Sweet, Sour, Salty

Have you ever eaten a great meal and wondered what makes it just so great?

In addition to visual, texture and olfactory senses, the most important part of creating great tasting food, falls a lot to how many taste sensors you can stimulate and how they are balanced together. Most of us can recognise a myriad of flavours and identify the ingredients they come from. What really accentuates and makes those different flavours come together comes down to the balance of the most basic taste sensors – sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami.

The most overlooked taste must be umami. It is a relatively new addition to our understanding of taste. While it was previously believed that specific regions of the tongue were responsible for detecting specific tastes (e.g., sweet, sour, salty, bitter in different areas), this idea has been largely debunked.

Just like we learned in school, our tongues are responsible for most of the tasting of these basic and fundamental features of great food. When you add a pinch of salt to your baking or when the amazing sweet and sour stir-fry is “just so moreish”, the addition and balance of these core tastes can elevate your food to the next level.

Always taste your food before serving, even if it’s a cheeky finger in the sauce. The addition of just a squeeze of lemon juice, a crack of the salt grinder, or an extra sweet component like carrots or honey can really make all the difference in bringing a dish together, making it a memorable and tasty experience. Remember, it’s always best to start small and work your way up. You don’t want to overdo an ingredient and spoil a great dish.

The most overlooked taste must be umami. It is a relatively new addition to our understanding of taste. While it was previously believed that specific regions of the tongue were responsible for detecting specific tastes (e.g., sweet, sour, salty, bitter in different areas), this idea has been largely debunked. Taste receptors for all five basic tastes, including umami, are distributed across the entire tongue. However, umami receptors are more densely concentrated at the back of the tongue.

Umami is best described as the meaty taste you get from a number of different ingredients such as parmesan, mushrooms, tomato and, my favourite, soy sauce. Whenever I need to season a dish and really want to bring out the umami and saltiness, I’ll add a splash or two of a good quality soy sauce. If you’re make a braised stew where you are going to reduce the cooking juices, keep in mind that the concentration of salt will increase as the sauce reduces.

So next time you’re making a great home-cooked meal, remember to taste your dish before serving and look for a balance of the most basic, and sometimes overlooked sensors.

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Written for Clean Plate Co. at www.cleanplate.co.za Author © 2023:

Chef Alex Webber