Volantino

Umami is a taste discovered in Japan, which can be translated as “savoury”, mainly characteristic of protein foods, such as cheeses and meat broth, but also mushrooms, etc. IF YOU ARE CURIOUS We all think that the mouth is the undisputed queen of any experience related to taste. Warning: not everything is as simple as it seems! • To better understand what happens, it is necessary to separate what happens in the mouth from what happens in the nasal cavity during tasting: • The mouth , or oral cavity, is responsible for only 30% of the overall flavour of a food. Thanks to the taste buds we are able to perceive the five tastes: salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami. Thanks to the presence of particular chemical receptors, the mouth allows us to also perceive other sensations such as spiciness, temperature, consistency, oiliness and everything else that comes to mind. SENSORY GAME: EXPERIMENTING WITH AROMA This, although it seems like a lot, is not enough to consider tasting as complete. • The fundamental contributor is in fact the nasal cavity and its interaction with all those aromatic compounds mentioned above. These molecules are responsible for 70% of the overall flavour of a food and are perceived in the nasal cavity, not in the mouth! TASTE MOLECULES UMAMI SWEET SOUR BITTER SALTY SPICY COLD HOT SHARP OILY TASTE SENSATIONS: TACTILE AND THERMAL SENSATIONS: