Seasoned Advice Asked by user91735 on June 8, 2021
I have thought of a funny concept on what makes things taste like this, taste like that, and it kinda looks like this:
What I’m trying to figure out is what is the simplest substance that makes this taste like that. That’s why it clearly defines that sugar is the simplest substance that makes things sweet and salt makes things salty. I wonder what substance makes things sour?
What is the substance makes things sour?
BONUS: Figure out what makes things bitter.
Sour flavours come from acids, like citric acid (in lemon juice, for example) or acetic acid (in vinegar). I don't think there's any one acid that qualifies as 'simplest'.
Bitterness is much more complicated; there are lots of different foods (coffee, uncured olives, citrus peel, alcohol, hops quinine) which are bitter to some extent but there isn't an obvious culinary ingredient/chemical that just gives 'bitter' as a taste. Our perception of bitterness is believed to have evolved to signal toxic foods.
It's worth pointing out that your existing examples are an oversimplification: C₆H₁₂O₆ is glucose, which is only one kind of sugar, and there are others which also taste sweet to us (as well as non-sugar sweeteners, some of which taste far sweeter by mass than sugar. There are also other salts, like KCl (potassium chloride). There is much more information in the Wikipedia article if you are interested.
Correct answer by dbmag9 on June 8, 2021
Sour=acid
Weak organic acids (e.g., the acetic acid in vinegar) taste more sour than mineral acid at the same pH. according to a review at Elsevier's Science Direct topic overview.
So your substances are the culinary acids: citric, acetic (vinegar), malic, tartaric, fumaric. Of those, acetic acid is the simplest molecule.
Answered by Chris H on June 8, 2021
what is the simplest substance that makes this taste like that
The problem with this sentence is the definition of "simple". What you are describing in your examples is not "the simplest" substance for a taste, it is the prototypical substance for a taste - the one which we have encountered the most commonly, and our brain associates most strongly with the term for the taste. So, the only sense it is "simple" is from the point of view of gestalt psychology, not any objective quality of the molecule.
That being cleared up, here an explanation of the tastes and what they are meant to denote:
For completeness of sensations felt with the tongue (despite not being traditionally counted as "a taste"):
Answered by rumtscho on June 8, 2021
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