FLAVOR The most important consideration when choosing something to eat is the flavor of the food. Flavor is an attribute of a food that includes its appearance,smell,taste,feel in the mouth,texture,temperature,and even the sounds made when it is chewed. Flavor is a combination of all five senses:taste,smell,touch,sight,and sound. From birth we have the ability and smell. Most of what we call taste is really smell , a fact we realize when a cold hits our nasal passages. Even though the taste buds are working fine,the smell cells are not, and this dulls much of food flavors. Taste comes from 10,000 taste buds – clusters of cells resembling the sections of an orange. Taste buds, found on the tounge, cheeks, throat, and roof of the mouth, house to 60 – 100 receptors each. The body regenerates taste buds about three days.They are most numerous in children under six, which may explain why youngsters are such picky eaters. These cells bind food molecules dissolved in saliva, and alert the brain to interpret them. Although the tounge is often depicted as having regions that specialized in particular taste sensations – for example, the tip is said to detect the sweetness-researches now the taste of the taste buds for each sensations (sweet,salty,sour and bitter) are actually scattered around the tounge.In fact, a single taste bud can have receptors for all types of taste. If you could taste only sweet,salty,sour,and bitter how could you taste theflavor of cinnamon,chicken, or any other food? This is where smell comes in. Your ability to identify the flavors of specific foods requires smell. The ability to detect the strong scent of a fish market,the antiseptic odor of a hospital, the aroma of a ripe melon,and thousands of other smells is possible thanks to a yellowish patch of tissue the size of a quarter high up in your nose.This patch is actually a layer of 12 million specialized cells, each sporting 10 to 20 hairlike growths called cilia that bind with smell and a send a message to the brain.Our sense of smell may not be as refined as that dogs,who have billions of olfactory cells,but we can distinguish among about 10,000 scents. You can smell foods in two ways.If you smell coffee brewing while you are getting dressed you smell it directly through your nose . To some extents,what you smell (or tatse) is genitically determined. All foods have texture, a natural texture granted by Mother Nature.It may be coarse or fine,rough or smooth tender or tough.Whichever the texture it influences whether you like the food. The natural texture of a food may not be the most desirable texture for a finish dish, so a cook may create another texture.For example, a fresh apple may be too crunchy to serve at dinner,so it is baked or sauteed for a softer texture. Or a cream soup may be too thin,so a thickening object use to increase the viscosity of the soup,or simply stated,make it harder to pour. Food appearance or presentation strongly influences which foods you choose to eat. Eye appeal is the purpose of food presentation,wether the food is hot and cold.It is specially important for cold food because they lack the come on of an appetizing aroma.Just the sight of something delicious to eat can start your digestive juices flowing.
Words to Remember:
FLAVOR An attribute of a food that include its appearance,smell,taste feel in the mouth,texture, temperature,and even the sounds made made when it is chewed.
TASTE Sensations perceived by the taste buds on the tounge.
TASTE BUDS Clusters of cells found on the tounge, cheeks,throat,and roof of the mouth. Each taste buds houses 60 to 100 receptor cells. The body regenerates taste buds about every three days.These cells bind food molecules dissolved in saliva and alert the brain to interpret them.
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