Food Flavor

Flavor is a biological perception, a sensation produced by a material taken in the Mouth. It is the aggregate of the characteristics of the material that produces the sensation of flavor.

Flavor is perceived principally by the aroma receptors in the nose and taste receptors in the mouth. It is said that there are basically five flavors namely sweet, sour, bitter, salt and savory. What we experience as flavors is a combination of these with the odors.

 A flavor can in other terms be called the essence of food. Earlier it was considered that there are just four flavors. It was just in the recent years the fifth flavor, that of natural amino acid glutamic acid and certain nucleotides was observed.

This flavor is best noticed in Monosodium Glutamate. The Japanese named this flavor umami and it was translated as savory in English. Natural products have aroma chemicals that together with the taste create the flavor.

Coffee for example contains over 800 aroma chemicals other s may have them in lesser number yet more in quantity as in vanilla where the major flavoring component is vanillin. Some of the synthetic flavorings are prepared using these major components and others are complex mixtures.

Some flavors are created due to certain chemical processes like fermentation, roasting, or frying etc. These processes initiate chemical reactions in the food leading to specific flavor generation.

For example the flavor of fried onions is due to a reaction that takes place between its proteins and carbohydrates. Almost all the flavors can be classified into following categories: Fruit, Vegetable, Spice, beverage, Meat, Fat, Cooked, Empyreumatic and Stench.
Food Flavor