The Pizzazzy

Once while sharing our common interests in cooking, a friend told me how her grandmother always told her that it is very essential to balance the five elements of taste. A good dish is determined by this balanced taste. The five elements of taste as she listed are: Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Sour, Hot (Spicy). From then on I am intrigued by these elements of taste and have always paid close attention to how these enhance the taste of food.

She also added that the presence of all this in any dish is necessary to make it rich in the taste and flavour. In addition to appealing to the tongue it also appeals to the eyes. But I doubted how one can add all these elements in any single dish. I have observed since then that in our authentic Indian cuisine we do add some of these elements regularly and the trick is in the quantity.

You must have added a pinch of salt in a sweet dish like kheer, may be someone must have mentioned that this is to enhance the sweetness. The kheer can be made sweet by adding only sugar and more sugar, but it’s the dash of salt that enhances the sweetness of the sugar in the kheer. In the same manner we add a dash of sugar while making Poha to enrich the taste of the Poha.

In Maharashtrian Fish curry we add Tamarind paste, grated coconut paste, chillies, salt etc. I am not so sure which is bitter element in it. But one cannot miss the presence of the four elements. The tamarind paste adds sourness, grated coconut paste adds sweetish milky taste, chillies and other spices add the hot element and the salt of course adds the salty element. In the Japanese version of the five elements of taste the hot and spicy is replaced by umami: meaning savoury or meaty. Since we are talking of fish curry, the element umami is also present in the form of fish.

The same fish curry prepared in any other region in India may replace the coconut and tamarind paste with say tomatoes and we all know that tomatoes add a sweet-sour taste to the food. Onions are another source of sweetness for food. Indian food is hot and rich in spices, more aligned to the fifth element. Spices are the core of Indian cooking. Ayurveda describes that taste sets our vital fluid in motion, by affecting Agni which enhances the power of digestion. The right spices add to the richness of taste and stimulate the Agni.

The food should also appeal to our senses of smell, touch, taste and sight which can be achieved by the right combination of material, colour, taste and flavour. Talking of taste a very interesting thing is that Water in itself is quite bland, all the five elements of taste are latent in it. Remember ever tasting the rain water or hail. It is only after this water passes though the other elements of life Earth, Fire, Air and Wood collecting their essence that it becomes so tasty.
It is said that each element of taste is a rich combination of multiple elements of life. And among all these five elements of life, Water is the one related to Taste. It’s only when the tongue is wet we recognize taste. Do you now understand why our mouth starts watering on the mention of our favourite food? It’s the anticipation of the taste to which our tongue automatically reacts.

I am sure now that next time you eat any food you will experience these elements. And your next cooking venture would balance all of them for that mouth watering dish.