At least 12 distinct taste sensations can be elicited from different parts of the oral cavity by distinct chemical compounds. The chemicals eliciting each sensation are often common constituents of foods, thus the umami sensations arise with stimulation by monosodium glutamate and nucleotides. These sensations can often be related to different physical/chemical stimulus parameters (e.g., bitterness and hydrophobicity) and neural activity in distinct chemosensory channels.
On April 4, 1979, under the auspices of the American Chemical Society and the Chemical Society of Japan, a group of investigators assembled at the Pan Pacific Chemical Congress in Honolulu, Hawaii, to participate in a Symposium on the Taste of Foods. This symposium was one of the first symposia ever totally dedicated to oral sensations and food chemistry. The papers presented at this symposium [1] demonstrate that remarkable changes have recently occurred in a field so long dormant. In this report, some of the highlights of the Symposium on the Taste of Foods will be discussed along with a review on the contribution of oral sensations to food flavor and food selection. Although taste has commonly been considered to consist of only four distinct sensations linked to a simplistic chemistry, food-flavor research has revealed that far more than four oral sensations are required to reconstruct a food taste and that the taste-active compounds in food encompass much of natural product chemistry. The findings presented at the symposium have relevance far outside the narrow area of flavor chemistry. The taste measurements of the chemical properties of nutrient solutions have applications that range from physical organic chemistry to human nutrition. These oral chemical taste signals are preeminent in the selection of food. The problems in taste are of great complexity since biological as well as chemical variables are involved.