What's a palate?

[Toby]

I've always thought I knew what was meant by the word palate, but when I began thinking about it, I wasn't so sure. Threads about foods we dislike even though they're usually considered to be good or even delicacies, made me wonder how anyone could know anyone else's palate, or even understand or rate their own. Malawry mentioned exercises done in her school in which students tasted spices while holding their noses closed; she also mentioned the debated concept of umami.

The dictionary defines "palate" as 1. the roof of the mouth, consisting of an anterior bony portion (hard palate) and a posterior muscular portion (soft palate) that separate the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. 2. the sense of taste. 3. intellectual or aesthetic taste; mental appreciation.

Although my question is directed to meanings 2 and 3, it would follow that both 2 and 3 are the result of what happens in 1, the anatomical palate which would then also be connected to sense of smell. Can people who smoke or have sinus problems have a good palate? Older people supposedly lose their sense of taste; why? What role does chewing play? And what about the taste buds on the tongue? What's the connection between a violent allergic reaction to a food and subsequent dislike of that taste in terms of changing palates?

MFK Fisher, in her introduction to Japanese Cooking by Shizuo Tsuji, writes that "students of the influence of gastronomy ... believe that what and how a man eats in his first few years will shape his natural appetite for the rest of his life. It will not matter if he begins as a potter's son and ends as an affluent banker. If he ate pure fresh food when he was a child, he will seek it out when he is old and weary."

She then questions whether it's true that the palate is shaped irrevocably when we're children: "Not only does my palate refresh itself daily with foods almost as simple as the first ones I knew, but I feel it has stayed young because of my natural curiousity about the best dishes that other countries have offered me."

Can a palate be educated? If so, how do we know what we're educating it with? Can you trust someone else's palate? Is the ability to break down a cooked dish and identify all the various ingredients the mark of an educated palate? I knew someone who could tell all the ingredients but couldn't tell the qualitative difference between a packaged hummus mix filled with preservatives and a made-from-scratch hummus. What about taste memory, the ability to remember the taste of something eaten previously, even many years before? Is that part of the palate?

[CathyL]

Wow, Toby. I don't have time or brain power to write a serious response now, but I wanted to say what a provocative question this is, and how well expressed.

[Jinmyo]

I would say that only someone who is exploring food and cooking in an engaged manner can have a palate worth speaking of. Otherwise they merely have likes and dislikes based on habit. Less extremely, James Beard said that no one under 30 years of age can have a palate because they simply lack experience.

Hm. Has anyone ever tasted a palate? Sure, ground up into head cheese or in a hot dog. But on its own? Wilfrid?

[lizziee]

Toby,

I echo Cathy's thoughts and will have to think about your question before I reply. But, what a good question!

[Suvir Saran]

Toby,

Your question is amazing in its complexities. Not dissimilar to what one would attribute to a palate.

In your post itself like many answers. Your post and the quotes therein, even as they question, have in them answers that one would need.

I will have a nice night, pondering over your post and the many issues it raises. Thanks for posting such a great post this time of the day. It will leave those that read it now, with wonderful thoughts and much to digest.

[Bux]

Let me echo the responses that preceded mine. An excellent presentation of a formidable topic that should keep us busy for a while. Let me answer a minor point--Can people who smoke have a good palate? All things are relative and it's obvious that some very fine chefs are heavy smokers. I have to believe they have a fine palate, but I also believe they operate under a handicap. My only evidence to support my belief comes from a French chef who quit smoking and said food had more flavor for him and that he tasted new flavors in familiar foods after he quit smoking and apparently this ability to taste and distinguish flavors continued to increase for some time after he quit smoking. So it's not just that if you don't smoke before dinner or that day that your palate will be as keen as it can be.

The other issues are far more complex and interesting. The foods I eat and crave today are so different from what I ate as a child that I find it hard to believe that a palate cannot be educated in that sense. Nevertheless, I do not have my wife's ability to distinguish flavors and components in a dish. Our daughter however, has a palate that's incredible in those terms. Is it a genetic trait or something she developed as a child offered a wide range of food and seasonings? One might need to conduct controlled experiments with identical sets of twins to arrive at some point where one could speculate. My favorite bit of second hand information on palates comes from a distiller of eaux-de-vie and I'm repeating what I've posted elsewhere. On the basis of many tasting sessions involving subtle and elusive alcohols, he firmly believed women had a better sense of taste--the ability to distinguish subtle flavors--than men. For what it's worth, he found that Belgian women had the best sense of taste.

