Basic tastes/Talk

I'm not trying to be facetious, but what about celery? That's a taste that seems completely unique to me. And so I guess one couldn't argue that it's a factor in other tastes, but now I'm curious as to what it is about celery that makes it taste the way it does.

My understanding is that only the basic tastes are sensed with the taste buds. Other tastes are really smells. I'm no chemist, but I remember reading somewhere that some smells (like chocolate) are associated with a single chemical, while others (like strawberry) are quite complicated. -- Janet Davis

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What we colloquially call the "taste" of a food is indeed a very complex mixture of taste, smell, and texture. With smell supressed, one generally can't tell the difference between an apple and a pear, for example. I don't know what it is about celery that you find unique, but you could do an experiment: find something that will puree to a similar texture (like lettuce ribs or jicama), and adjust the puree to have the same sugar content, acidity, and salt content as an equal amount of celery. (Celery should not jave significant glutamates or alkaloids, but I suppose you could adjust with MSG and parsley too). Clip your nose shut, close your eyes, and have someone randomly select one of the purees for you to taste and see if you can tell the difference. These are the kinds of experiments that led to what we now know about taste. --LDC