Taste' by Brillat Savarin.  We deal with taste everyday yet we really do not understand it.  It would be the same as trying to explain what evokes a feeling when observing a great painting or hearing a great song.  It would be except that it's largely different.  The difference is that a lot of flavor can be explained chemically, while the similarity is that these are like colors and it is the artist's combination of them and arrangement of them that evokes feeling.  As modern-thinking chefs, we cannot help but be fascinated by this logical and scientific side of flavor.

The difficulty in this is that the chef is (the great & vast majority of the time) not a scientist.  It reminds me of a comment in the question & answer section of Alex Stupak's presentation at the ICC.  Someone asked about the scientific approach to modern additives and about needing to truly understand them.  His response was that cooks everywhere use cornstarch everyday, but most of the time cannot explain why or how it works on a molecular level.  A lot of literature on the subject of taste is written for those with a lot more college education in the areas of chemistry, biology, physics, and other various sciences than most chefs.  I emailed Martin Lersch from Khymos about my desire to learn more about this and my dilemma.

To set-up a beginning platform, or starting point, there are a few interesting facts relayed to me by Martin.  These are as follows...

• Although flavor compounds are inherent in all foods and are measureable, another way to gage flavor is by analyzing OAV's (odor activity values).  It is estimated that only 20% of taste comes from flavor molecules, but 80% comes from aromas.  This gives us a direction in which to look.
• There is still a great deal unknown about what makes some flavors jive while others do not.  We can observe flavor molecules and pair foods that share the same ones, but this is not a foolproof system.  This is how a lot of Blumenthal pairings are discovered.  There are database's available that list flavor molecules in foods, but the list is limited to the research done.
• We taste the 4 basic flavors in this order with sweet being the least sensitive and bitter the most.  Sweet - Salty - Sour - Bitter
• There are 10,000 tastebuds on the tongue and they are all replaced every 3 weeks.
• There are from 5 to 10 million receptors for volatile compounds in the nose of about 1000 different types of receptors.
• Some taste combinations are synergistic while others are suppressive.  Khymos has a great chart for referencing these here (scroll down to the green and red chart).
• Umami is delivered mainly through 3 amino acids.  Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Disodium 5'-Inosine Monophosphate (IMP), Disodium 5'-Guanosine Monophosphate (GMP).  All 3 enhance each other.  IMP and GMP enhance sweetness.  All 3 generally enhance salt.
• Salt enhances MSG and natural glutamate in foods.  Therefore salt and glutamate are synergistic.

Of course, this is a very humble beginning.  The real question is what to do with it or how to use it.  I have not really had any sort of epiphanal moment about that yet.  There is much more information either on Khymos or linked to it that deal with other aspects of flavor including volatile aromas, their solubility, and how they are released and lost.  Heat releases aroma, but then it is lost.  Certain flavors and saltiness may be masked when ionically bonded to other molecules.  The science still is young.  In the meantime, I guess the chef must rely on his own tongue and do what he has always done... taste and smell everything.

Comments

[Orges]

You're right: it's very very complicated. All the information you have posted is basically right, but... For example, it is more or less sure that we have five different taste sensation (umami would be the fifth), but some researchers do not agree, and talk about hundreds of different tastes (in a similar way to odour). There are some other perceptions in the mouth which are not really taste, like those you feel with spices or with mint.

And the aroma is even more complex. By the way, as Martin already knows, I'm not enthusiastic about flavour pairing. Is a funny history, but there is not much science (still, perhaps) in it. I have bee analysing volatile compounds from different foodstuffs for more than 15 years, and there is always a high number of compounds common to many different foods. So, the way flavour pairing was explained in some of the videos by Firmenich and Heston was not very consistent. Martin has reviewed this topic more in detail, and perhaps working with OAVs the theory could be more likely. Nevertheless, it should be considered that OAVs change a lot from one lab to another, and also depending on the analytical method used for volatile compound extraction… Ok, I stop here.

AS always, your posts are really interesting. It is great that a chef is so interested in all this stuff. By the way, it is perfectly Ok if you want to post (or whatever) our poster now.

Keep in touch.

[chadzilla]

Ha Ha... I knew you guys would bust me on something. Martin emailed me to clarify that aroma=smell, taste=tongue, flavor=aroma & taste. I cannot argue with Herve This. We are so used to using taste and flavor interchangeably that I will have to conscientiously keep myself in check over it.
The pairings through compounds inherent in foods is completely intriguing to me. I just rewrote our tasting menu to literally embrace the subject of taste utilizing old and new 'perfect' matches of flavor. I even tried chocolate and parmesan for the first time together and was blown away.
Thanks for the input. Jorges and Martin, you guys always keep me pushing to learn on a different level. It's lucky for us chefs that you guys have such an interest in food.