Abstract

The perception created by the combination of olfaction and taste is called flavor.What is the number of tastes or flavors we have? Is it five, as most Chinese believe? None, as the ancient Taoists asserted? Four, as Western science traditionally claims? Or is it six or seven or even fourteen? World cuisines are at odds on this issue, and I shall briefly explore here their reasons for their numbers. There is a consensus among some of the elements that tells us something about the human makeup or constitution. The other elements reveal social and cultural differences and varying environmental conditions.The doctrine of the five flavors dates to the Xia Dynasty (c. twenty-first to sixteenth centuries BCE), where ..