Knowing the Flavours

The Chinese use the term 'the five tastes' to refer to the sweet, sour, bitter, hot, and salty characteristics of food, and these are the five basic flavours. Healthy people are able to discriminate between these five flavours in food and drink. The classic text 'The Doctrine of the Mean' from the 5th century BC puts forward the idea that' while everybody eats and drinks, few know the flavours'. So 'knowing the flavours' is seen as the food connoisseur's held and expertise. There are some stories about connoisseurs who were especially good at distinguishing between flavours. In the Pre-Qin period there was a chef called Yi Ya who could tell the difference between the flavours of waters taken from two different rivers, there was a blind musician called Shi Kuang, who while dining with his king discovered from the taste that old timber had been used to cook the rice, and when the king thereupon checked with his chef he was told that the axle of an old chariot had indeed been used as fuel ; there was also a nobleman in the Jin period, Fu Lang, who was so discriminating that he could tell whether the chicken he was eating was free-range or had been kept in a coop.