My Mouth's On Fire!

My husband and I had an interesting discussion last night at the dinner table. After he ate seven packets of hot sauce on his tacos, I learned something (once he was able to speak again):

Not to eat seven packets of hot sauce at once no matter how much you like the taste of an individual packet of hot sauce.

But more than that really...

We all know our tongue is covered with taste buds. And that our taste buds allow us to taste specific flavors- salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and then something called umami.

Copied from Dr. Gourmet to refresh your memory:

There are five types of receptors on the tongue that sense all of the flavors that we taste. They are salt, sweet, bitter, sour and one called umami. Umami is a taste receptor that was identified only about six years ago and is best described as savory.

Each of these flavors acts on their own, but how they interact with each other is key to making recipes taste fantastic. Activation of any one taste will enhance another taste bud.

So what was it exactly that was ~tasting~ the hotness of the sauce in regard to my husband? I certainly don't see 'hot' as a category listed above.

I learned that the receptor that's triggered when we have the sensation of 'hot' (spicy hot not temperature) are our pain receptors...

So really, when we're enjoying that tasty basket of chips dipped into that yummy HOT salsa... and we reach for our beer or glass of water to quench that undying heat... it's our body demonstrating pain at it's best...

I thought that was fascinating!