Chapter 64 Chapter 64 Pepper and Taste

There are more and more types of slightly spicy peppers, such as colorful peppers, which have removed capsaicin and only have the smell of green peppers, but we must admit that eating peppers still faces a corresponding threshold, it tests a complete system of people, more of people agree that it tests the palate. A healthy body is a prerequisite for eating chili. If any link in the human eating, digestion and excretion system fails, a strong reaction will occur after eating chili. Therefore, sometimes chili is also a detection medium for the human digestive system, especially for digestion. Hidden faults in the system will appear immediately after eating chili.Of course, chili is often easy to expose people's privacy at this time. If your friend suddenly refuses to eat chili, it is likely that one or more of his systems have failed, and common colds and ulcers will discourage people from eating chili. thought.

Capsaicin is really a mysterious stimulating substance. Different from other tastes, human skin and other mucous membranes can feel it. The other three of the four basic tastes that can be felt are sweet, sour, and bitter. Except that the taste buds of the tongue and the nasal cavity can smell faint breaths, the skin and mucous membranes can hardly feel these tastes anymore. Capsaicin has the characteristics of being both oil-soluble and water-soluble. Under certain temperature conditions, capsaicin will evaporate with the evaporation of water molecules and oil molecules. Why is the air so hot when we fry peppers? !Among the four basic tastes, there are acid molecules that are also volatile, while sweetness and bitterness are relatively stable. In this land of China, there is obviously a taste territory of "sour in the north and spicy in the south, sweet in the east and bitter in the west". Big, sweet and bitter tastes of this opposite taste in China in the industrialization era, can roughly distinguish between precision manufacturing and heavy industry.I think that in heavy industrial areas, people have a demand for bitters. Does this help to digest sulfur dioxide and other acidic substances?I haven't researched it yet, but I found that oleander has an abnormal dependence on sulfur dioxide. It blooms very brightly under the environment of sulfur dioxide, while other plants die one after another.

Western experimental psychology has actually analyzed the sense of taste, which also includes the anatomy of the tongue, and it also includes the nervous system and related molecular chemical reactions.Taste embryos have approximately 50 to 150 taste receptor cell populations.They have bulbous openings at the top, the gustatory tunnel.Molecules of solutes -- "taste molecules" -- enter the taste pores and interact with the protrusions, fibrous radiation from the interior of the taste cells that surround the taste pores. (See The Sense of Taste by Caroline Cosmel.) In the tiny protrusions, chemical reactions between taste molecules and molecules in receptor taste cells can further produce chemicals, which Acts like a neurotransmitter, stimulating nerves to transmit information to the taste buds.Neurotransmitters send information along a cranial nerve to the brain, where taste perception occurs in consciousness. (See Susan McLaughlin's "The Sense of Taste", Lauger's "Eating Psychology")

The tongue is actually a delicate tissue, a seemingly rough muscle that turns and transports food during chewing.On the surface of the tongue, there are many small protruding tissues, which look like a layer of hoarfrost to the naked eye, but under the microscopic environment, they are more like small germs.But they are not yet taste receptors, taste embryos must be magnified to see clearly, it was discovered in 1867 in the inner wall of the visible papillae. (See Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology by Edwin Boleyn) The tongue is covered with papillae and smaller fibrous papillae, the fungiform papillae are mainly distributed on the front surface of the tongue, a small amount of taste embryos are distributed in the center of the fungal papillae, most are distributed in the leaf and ring The inner wall of the papillae and the area between them.Taste embryos are absent in the fibrous papillae of mammals, but they are also present in the palate, pharynx, and elsewhere in the oral cavity.

There are four types of nerves that enter areas of the tongue and mouth, and each is responsible for channeling information to the brain.Most of the taste information follows a circular route through the adenotympanic line of the facial nerve, that is, from the tongue to the bone marrow via the area of ​​the ear, and from the bone marrow to the cortex via the visual thalamus.There are various types of cells in the inner wall of the taste buds, which are renewed periodically, about every ten days in adults. We can draw such a picture to mark the distribution of the leaf-shaped papillae and the ring-shaped papillae in the protrusions, but it is actually better to make four cups of flavored water, one cup of sweet sugar water, one cup of bitter coffee, and one cup of Zhenjiang Balsamic vinegar, a cup of spicy soup, tasted separately, the distribution of sensations on the tongue tells us immediately and strongly where the taste has emerged.

All taste receptors are located on the tongue, and the four basic tastes—sweet, sour, spicy, and bitter—each produce very intense sensations in different locations on the tongue.Sweetness is most pronounced on the tip of the tongue, sour is strongest on both sides of the tongue, hotness is mainly felt on the front and sides of the tongue, and bitterness is mainly felt on the back of the tongue, the front of the throat.It is said that this distribution constitutes a safe protection mechanism. The tip of the tongue can detect or taste healthy and sweet carbohydrates, while many harmful substances are bitter, so the bitter taste receptors are arranged at the rear end of the tongue. Plays a defensive role, blocking swallowing there, very bitter substances, it can stimulate the vomiting response of the throat, this is a safety alert system that has been swallowed but in order to prevent toxic substances from continuing to enter the digestive system, it is also a backup for recovery.All settings are so strict and the division of labor is reasonable. (See Andy Kerman's "Natural History of the Senses")

The chemistry of taste is quite different. Spicy and sour tastes are generally taste responses of ionized molecules interacting with taste cell membranes.Sweet and bitter tastes usually require stimuli, which are molecularly complex and cannot be ionized, triggering a series of long-term chemical changes when neurotransmitters are released.The stimulation process of bitter taste is particularly complex, and its chemical changes are also very diverse.Taste and smell are two very mysterious senses in the human body, and their insight still requires long experiments. (See "Taste" by Caroline Cosmel)

People have a long history of training their sense of taste or controlling taste. In the process of posting my "One Spicy World is Red" on the Internet, I still got some hints from people from Sichuan and Hunan, or used metaphors to Explain, the genius of their reign over chili.Generally speaking, people from Sichuan have acquired the authentic status of eating chili peppers, so they instinctively continue to strengthen this aspect, while people from Hunan will probably point out that Sichuanese people turn to Sichuan peppercorns for help when they eat spicy food.Perhaps only the Hubei people do not compete for the supremacy of chili peppers, because the Hubei people often remove the hottest "spicy tendon" when eating chili peppers, which strongly reflects the true nature of the Hubei people's moderation.