The taste of the food is determined by the substances contained in the raw materials or formed by the preparation of the raw materials and during the cooking process. It is the chemistry of these substances that helps to determine whether we perceive the food as tasty. The ability to taste and select food and prepare food with "good taste" has undoubtedly given human evolutionary benefits, and there is good reason to assume that our species development is closely linked to the boiling stone. We have become a kind of gourmet monkeys.

Literature: O. G. Mouritsen & Klavs Styrbæk, Umami. Gourmet Monkey and the fifth taste. New Nordic publisher Arnold Busck, Copenhagen, 2011. 256pp; See also www.umamibog.dk