Definition of Taste
Taste is the sense which puts us in contact with savorous or sapid bodies, by means of the sensation which they cause in the organ destined to appreciate them.
This sense, which can be excited by appetite, hunger, and thirst, is the basis for several operations which result in a man’s growth and development, in his self-preservation, and in the general repairs to his body of the losses caused by elimination and evaporation.
All organized species of existence do not nourish themselves in the same way; the Creator, as varied in his methods as he is sure in his results, has given to each form of life a different way of conserving itself.
Plants, at the bottom of the scale, feed themselves through their roots, which, embedded in the earth, choose by means of their own peculiar mechanism the various substances which will make them grow and flourish.
A little higher up the scale we find those creatures which, although they are blessed with animal life, are still deprived of the power of moving about. They are born into surroundings which favor their existence, and from which their special organs extract whatever they need to last their apportioned spans of life. They do not look for their nourishment, but rather it seeks them out.
Another way has been arranged for the creatures who roam the world, of whom man is without doubt the most highly developed. An instinct peculiar to him warns him when he must eat; he looks for food; he seizes whatever he suspects will satisfy him; then he eats, feels strong again, and goes on through his whole life in this pattern which has been set.
Taste can be considered under three different headings: In physical man it is the apparatus by which he distinguishes various flavors.
In moral man it is the sensation which stimulates that organ in the center of his feeling which is influenced by any savorous body.
Lastly, in its own material significance, taste is the property possessed by any given substance which can influence the organ and give birth to sensation.
Taste seems to possess two main functions.
(1) It invites us, by arousing our pleasure, to repair the constant losses which we suffer through our physical existence.
(2) It helps us to choose from the variety of substances which Nature presents to us those which are best adapted to nourish us.
In this choice, taste is greatly helped by the sense of smell, as we shall see later; it can be established as a general maxim that nourishing things are not repulsive to either sense.
The Operation of Taste
It is not easy to determine precisely what parts make up the organ of taste. It is more complicated than it seems.
Certainly, the tongue plays an important role in the mechanics of tasting: endowed as it is with a fairly powerful muscular force, it helps to moisten, mash, churn about, and swallow the food.
Moreover, by means of the varying numbers of papillae which protude like tiny buds from its surface, it saturates itself with the tasteful and soluble particles of whatever body it is in contact with; this, however, is not enough, and several other adjacent parts of the mouth work together to complete the sensation: the insides of the cheeks, the roof of the mouth, and above all the nasal channel, upon whose importance the physiologists have perhaps not insisted strongly enough.
The inside cheeks furnish saliva, which is equally necessary to the act of chewing and to making the food of such a consistency as can be swallowed; they are, like the palate or roof of the mouth, gifted with their share of enjoyment, and I do not even know whether, in certain cases, the gums themselves may not share somewhat in this appreciation; while without that final savoring which takes place at the back of the tongue, the whole sensation of taste would be obscure and quite incomplete.
Anyone who has been born without a tongue, or whose tongue has been cut out, still has a moderately strong sense of taste. The first instance can often be found in literature; the second has been fairly well described to me by a poor devil whose tongue had been amputated by the Algerians, to punish him for having plotted with one of his fellow prisoners to break out and flee.
This man, whom I met in Amsterdam, where he made his living by running errands, had had some education, and it was easy to communicate with him by writing.
After I had observed that the forepart of his tongue had been cut off clear to the ligament, I asked him if he still found any flavor in what he ate, and if his sense of taste had survived the cruelty to which he had been subjected.
He replied that what tired him most was to swallow (which he could not do without some difficulty); that he still possessed the ability to taste fairly well; that he could tell, with other more normal men, what was pleasant or unappetizing; but that very sour or bitter things caused him unbearable pain.
He also told me that the amputation of tongues was common in African kingdoms, that it was performed especially on men believed to be the ringleaders in any plots, and that there were appropriate instruments for it. I should have liked him to describe the operation to me, but he showed at this point such misery and revulsion that I did not insist on it.
I thought about what he had told me; and turning back to the days of ignorance when we used to pierce and cut out the tongues of religious blasphemers, and to the period in history when such laws were made, I felt that I was right in concluding that they were of African origin, brought back to Europe by the Crusaders.
I have already stated that the sense of taste resides mainly in the papillae of the tongue. Now the study of anatomy teaches us that all tongues are not equally endowed with these taste buds, so that some may possess even three times as many of them as others. This circumstance explains why, of two diners seated at the same feast, one is delightfully affected by it, while the other seems almost to force himself to eat: the latter has a tongue but thinly provided with papillae, which proves that the empire of taste may also have its blind and its deaf subjects.