Well, that's a beginning to what should be an interesting thread.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Toby - Well you have juxtaposed semantics and physiology. Always a surefire way to get the juices flowing at eGullet. But I'm afraid I don't find the wonder in your question that the others have found. That's because when people refer to someone's palate, they are referring to that persons ability to taste things. It doesn't matter if it means the ability to taste the ingredients that are subsumed in a dish, or to simply have a good sense of taste. And an educated palate just means that someone has had sufficient tasting experiences. And can people who smoke have a good palate? Sure. The wine critic Clive Coates smokes and he has a good palate. And an educated one as well.

[macrosan]

Fascinating topic, Toby, on which I find it impossible to reach a clear conclusion, but here are some thoughts.

When people talk of a palate, they generally are referring to a combination of several elements (pace Steve P who doesn't understand this).

First, there is the element of being able to distinguish the individual taste of an ingredient, and to distinguish it from its peers, which is an entirely objective skill. For example, being able to say from taste alone "This is an apple, and it's a Cox's Orange Pippin from Suffolk". This capability is akin to the wine-taster's or tea-taster's palate. I have no idea of the physiology behind the capability to do this, but it is a trainable skill which becomes enhanced with experience. I would guess that there would have to be some fundamental physiology present before one could be adequately trained. The consequence of this skill is the ability to taste a dish and to detect therein all the detailed ingredients.

I am not sure whether the issue of determining ingredient quality falls within what I have just described, or into the category below.

Then there is the ability to determine whether an ingredient tastes "good". It is self-evident that the word "good" here has a strong cultural connotation. Many eastern cultures enjoy tastes that are unpleasant to western culture, and I assume vice versa. But within the context of a given culture, there exists some form of consensus of palate as to what tastes "good", and innovative chefs need this ability to create new ingredients for inclusion in dishes. Fat Guy's recent comments on another thread about Kiwifruit are an example of this, in that his palate determines that they are "not good" and therefore would not qualify for inclusion in a meal. I believe this element is partly creative, partly developed thru experience.

It's this last one that's interesting, because people can readily cross those cultural divides. Until my 30s I assumed I hated Indian food because I knew it was spicy and I had been brought up on non-spicy food. I then tried one Indian meal, immediately loved it, and have developed from that a general preference for spicy foods which are totally alien to the foods of my upbringing. With exposure to foods from a range of cultures, the borderlines between those different palates are blurring. So what is considered to taste "good" is gradually becoming a universal truth. Is this a subjective or objective element ? I guess it must be objective, because there is such wide consensus, so maybe we just don't yet have the scientific means to measure it.

My next element is what is often referred to as "acquired taste". This always makes me feel uncomfortable because the concept seems to me to smack of brainwashing. The process goes like this. Person A has never eaten oysters. He eats one, screws his face up in horror and spits it out. All he tastes is a salty, gelatinous, flavorless blob. Person B is a respected gourmet, and he tells A that it's a great oyster, but A's palate is not yet "up to it". A then proceeds to eat a dozen oysters, forcing them down until he can tolerate them, and at the end, as if by magic, he is agreeing with B that they're great. He has "acquired" a palate for oysters because he has trained his brain to believe that they taste good because B has told him they taste good. The first question is do they really "taste good" in any objective consensus sense, or has A been brainwashed ? The second question is does it matter ?

The point about this is that we are clearly addressing a highly subjective element of what is meant by palate.

Finally, there is the sum of what we mean when we refer to someone having a "fine palate". This is the ability to make a qualitative judgement of all the elements within a meal, and to judge it. The respected chefs and food writers and critics have this. It seems to me that the all the elements of palate have to be present to achieve this. You have to be able to identify and qualify ingredients, measure their quality, assess whether each tastes good, and understand and possess a wide range of acquired tastes. And then you have to have the creativity and experience to formulate a judgement, to answer what is the most important question for most people - "Does this meal taste good, and if so how good?" - in a sense that others will accept.

[Gavin Jones]

Toby - Well you have juxtaposed semantics and physiology

Surely the point. The palate is the conceptual link between tasting good and good taste.

I presumed women had a 'better' palate as they have a better sense of smell.

Of course all the 'education' in the world doesn't work on some palates - whether the root might be physiological or psychological is another matter.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I hate to be the curmudgeon on this one but I find this topic to be similar to our discussions about objectivity/subjectivity viewed through the angle of physiology. When we speak about someone's palate, as in the type of statement that says, "Robert Parker has a good palate" we mean that he can taste things objectively. Yes it includes a certain aspect of personal preferrence but still, we accept him as some type of objective standard. And maybe I'm missing something but I can't think of it being used a different way. And when we say things like "hone one's palate," we use it to mean the same thing. To use Jeffery Steingarten's example of eating something 10 times to acquire a taste for it, i,e, honing one's palate, it still means calibrating one's palate against an objective standard. And not liking something like Fat Guy not liking Kiwis has nothing to do with his palate being good or bad. He just doesn't like it. Comparing it to like statements such as "he has a good ear" to describe someone who has an affinity for music, well not everyone with a good ear has an affinity for every type of music. I can listen to jazz and hear the nuances but I can't do that with classical music because my ear isn't trained to do it. Whether I could do it with some "honing" is another thing.

As to how one acquires a "sense of taste," meaning a way to taste things objectively (as in conforming to commonly held standards of things that people usually think taste delicious,) that's a different issue. Some people are naturals and some people have to learn it. Just like people with a good ear. But like someone who has perfect pitch in music, that person starts out with a huge advantage. Now can you teach someone perfect pitch or can you teach someone who doesn't naturally have the ability to taste things to do it? That I don't know and those who are more familar with science than I am can comment. But my gut tells me that those things are like any other talent and either you got it or you don't.

[jaybee]

palate

\Pal"ate\, n. [L. palatum: cf. F. palais, Of. also palat.] 1. (Anat.) The roof of the mouth.

Note: The fixed portion, or palate proper, supported by the maxillary and palatine bones, is called the hard palate to distinguish it from the membranous and muscular curtain which separates the cavity of the mouth from the pharynx and is called the soft palate, or velum.

2. Relish; taste; liking; -- a sense originating in the mistaken notion that the palate is the organ of taste.

The word is meaningless if not preceded by an adjective: "refined" palate, "educated" palate, "sensitive" palate etc. There are two aspects to "palate"--the ability to perceive specific tastes and the ability to identify specific tastes.

Someone with a "refined" or "sensitive" palate can perceive a specific taste with very small quantities of the item. This ability may be based in a person's physiology, or come from having taught themselves to pay careful attention to detail in taste.

Someone with an "educated" palate can not only perceive trace amounts of an item in food, but can identify it. This ability comes with experience and training. It is often said that some people's palates are more tuned to certain tastes than others. Often these are tastes the person doesn't like. My brother-in-law, for example, can taste cilantro a mile away. He hates the stuff. Yet he'll pour so much salt on his food, that I think his salt-palate is retarded.

As to the evaluation of taste, (good or bad) that can be either subjective ("I like this a lot") or projective ("Most people will like this a lot"). For a person to project their subjective taste accurately, they must have a lot of experience that validates their ability. To do so without such experience makes them egotistical or insufferable.

[Fat Guy]

I hate to be the curmudgeon on this one

On behalf of all those who find this topic interesting, I apologize for putting you in such an uncomfortable and awkward position.

Seriously, though, the question that most intrigued me was, "Is the ability to break down a cooked dish and identify all the various ingredients the mark of an educated palate?" I don't think it is. That's the palate you need if you want to be a chef, also known as someone who creates dishes by combining components. If you just want to be an educated customer, the only ability you need is the ability to fathom the whole.

I'd also like to add that in the process of developing an appreciation of cuisine, much of one's education has nothing to do with the literal palate.

[jaybee]

On behalf of all those who find this topic interesting, I apologize for putting you in such an uncomfortable and awkward position.

Are you speaking as a moderator or as one with an educated palate?

[Fat Guy]

I'm speaking as one with an immoderate palate, and thank you for asking.

[jaybee]

I'm speaking as one with an immoderate palate, and thank you for asking.

An "immoderate palate"--does that mean you can't get enough of a good thing?

[Jonathan Day]

An interesting thread.

We could distinguish the ability to discriminate trace elements, not only in taste but also in smell (which is inextricably linked to taste). This is clearly similar to good pitch in music; it was said that Pierre Boulez could hear an oboe that was just slightly off pitch in the midst of a loud passage in a "big" piece (e.g. Berlioz at his more expansive).

This can be learned, to some extent. I have a good but not great ear for pitch, but it took me awhile to get to the point that I could hear "beats" and do a half decent job of setting a temperament in tuning a piano or harpsichord. I still can't do this all that well; my point is that it's not purely a matter of talent. Taste discrimination can be trained as well. Didn't Malawry describe a training session in her chef school aimed at developing taste discrimination?

Then there's "taste memory" -- the ability to remember and classify tastes and smells. The great wine palates have this. For me, tastes almost immediately morph into a strong visual image. For whatever reason this doesn't work as well for wine -- I can see a bottle but I can't always "read" the label!

There are also skills in combining tastes in effective ways: partnering food and wine, combining flavours, and the like. Again, a lot of this can be learned. Culinary Artistry (Dornenburg and Page) has a long and useful analysis of "what goes with what". They don't say much about "balance" in combinations. They do have a useful discussion of balance and contrast in a menu, as a whole.

And there is the tradition -- knowledge of other cooks, an understanding of how today's tastes have developed, knowledge about restaurants, all the things that Cabrales listed in her analysis of what it took to be a good restaurant critic, and more. Some of this can come through reading, but most has to come through experience. I continue to believe that this should include some experience of cookery, not just eating, though clearly this is neither necessary nor sufficient to master the tradition.

There are other "palate skills" as well, I am sure. Talent helps but training can go a long way.

FG, I agree with you that all this is more relevant to the cook / restaurateur than to the diner. The diner needs to experience the meal, whether in home or restaurant, as a whole. I would even go so far as to say that the host has really succeeded if it's a bit challenging for the diner to dissect exactly why the experience was so effective. This was the freight of my post (July 23) in the "Assessing Restaurants" thread. To put it another way, one way to know that magic is present is that you can't figure out exactly what the sorcerer did.

However, I thought we were speaking here of a diner who not only experiences a good or bad meal, but is also capable of talking and writing about it, so that she can help others find and appreciate similar experiences. Here it seems to me that there is something of a shift back the synthetic (the diner's role) to the analytic (the host's).

[oraklet]

basically, women are better at tasting and smelling and remembering tastes and smells than are men. (also, women taste and smell better...) that doesn't necessarily make them better cooks or eaters. my mother is a better cook than i am, but my wife certainly isn't, and her sense of smell is almost hysterical. and my father has a fine nose for wine, even though his smelling capability is rather low. and on another matter, music: i'm born with a slight hearing handicap. that doesn't keep me from singing in key or from distinguishing nuances in classical music that few others would notice. i don't get the finer details in jazz, though.

all this tells me that "one's palate" is a matter of temperament and education more than of physical capability. and i don't think that a sense of absolute pitch is an unquestionable advantage or blessing when it comes to appreciating or performing music. just like you could say of rubens that he was too great a draftsman to be a "really interesting painter". (though a great artist, of course)

smoking, from what i've read, changes rather than diminishes the sense of taste (and smell). this agrees with my own experience: i started smoking at the age of 26, and my sense of nuance is finer than it was then. but the few times i've stopped smoking, i found the taste of some food ingredients slightly different.

as for robert parker, he has been discussed in detail on another thread. though my experience is quite limited, i tend to agree with those who find that his palate is perhaps a bit too "modern". at the time when i could afford a few more bottles of fine wine than now, i found hugh johnson more trustworthy. but then, that was in my youth.

[macrosan]

See, I knew this was going to be interesting

Fat Guy, I agree with the point you make that the "analytical" palate is necessary for the chef, and a different "holistic" palate is necessary for the eater. But both of these are "educated" palates, they're just educated in different things. I don't believe the term "educated palate" has any singular or definable meaning.

I love what JD said about this. "... the host has really succeeded if it's a bit challenging for the diner to dissect exactly why the experience was so effective" and I think that's absolutely right. It's almost a challenge thrown down by the chef, and the educated (eating) palate can get pleasure out of participating in the challenge. Having dined with Cabrales a few times, I know that she does indeed revel in trying to analyse the ingredients and cooking methods of every dish she is eating. But even when she fails, she can get pleasure from the total taste experience.

Oraklet, is this really true, that women have more refined senses of taste and smell than men ? Or is it an old wives' tale ? Incidentally, I think the biological evidence would suggest that smoking does diminish rather than alter sense of taste and smell. Smoking simply coats the membranes of the mouth and nose with chemicals and tar, which will reduce the effectiveness of cells in the membranes. I suppose those chemicals themselves will retain a taste, in which case they would mask some tastes of food, but I suppose an educated palate would be able to distinguish all the primary tastes. When I quit smoking, I noticed no difference in taste but definitely an increased sensitivity to smell.

