2 Introduction to taste and smell

The senses of smell (olfaction) and taste (gustation) connect you directly with the external chemical environment in which you live and allow you to respond to chemical stimulants within that environment. These so-called ‘chemical senses’ are considered by many people to be less important than the other senses, at least in humans but, as you will see, the senses of smell and taste are central to modifying our behaviour and contributing to the overall sensory experience of our world.

In evolutionary terms, smell and taste are ancient senses. It seems likely that they developed in simple organisms as a way of detecting changes to the chemicals around them. Insects, amphibians and reptiles have particularly well-developed chemical senses. In mammals, smell and taste are used as a means of tracking prey, recognising territory, choosing a mate, enabling mother–infant recognition and avoiding predators, as well as locating food sources and determining their palatability.

Indeed, many of the odours that you are able to detect at low concentrations are those that signal potential food sources or are from material which can harm you if ingested (e.g. rotting food and waste materials). Similarly, there seems to be a close connection between your sense of taste and your nutritional requirements, as recognised in La Physiologie du goût, published in Paris in 1825 by the French gastronomist Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who wrote:

It is not difficult to appreciate this connection between our sense of taste and the need to ‘repair our losses and prolong our existence’. If you are tired, perhaps because you have not eaten for some time or because you have been on a long walk, you may experience a craving for sweet foods. If you have undertaken more strenuous physical exercise, you may have found yourself needing to eat salty and savoury foods. A possible interpretation of these differing responses is that in the former you need to replenish energy stores whereas in the latter it is the salt, lost through sweat, and amino acids that need replacing.

The quotation above illustrates an important point of definition and it is appropriate to clarify this now. Brillat-Savarin refers to the experience of taste occurring when we eat but, in fact, the overall experience that occurs when eating is dependent on both taste and smell.

It is easy to demonstrate this by, for example, eating a banana while pinching your nostrils. This prevents the smell of the banana from entering the nasal cavity from the back of the mouth and stimulating your sense of smell. Eaten in this way, the banana ‘tastes’ rather bland.

In fact, what is actually affected is the ‘flavour’ – that is, the overall perception we experience when we eat and drink, which involves the senses of both taste and smell.

You have seen that our senses of smell and taste have developed to support our survival in terms of obtaining foods that our bodies need and avoiding dangerous substances. But it also seems that smell and taste – particularly smell – also appear to possess a uniquely evocative quality that may be linked to memory and emotions in a subconscious way. Is there any particular smell that reminds you of your childhood as illustrated, for example, in Figure 2?

Figure 2 The smell of freshly cut grass may be linked to a childhood experience, for example if you grew up in a rural setting

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This is a photograph of a tractor in a field.

Figure 2 The smell of freshly cut grass may be linked to a childhood experience, for example if you grew up in a rural setting

You will now learn more about the science behind how smell actually works.