The Sensation of Taste
Five or six opinions have been broached by now on the way in which the sensation of taste functions; I have my own personal one, and here it is:
This sensation is a chemical operation which is accomplished, as we have already remarked, by moisture. That is to say, the sapid molecules must be dissolved in no matter what kind of fluid, so that they may then be absorbed by the sensitive projections, buds, or suckers which line the interior of the apparatus for tasting.
This theory, whether new or not, is supported by physical and almost palpable proofs.
Pure water awakens no sensation of taste, because it contains no sapid bodies. But dissolve a pinch of salt in it, or add a few drops of vinegar, and the sensation will occur.
Other drinks, however, impress our taste sense because they are nothing more nor less than solutions charged in varying degrees with appreciable particles.
In vain might the mouth be filled with separate morsels of an insoluble body: the tongue would experience the sensation of touch, but never of taste.
As for flavorsome and solid bodies, the teeth must cut them up, saliva and the other taste fluids must soak them, and the tongue must roll them against the palate so that they exude a juice which, by now sufficiently sapid, is appreciated by the taste buds which in turn give to the mashed food that passport it needs to be admitted to the human stomach.
This theory, which will be developed even further, easily answers the main questions that can arise.
If it is asked what I mean by the word sapid, I reply that it is anything which is soluble and which can be absorbed by the taste buds.
And if it is asked how a sapid body acts, I reply that it acts whenever it finds itself in such a state of dissolution that it can penetrate the cavities meant to receive and transmit taste.
In a word, nothing is sapid which is not either already dissolved, or easily soluble.
The Tastes
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
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 its natural 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 its own juice and not for the fumes which emanate from it.
Analysis of the Sensation of Tasting
I feel, having thus set forth the principles of my theory, that it is certain that taste causes sensations of three different kinds: direct, complete, and reflective.
The direct sensation is the first one felt, produced from the immediate operations of the organs of the mouth, while the body under consideration is still on the fore part of the tongue.
The complete sensation is the one made up of this first perception plus the impression which arises when the food leaves its original position, passes to the back of the mouth, and attacks the whole organ with its taste and its aroma.
Finally, the reflective sensation is the opinion which one’s spirit forms from the impressions which have been transmitted to it by the mouth.
Let us put this theory into action, by seeing what happens to a man who is eating or drinking.
He who eats a peach, for instance, is first of all agreeably struck by the perfume which it exhales; he puts a piece of it into his mouth, and enjoys a sensation of tart freshness which invites him to continue; but it is not until the instant of swallowing, when the mouthful passes under his nasal channel, that the full aroma is revealed to him; and this completes the sensation which a peach can cause. Finally, it is not until it has been swallowed that the man, considering what he has just experienced, will say to himself, “Now there is something really delicious!”
In the same way, in drinking: while the wine is in the mouth, one is agreeably but not completely appreciative of it; it is not until the moment when he has finished swallowing it that a man can truly taste, consider, and discover the bouquet peculiar to each variety; and there must still be a little lapse of time before a real connoisseur can say, “It is good, or passable, or bad. By Jove, here is a Chambertin! Confound it, this is only a Suresnes!”
It can thus be seen that it is in following certain well-studied principles that the true amateurs SIP their wine (ils le sirotent), for, as they hesitate after each taste of it, they enjoy the same full pleasure that they might have had if they had drunk the whole glass in one gulp.
The same thing happens, but much more obviously, when the sense of taste must be disagreeably assaulted.
Take, for example, an invalid whose doctor prescribes an enormous glass of that old-fashioned black medicine which was drunk during the reign of Louis XIV.
His sense of smell, faithful guide, warns him of the revolting taste of the horrible fluid; his eyes pop out as if he recognizes real danger; disgust is plainly written on his face; already his stomach heaves. But he is begged to drink, and he stiffens with resolve; he gargles first with a little brandy, holds his nose, and swallows...
While the foul brew fills his mouth and coats it, the sensation is confused and tolerable; but, with the last swallow, the aftertastes develop, the nauseating odors become clear, and the patient’s every feature expresses a horror which only the fear of death itself could make him endure.
If, on the other hand, it is a matter of some such insipid drink as a glass of water, there is neither taste nor aftertaste; one feels nothing, cares nothing; one has drunk, and that is all there is to it.
