The Physiology of Taste by Anthelme Jean Brillat-Savarin Page B
Authors: Anthelme Jean Brillat-Savarin
Ads: Link
not either already dissolved, or easily soluble.
The Tastes
9: The number of tastes is infinite, since every soluble body has a special flavor which does not wholly resemble any other.
Tastes are modified, moreover, by their combinations with one, two, or a dozen others, so that it is impossible to draw up a correct chart, listing them from the most attractive to the most repellent, from the strawberry to the griping bitter apple. Anyone who has ever attempted this has of course failed.
This is not astonishing, for given the fact that there exists an indefinite series of simple tastes which can change according to the number and variety of their combinations, we should need a whole new language to describe all these effects, and mountains of folio foolscap to define them, and unknown numerical characters for their classification.
Up to the present time there is not a single circumstance in which a given taste has been analyzed with stern exactitude, so that we have been forced to depend on a small number of generalizations such as
sweet, sugary, sour, bitter
, and other like ones which express, in the end, no more than the words
agreeable
or
disagreeable
, and are enough to make themselves understood and to indicate, more or less, the taste properties of the sapid body which they describe.
Men who will come after us will know much more than we of this subject; and it cannot be disputed that it is chemistry which will reveal the causes or the basic elements of taste.
Influence of Smell on Taste
10: The pattern which I have set for myself has unwittingly led me to the point where I must concede all due rights to the sense of smell, and must recognize the important services which it renders to us in our appreciation of tastes; for, among the authors whose books I have read, I have found not one who seems to me to have paid it full and complete justice.
For myself, I am not only convinced that there is no full act of tasting without the participation of the sense of smell, but I am also tempted to believe that smell and taste form a single sense, of which the mouth is the laboratory and the nose is the chimney; or, to speak more exactly, of which one serves for the tasting of actual bodies and the other for the savoring of their gases.
This theory can be strikingly supported; however, since I have no desire to set up my own school, I mention it only to give my readers food for thought, and to show that I have studied my subject at first hand. Therefore I shall now continue my exposition of the importance of smell, at least as a necessary aid to taste if not as an integral part of it.
Any sapid body is perforce odorous, which places it in the realm of the sense of smell as well as in that of taste.
A man eats nothing without smelling it more or less consciously, while with unknown foods his nose acts always as the first sentinel, crying out
Who goes there?
When the sense of smell is cut off, taste itself is paralyzed, as can be proved by three experiments which anyone may perform with equal success.
First experiment:
When the nasal membrane is irritated by a violent
coryza
(head cold), taste is completely wiped out: there is absolutely no flavor in anything one swallows, in spite of the fact that the tongue continues to be in its normal state.
Second experiment:
If one eats while pinching shut his nostrils, he is astonished to find his sense of taste imperfect and faint; by this means, the nastiest dosage can be swallowed quite easily.
Third experiment:
The same effect is produced if, at the moment of swallowing, one continues to leave his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth instead of letting it return to itsnatural place; in this case the circulation of air has been stopped, the sense of smell is not aroused, and the act of tasting has not taken place.
These various effects all stem from the same cause, the lack of cooperation of the sense of smell, with the result that a sapid body is appreciated only for
The Tastes
9: The number of tastes is infinite, since every soluble body has a special flavor which does not wholly resemble any other.
Tastes are modified, moreover, by their combinations with one, two, or a dozen others, so that it is impossible to draw up a correct chart, listing them from the most attractive to the most repellent, from the strawberry to the griping bitter apple. Anyone who has ever attempted this has of course failed.
This is not astonishing, for given the fact that there exists an indefinite series of simple tastes which can change according to the number and variety of their combinations, we should need a whole new language to describe all these effects, and mountains of folio foolscap to define them, and unknown numerical characters for their classification.
Up to the present time there is not a single circumstance in which a given taste has been analyzed with stern exactitude, so that we have been forced to depend on a small number of generalizations such as
sweet, sugary, sour, bitter
, and other like ones which express, in the end, no more than the words
agreeable
or
disagreeable
, and are enough to make themselves understood and to indicate, more or less, the taste properties of the sapid body which they describe.
Men who will come after us will know much more than we of this subject; and it cannot be disputed that it is chemistry which will reveal the causes or the basic elements of taste.
Influence of Smell on Taste
10: The pattern which I have set for myself has unwittingly led me to the point where I must concede all due rights to the sense of smell, and must recognize the important services which it renders to us in our appreciation of tastes; for, among the authors whose books I have read, I have found not one who seems to me to have paid it full and complete justice.
For myself, I am not only convinced that there is no full act of tasting without the participation of the sense of smell, but I am also tempted to believe that smell and taste form a single sense, of which the mouth is the laboratory and the nose is the chimney; or, to speak more exactly, of which one serves for the tasting of actual bodies and the other for the savoring of their gases.
This theory can be strikingly supported; however, since I have no desire to set up my own school, I mention it only to give my readers food for thought, and to show that I have studied my subject at first hand. Therefore I shall now continue my exposition of the importance of smell, at least as a necessary aid to taste if not as an integral part of it.
Any sapid body is perforce odorous, which places it in the realm of the sense of smell as well as in that of taste.
A man eats nothing without smelling it more or less consciously, while with unknown foods his nose acts always as the first sentinel, crying out
Who goes there?
When the sense of smell is cut off, taste itself is paralyzed, as can be proved by three experiments which anyone may perform with equal success.
First experiment:
When the nasal membrane is irritated by a violent
coryza
(head cold), taste is completely wiped out: there is absolutely no flavor in anything one swallows, in spite of the fact that the tongue continues to be in its normal state.
Second experiment:
If one eats while pinching shut his nostrils, he is astonished to find his sense of taste imperfect and faint; by this means, the nastiest dosage can be swallowed quite easily.
Third experiment:
The same effect is produced if, at the moment of swallowing, one continues to leave his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth instead of letting it return to itsnatural place; in this case the circulation of air has been stopped, the sense of smell is not aroused, and the act of tasting has not taken place.
These various effects all stem from the same cause, the lack of cooperation of the sense of smell, with the result that a sapid body is appreciated only for
Similar Books
