6 Things You Need to Know About Taste

How many times have you painstakingly followed each detail of a printed recipe only to be disappointed in the overall taste of the dish? I’m aware that this happens fairly often to my friends and family as I am typically the recipient of many a “how do I make this taste good” panic phone call. You see in order to create culinary art, a recipe should be a guideline, not a rule.

There are so many changeable factors that can alter a dish’s flavor drastically that need to be accounted for. Some of these include; seasonality, altitude, age of ingredients, brand differentiation, and more. A cook, needs to be able to adjust a recipe by taste in order to really consistently shine in the kitchen. In football terms you can compare it to calling an audible right before a play that’s about to go wrong. Be the quarterback of your own kitchen!

To develop your sense of taste you must learn to identify the 6 Flavor Profiles

Use your tongue to perfect recipes

and the ingredients that can add or even remove those flavors from a dish.

1)Sweet: You all know what sweet is. Sweet is the most loved of all flavor profiles. You typically call people you love; sweety or sweets, sugar or honey indicating an affection for sweetness. Generally, you don’t call someone you love bitter or sour or even salty and mean it in any sort of endearing way.  I am fairly certain I haven’t been called Umami, although savory could become the new “babycakes” if played correctly. Spicy however, is in a category all it’s own but we’ll get to that.

2)Salty: Salt is a necessary component to almost any dish. I know there are people out there who need to eliminate sodium from their diet, and for them that is rather unfortunate because salt truly brings out the aroma and flavor of most everything. However the use of too much salt can completely overpower a dish and make the experience unpleasant. You know, salty……..like a coarse and overly macho sailor!

3)Bitter: The term bitter has many negative connotations. “A bitter pill”,  “A bitter woman”, “Dandelion Greens”… In the US, the bitter flavor profile isn’t all that popular, but prepared correctly bitter foods such as Arugula, Endive and Broccoli Rabe can be some of the most delicious side dishes I know of.

4)Sour: The sour flavor is only tasty for most people in extreme moderation, and when balanced well with other flavors. Have you ever eaten a WarHead candy? It’s actually a physically painful thing to do.  You can see by looking at the term SourPuss, that an overabundance of sour is  negative.  Sour candies only taste good when balanced with an obscene amount of sugar. When cooking, rather than the term sour, I prefer to detect and balance acidity levels instead of thinking of it as sour. It’s sort of like adjusting the PH in a pool, but yummy!
5) Spicy Some people may argue with me about spicy being a flavor profile. However for purposes of learning how to be an RCOM master, I suggest you see it as a necessary component for battle. Learning the heat indexes of different foods is important when using herbs and spices to add flavor to your dishes.

6)Savory/Umami: Only recently has umami been characterized as a flavor profile by “experts.” Good cooks know that mastering mouth feel and the ability for food to leave a lingering taste in your mouth is important to perfecting and balancing recipes. Not adjusting a recipe for mouth feel or umami is just well……..unsavory!

Next Stranger than Kitchen Post will be on Flavor Profile #1

Ain’t that sweet?  Saweet! 😉