[Peter B Wolf]

What an interesting post, as everyone indicated.

From the backwoods of Maine a bit of additional commentary and inquiry. Excuse the inarticulate expression of mine.

Inheritance by genes of tasting and smelling capabilities seems plausible to me, as I doubt my ability of tasting things (or the learning there of) came from experience. With so many shortages of even common and certainly uncommon foods during my upbringing (see BIO), I simply could not have known what certain smells and tastes were. But I did. When I entered my apprenticeship as cook at the tender age of 15 years, I was told by the chef(s) that I had good taste??!!

Did an association of parents and grandparents, on both sides, with the culinary world have something to do with it? All were at one time or another owner or lessee of restaurants.

Ok, that’s here and there. Let’s talk about the palate

My comment to the post, of significance in my humble opinion, is that the utensils and or vessels play a larger role than often assumed. At least no one so far has made reference to this matter. It is one of the most important points to me. Educated or not.

Why does a good wine (or a not so good one) taste better drunk out of a thin crystal glass??

Why does food (all) taste better eaten off china, and I mean porcelain, not stoneware??

Why do we recommend eating Caviar with an Ivory or at least Bone spoon??

Why is a black Tea from India so soothing when consumed out of the thinnest Limoges cup??

Why is Weizenbier drunk out of tall cone shaped thin glasses??

Question, questions and more if you want to hear them.

But that’s my palate. And if it is science, educate me! Always willing to learn. Even at my age.

[Jaymes]

Why do we recommend eating Caviar with an Ivory or at least Bone spoon??

You are certainly correct about asthetics and ambience playing an essential role in any sensual experience, which eating surely is.

But as to this question, the answer is more simple. Interacting with metal changes the taste of the caviar.

[Peter B Wolf]

......But as to this question, the answer is more simple.  Interacting with metal changes the taste of the caviar.

Yes, right you are. But how does one know what Caviar is supposed to taste like, when he/she never had it. Does this go back to the "educated" palate?

[Wilfrid]

Can I just throw in the basic physiology, as usual, because it might help keep things clear:

The hard and soft palate don't have anything to do with taste or smell, although of course they sense heat, texture and what one might call "mouthfeel" or "body" (I am thinking of the difference in "body" between a liquid like water and a liquid like milkshake).

The basic elements of taste - sweet, salt, bitter, sour, and probably some others - are detected by receptors on the tongue. But the tongue can't do anything more subtle than that. The fine distinctions of taste are made by "olfaction" - essentially the detection of volatile and semi-volatile chemicals by receptors in that cavity back up there behind your nose. This is why getting a headcold blunts our response to flavor.

Then, of course, there's smelling, which is a kind of external olfaction.

And on the main question, a lot of sense has been talked already. Let me just hazard that I think education plays a role in developing a palate in the second sense beyond just education (training) of the palate itself. I think learning about food and cooking influences gustatory appreciation. Understanding dishes is often an important part of enjoying them.

[Jaymes]

......But as to this question, the answer is more simple.  Interacting with metal changes the taste of the caviar.

Yes, right you are. But how does one know what Caviar is supposed to taste like, when he/she never had it. Does this go back to the "educated" palate?

I believe this is absolutely an excellent example of educating one's palate. I suspect very few, if any, enjoy caviar upon first taste.

In my case, I attended some fairly high-profile occasions when I was young and, not wishing to appear unsophisticated, managed to gag some down.

After several years of about four of these "gaggings" per year, I eventually began to not dislike, and then to enjoy the dish.

And I began to seek out caviar and to study and learn more about it in order to serve it appropriately in my own home. I read somewhere that the metal spoon interacts unfavorably with the caviar, so conducted my own kitchen test with various caviars and a metal spoon and a plastic one (not having ivory, mother of pearl, or bone).

So, this was "educating my palate" in several ways: both through reading, studying and learning about caviar; and through empirical evidence.

Obviously, I would never have been able, at a young age, to take from a metal spoon my first bite of caviar and remark, "You know....this is 'off' somehow. Could it be that metal spoon?"

[Jinmyo]

[Bux]

From the backwoods of Maine a bit of additional commentary and inquiry. Excuse the inarticulate expression of mine.

Is that a genetic inarticulation or one acquired by living in the backwoods of Maine.

My mama told me to watch out for country lawyers and backwood chefs.