Order of the Various Impressions of Taste
Taste is not as richly endowed as hearing, which can listen to and compare several sounds at the same time: taste is simple in its action, which is to say that it cannot receive impressions from two flavors at once.
But taste can be double, and even multiple, in succession, so that in a single mouthful a second and sometimes a third sensation can be realized; they fade gradually, and are called aftertaste, perfume, or aroma. It is the same way as, when a basic note is sounded, an attentive ear distinguishes in it one or more series of other consonant tones, whose number has not yet been correctly estimated.
Men who eat quickly and without thought do not perceive the taste impressions of this second level, which are the exclusive perquisite of a small number of the chosen few; and it is by means of these impressions that gastronomers can classify, in the order of their excellence, the various substances submitted to their approval.
These fleeting nuances vibrate for a long time in the organ of taste: students of them assume without even realizing it a proper stance for the pronouncement of their verdicts, always with necks stretched and noses twisted up and to the left, as it were to larboard.
Pleasures Caused by Taste
Let us now look philosophically for a moment at the joy or sadness which can result from the sense of taste.
First of all we are confronted with the application of that truism unfortunately too well known, that man is much more sensitive to pain than to pleasure.
Obviously our reactions to extremely bitter, acid, or sour substances cause us to suffer deeply painful or grievous sensations. It is even held that hydrocyanic acid kills so quickly only because it causes such intense agony that our vital forces cannot long endure it.
On the other hand, agreeable sensations extend over only a small scale, and if there is a fairly appreciable difference between an insipid flavor and one that stimulates the taste, the space between something called good and something reputed to be excellent is not very great. This is made clearer by the following comparisons: first or positive, a dry hard piece of boiled meat; second or comparative, a slice of veal; third or superlative, a pheasant cooked to perfection.
However, taste as Nature has endowed us with it is still that one of our senses which gives us the greatest joy:
(1) Because the pleasure of eating is the only one which, indulged in moderately, is not followed by regret;
(2) Because it is common to all periods in history, all ages of man, and all social conditions;
(3) Because it recurs of necessity at least once every day, and can be repeated without inconvenience two or three times in that space of hours;
(4) Because it can mingle with all the other pleasures, and even console us for their absence;
(5) Because its sensations are at once more lasting than others and more subject to our will;
(6) Because, finally, in eating we experience a certain special and indefinable well-being, which arises from our instinctive realization that by the very act we perform we are repairing our bodily losses and prolonging our lives.
This will be more thoroughly developed in the chapter which we shall devote especially to the pleasures of the table, considered from the point to which our modern civilization has brought them.
The Supremacy of Man
We have been reared with the agreeable belief that, of all the creatures who walk, swim, climb, or fly, man is the one whose sense of taste is the most perfect.
This belief threatens to be overthrown.
Dr. Gall states, backed by I do not know what investigations, that there are animals whose tasting apparatus is more developed and even more perfect than ours.
This doctrine is shocking to hear, and smacks of heresy.
Man, king of all nature by divine right, and for whose benefit the earth has been covered and peopled, must perforce be armed with an organ which can put him in contact with all that is toothsome among his subjects.
The tongue of an animal is comparable in its sensitivity to his intelligence: among fish it is but a movable bone; among birds in general it is a membranous cartilage; in the four-legged world it is often sheathed with scales or roughnesses, and moreover has no power of circular movement.
Man’s tongue, on the other hand, by the delicacy of its surfaces and of the various membranes which surround it, proves clearly enough the sublimity of the operations for which it is destined.
What is more, I have discovered at least three movements in it which are unknown to animals, and which I describe as movements of SPICATION, ROTATION, and VERRITION (from the Latin verro, I sweep). The first takes place when the tip of the tongue protrudes between the lips which squeeze it; the second, when it rolls around in the space between the cheeks and the palate; the third, when it catches, by curving itself now up and now down, the particles of food which have stuck in the semicircular moat between the lips and the gums.
Animals are limited in their tastes; some live only upon plants, and others eat nothing but meat; still others nourish themselves solely upon seeds; none of them knows combinations of flavors.
Man, on the other hand, is omnivorous; everything edible is prey to his vast hunger, and this brings out, as its immediate result, tasting powers proportionate to the general use which he must make of them. That is to say, man’s apparatus of the sense of taste has been brought to a state of rare perfection; and, to convince ourselves thoroughly, let us watch it work.
