We all recognize the immense disappointment of expecting food to be amazing, only to find it actually tastes terrible. I also experienced this after preparing burritos and truly believing that it was the best dish that I had ever made. In reality the burritos were some of the most disgusting things I had ever cooked and made me question all of my cooking abilities. This fiasco inserted a question into my brain: What makes something taste good? Furthermore, is the explanation for taste in the context of food comparable to the origins of taste in the realm of art?
The sense of taste is perceived by our mouth as well as our nose. In the mouth, enzymes break down the food, resulting in small digestible parts. These parts are then analyzed by small bumps called papillae. Through this analysis, the sense of taste is created. Mostly located in the tongue, but also present in the roof of the mouth and in the throat, these papillae analyze the food by chemical receptors sensitive to the five kinds of taste: sweet, sour, bitter, salt and umami. Air from food also flows from the back of the mouth towards the nose. This aroma and the taste composition, analyzed by the papillae create the feeling of taste that we perceive when eating. The contribution of the nose here should not be overlooked. The nose’s importance is made clear when you have a cold: the nose cannot receive the air deriving from the food and therefore will taste dull. There are also taste receptors in other parts of the body, like the intestines.
The sense of taste is nowadays often associated with preferences but in the past it was crucial to survival. Taste was a good indicator if something was safe to eat and if it was nutritious and therefore essential for a healthy existence. Although this indicator was not always accurate (in the case of sweet poisonous berries for instance), it still was fairly reliable and helped humans to meet their dietary needs. Sweetness is a flavor that humans are instinctively drawn towards. Sugar is inseparable with calories, something that was scarce in the past and therefore it was heavily sought after. This essential obsession with sugar and sweetness stemming from the past continues to dictate our current dietary preferences. The feeling that we get from a sour taste is not as clear cut as the positive reaction towards sweetness. Sour in the context of fruits indicates the presence of Vitamin C, while a sour taste in other foods often means that the food is unripe, poisonous or spoiled. In the same way, bitterness is also reminiscent of food that is not safe to eat. This is why taste receptors in the back of the throat and intestines can trigger gagging and vomiting as a reaction to bitterness. The last two flavors, salt and umami, are similar to sweetness in the sense that both tastes mostly have a positive connotation. Saltiness indicated an abundance of minerals like sodium and magnesium, important to human health. Umami flavors derive from amino acids. Amino acids are molecules that combine to form protein. Protein is essential to a healthy diet, thus explaining the positive association with umami flavors. The feelings that certain tastes evoke are rooted in the surviving qualities from foods that process these flavors.
It is important to note that the amount of papillae that someone has is different from person to person. This difference in papillae results in some people being extra sensitive to flavors, supertasters, and some people to be more numb to flavors, subtasters. Not only the amount of papillae but also the sensitivity of the individual taste buds can result in a different discrete tasting experience: The taste buds of some people are more sensitive to bitterness. This ambiguous amount and make-up of the tastebuds result in a non-uniform tasting experience of food. Is this culinary kind of taste, derived from survival instinct, comparable to a seemingly more abstract kind of taste in the context of art?
Just like in the case with food, deciding what makes ‘good’ art can be a hard thing to establish. There are, however, several factors that generally result in a piece of art being perceived as successful. One thing that is often expected from a work is the ability to evoke emotion. We want to feel something, whether it is sadness, joy or something in between and we appreciate artworks that can make us feel these emotions. Storytelling is another aspect of art that people tend to appreciate. It could also be part of a story that is displayed in a work. Examples of this are scenes from biblical stories like David and Goliath, or Adam and Eve. Telling stories can of course be used to provoke emotion. Context is another contributor to good art: usually, art displayed in museums is thought of in a higher regard than art on the street. Lastly, studies found that we tend to be more fond of artworks depicting aspects from our own economic milieu. Rich people are more likely to be drawn to art showing a rich lifestyle, and poorer people are more attracted to work portraying the struggles of their economic situation.
At first glance, this explanation for taste in the field of art seems worlds apart from the reason for taste in food. But when we investigate, there are similarities to be found. We tend to contribute the term ‘good art’ to works of art that are similar to ones that we are already fond of. These similarities could be aesthetic similarities, like style. But also the earlier mentioned factors that decide what makes good art. These factors (provocation, storytelling, context, class) are all things present in other works that we want to see in art. This does not mean that we want artworks to be boring and uninspiring. We just want to be able to grab onto some elements that we are familiar with. Whether it is a familiar emotion, story, context or lifestyle. In a similar way, we are programmed to like food based on our pre-established notions of flavors. These notions came from a more radical need than the need for good art: The need for survival. This need is however still based on the things that we already know. It is based on gathered information on flavors overtime and this information is used to judge the taste of food.
Taste is a concept that may seem hard to grasp. It is nevertheless based on deeply rooted notions and beliefs. Culinary taste stems from survival instinct. Our natural attraction towards sweetness, umami and saltness, our aversion towards bitterness and our mixed feelings towards sourness all arose from a need to survive. These tastes announced the presence of either beneficial or detrimental food components. Artistic taste on the other hand is rooted in elements of art that we are already familiar with, like provocation and storytelling. The earlier mentioned burrito disaster made me aware of the strange complexion of taste, both in the context of food and art. To answer the question brought up in the introduction: Is taste in the context of food comparable to the origins of taste in the context of art? Yes, it is. Both kinds of Taste are rooted in preconceptions about flavors and art respectively and are therefore more alike than one may suspect at first.
