Of course then you would have to explain why we can detect “bitter” and “sour” in the first place. I think the evolution of bitter taste buds is almost certainly linked to poisons; alkaloids are generally bitter-tasting and are among the most common poisons
You should really look at my entire post in context.
I didn’t say that bitter and sour tastes aren’t linked to poisons.
I said that bitter and sour tastes aren’t linked to nutritionally dense foods. And I said that this reason alone could explain why children have different food preferences than adults. A kid who grew up with a craving for nothing but celery and collard greens would not die of poisoning, but he wouldn’t be as smart, fast, tall or strong as peers who preferred carbs and meat.
Alkalis or bases is what I’ve heard. IOW the opposite of sour (acids).
Umami? Can you explain the question to SDopers less familiar with the term? It sounds like the Japanese work for sea urchin! (Or, is that umi? …I forget)
See posts #13, 14, 17, 19, as well as the SDope column linked to in #19 and the Wikipedia page linked to in #16.
It must be more than just that. If it was purely about ph, then the “bitterest substance in the world” would be a strong base that would cause alkali burns.
Not to be confused with “unagi” a state of total awareness of your surroundings.
Sour certainly does have a direct link with human dietary requirements: vitamin C, or ascorbic acid. Our liking for sour things (especially in combination with sweet) may be connected to our need for vitamin C, often found in fruit.
Sea urchin = uni. Umi = sea/beach. Yeah, a bit confusing, since sea urchin tastes like biting into an ocean wave IMO.
I don’t know that meaning, but in the context of eating, unagi is eel.
Edited: I suspect I may have been whooshed?
Maybe, but smoked eel is possibly the yummiest food in existence. It’s also fairly endangered over here, which is a damn shame.
I’m not surprised. The teriyaki sauce must be easy for predators to scent.
It’s a reference to an episode of Friends.
I’m in the Netherlands. Teriyaki sauce is uncommon on fish here. We eat our smoked eel with horse radish & sour cream on toast (or just plain on crackers).
I think it is a little…I don’t know, maybe just wrong…to say “kids like…” or “kids dislike…” anything at all. I know that their little taste buds are different from an adult’s making their tastes a bit different (I have heard some speculation that young taste buds detect more bitter than grown up taste buds which is why many kids are disinclined to enjoy their veggies) but as noted above kids also have distinct preferences that are not the same as other kids’.
In my neck of the woods (which changes location) kids are thought to only like bland, boring “kid food” like chicken nuggets, mac-n-cheese, french fries, hot dogs etc. so that’s what parents feed them and they end up with kids that like only chicken nuggets, mac-n-cheese, french fires etc.
My kids (and many like them all over the world) were fed whatever we (the adults) were eating so we learned that one of them loved artichokes while another hated them, one enjoys spicy (the hotter the better) foods and has since he was a toddler while another hates “spicy hot” but loves garlic-y. They all seemed to like sweets, sour, some bitter, umami and every other category we threw at them…they didn’t like everything within that category but they didn’t reject anything outright based only on that either.
Really, do we have to resort to using a loan word here? C’mon guys, “Savory” was good enough for our (English-speaking) ancestors, do we have to fall into the mis-conception that Japan invented a new taste? (As some Japanese commentators have said).
All that happened is that someone in Japan proposed that savory (umami) was also one of the basic tastes, and was distinct from the other 5 that had already been categorized (in the west). [You fat, lazy, westerners!] 
Turned out they were correct (probably), but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Anyway, it’s “savory” or “savoury”.
I think I agree with you, but my understanding of “umami” is that it is a bit different than savory (and not a new invention of taste, but perhaps a new description). I will admit that my information is mostly from Top Chef on the subject so it is likely to be way off-base. 
But I have heard umami described as “earthy” not like meaty or savory (as it seems to be here) so mushrooms would be “umami” but a steak wouldn’t. In fact that was my first experience with the word…the Top Chef challenge involved using “umami” so the cheftestants used mushrooms and then interviewed that, “duh…mushrooms are the only ingredient that fit the description of umami”.
The (Japanese) commentators are shifting the definition all the time to make sure that it’s ‘something you, as a foreigner, won’t understand’.
The very first of the bunch of chefs did in fact use descriptors like ‘meaty’ etc.; to describe it. But maybe they don’t do it so much anymore?
Wait and see, the more you use the word “umami” in English, the more they will change the definition to make sure you don’t know what the hell they are talking about. Eventually it will be a taste that is only found in Japanese foods, grown in Japan. :smack: