MadSci Network: General Biology |
Hi, Katie. The perception of taste can be quite complex. Adults have about 9,000 to 10,000 taste buds. The 5 basic tastes are: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. (Umami is a 'meaty flavor' conveyed by the amino acid - glutamate.) Food itself is composed of complex chemical mixtures and rarely do we encounter any of the basic taste sensations in isolation. The perception of taste can be contradictory, that is, what can taste sweet to one may be sour to another, or, a food may seem delicious for some while others find it repugnant. Apart from these idiosyncrasies let me tell you what I think you are perceiving. Vinegar itself is most definetly sour due to its acetic acid content, usually about 5.6%, the rest being mostly water. The word itself comes from the French for 'vin aigre' for sour wine. Vinegar readily takes up any flavor, including salt. Although fats carry flavor fats themselves are odorless and tasteless. Neither fat or vinegar contain sodium and essentially no protein. You don't mention which salad dressing you use but in general commercial salad dressings are high in sodium. The most basic salad dressing is vinaigrette which is a combination of oil and vinegar, to which salt, pepper and optionally other spices are added. It turns out that salt dissolves in vinegar but not in oil. Finally, chemically the reaction of an acid and a base forms salt and water. So if your taste buds are acute enough you may end up detecting a salty taste in the vinegar. Hope this helps. For more information on taste and food go to: www.monell.org My own reference was also from the 'Oxford Companion to Food' by Alan Davidson.
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