There are many reasons to develop a deeper understanding of culinary fundamentals. Understanding how acids affect protein coagulation will allow you to better manipulate scrambled eggs, just as understanding how liquids react to steel temperatures will allow you to better manipulate cooking those same eggs on stainless steel pans. If something tastes too sour, an understanding of flavors will provide the tools necessary to correct and balance a dish.

Moreover, understanding the makeup of flavor and ratios of meals will lower the barrier to entry for cooking with ingredients already on hand in the fridge and pantry.

As fundamental knowledge in culinary grows, it builds upon itself, compounding and unlocking further and further skills. As such, this will be a succinct attempt at providing a solid foundation to flavors, recipes, food preparation, and cooking.

Flavor

The perception of flavor comes from the intersection of factors and sensations, most notably taste, texture, and aroma.

Taste occurs in receptors on the tongue from molecules, vitamins, and minerals. There are five different types of taste:

  1. Sweet: comes from sugars, adds sweetness, and contrast bitter and sour
  2. Sour: comes from acids, adds brightness, and contrast sweet and bitter
  3. Salty: comes from salt, adds saltiness, enhances flavors, and reduces bitter and enhances sweet
  4. Bitter: comes from plant compounds, adds bitterness and depth, and balances tastes or adds complexity
  5. Umami: comes from amino acids (glutamate), adds savoriness and richness, and balances tastes

Texture occurs in the tactile sensation of our entire mouth, as well as the auditory element. Texture can be a food’s response to force, as well as the geometrical or surface properties of the food. There are quite a few different types of textures, but I will condense a solid short list:

  1. Crunchy: tactile and audible bite, brittle, crumble, crack, shatter, crisp, fracture
  2. Rough: abrasiveness, perception of grittiness, coarseness
  3. Smooth: velvety, silky, creamy, absence of particles
  4. Chewy: springy with resistance, elastic, gummy
  5. Adhesive: degree of clinginess, stickiness
  6. Viscous: flow resistance, thickness
  7. Slippery: slickness, lubricity, amount of slide
  8. Wet: amount of moisture, juiciness, moisture absorption