As soon as an edible body has been put into the mouth, it is seized upon, gases, moisture, and all, without possibility of retreat.
Lips stop whatever might try to escape; the teeth bite and break it; saliva drenches it; the tongue mashes and churns it; a breathlike sucking pushes it toward the gullet; the tongue lifts up to make it slide and slip; the sense of smell appreciates it as it passes the nasal channel, and it is pulled down into the stomach to be submitted to sundry baser transformations without, in this whole metamorphosis, a single atom or drop or particle having been missed by the powers of appreciation of the taste sense.
It is, then, because of this perfection that the real enjoyment of eating is a special prerogative of man.
This pleasure is even contagious; and we transmit it quickly enough to the animals which we have tamed and which in one way or another make up a part of our society, like elephants, dogs, cats, and even parrots.
If some animals have a larger tongue that others, a more developed roof to their mouths, an ampler throat, it is because this tongue, acting as a muscle, must move bulky food; this palate must press and this throat must swallow larger portions than average; but all analogy is opposed to the inference that their sense of taste is proportionately greater than that of other animals.
Moreover, since taste must not be weighed except by the nature of the sensation which it arouses in the center of life, an impression received by an animal cannot be compared with one felt by a man: the latter sensation, at once clearer and more precise, presupposes of necessity a superior quality in the organ which transmits it.
Finally, what is left to be desired of a faculty sensitive to such a degree of perfection that the gourmands of Rome could tell by the flavor whether fish was caught between the city bridges or lower down the river?
And do we not have, in our own days, those gastronomers who pretend to have discovered the special flavor of the leg upon which a sleeping pheasant rests his weight?
And are we not surrounded by gourmets who can tell the latitude under which a wine has ripened just as surely as a pupil of Biot or Arago knows how to predict an eclipse?
What follows from there? Simply that what is Caesar’s must be rendered unto him, that man must be proclaimed the great gourmand of Nature, and that it must not seem too astonishing that the good doctor Gall does as Homer did, and drowses now and then: Auch zuweiler schalffert der guter G (all).
Plan Adopted by the Author
Thus far we have only considered taste in the aspects of its physical make-up, and, with the exception of some anatomical details which would be missed by few people, we have held ourselves strictly to the scientific level. But the task which we have set ourselves does not end there, for it is mainly because of its moral history that this restorative sense retains its importance and its glory
We have therefore followed, according to an analytical plan, the theories and facts which make up this history, in such a way that instruction can result without boredom.
It is thus that, in the following chapters, we shall show how sensations, by force of repetition and consideration, have perfected the organ of taste and enlarged the sphere of its power; how the need to eat, which was nothing but instinct at first, has become a powerful passion which has a marked influence on everything connected with society.
We shall tell too how all sciences which are concerned with physical composition have exerted themselves to classify and segregate those bodies which can be recognized by taste, and how travelers have aimed at the same goal, in enabling us to experiment with exotic substances which Nature itself seems never to have intended to come together.
We shall follow chemistry up to the very moment when it invades our kitchens, those subterranean laboratories of gastronomy, to enlighten our assistants, pose certain principles, create new methods, and unveil natural laws which, until then, have remained a mystery.
Finally we shall see how, by the combined influences of time and experience, a new science is suddenly revealed to us, which nourishes, restores, conserves, entices, consoles and, not content to cover with flowers the path of each individual’s progress, contributes powerfully to the strength and prosperity of empires themselves.
If, in the midst of these solemn meditations, a piquant anecdote, a pleasant memory, or some adventure of an active life forms itself at the tip of our pen, we shall let it take shape, to divert for a little while the close attention of our readers, whose numbers do not alarm us and with whom, on the contrary, we love to gossip, for if they are men we are sure that they are as charitable as they are learned, and if they are ladies they must of necessity be charming.
Here the professor, full of his subject, lets his pen drop, and mounts into other higher planes. He swims up the flood of the centuries, and seeks out in their cradle the sciences which have for their purpose the gratification of taste; he follows the progress of this sense through the black night of history; and then seeing that the first years have always been less rich than those that follow, insofar as the pleasures they offer us may go, he seizes his lyre, and sings in Dorian mood the historical Elegy which will be found among the Varieties. Look for it at the end of the book.
By Jean Antheme Brillat-Savarin in " The Phisiology of Taste or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy", translated and edited by M.F.K. Fisher, Everyman (Knopf Books) USA, 2009, excerpts pp 102-115. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa