TASTE BUDDIES: Pucker Up! It's The Science Of Sour

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2022

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

This week Short Wave is celebrating our sense of taste with an entire week of themed episodes, covering everything from sugar and spice to what's beyond our classic ideas of taste. It's a series we're calling, "Taste Buddies."

In today's encore episode with Atlantic science writer Katherine Wu, we take a tour through the mysteries of sourness — complete with a fun taste test. Along the way, Katie serves up some hypotheses for the evolution of sour taste because, as Katie explains in her article, "The Paradox of Sour," researchers still have a lot to learn about this weird taste.

Baffled by another seemingly mundane aspect of our existence? Email the show at [email protected] and who knows — it might turn into a whole series!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, short waivers, happy summer. It's Emily Quang here.
0:03.4	I love the summertime. There's just something about the food this time of year.
0:08.9	The seasonal produce, the farmer's markets, that bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables,
0:14.3	the sweet corn, the spicy wings. Our taste buds do the most this time of year.
0:19.6	Which is why our team has decided to bring you a medley of episodes celebrating the science of taste.
0:25.5	It's a series we began earlier this year called Taste Buddies.
0:29.0	And this week will be a mix of some of our favorites.
0:31.8	Like today's episode on sour and a whole bunch of new episodes on sugar, on spice,
0:37.3	and even what's beyond our classic taste.
0:40.6	It's going to be so refreshing.
0:44.6	Kick back with some tart lemonade and enjoy.
0:48.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:52.2	So we're grabbing...
0:54.2	Bon Appetit, Shortwave, co-host Aaron Scott here.
0:59.4	White wine vinegar from a pantry.
1:02.5	Together with science writer Katie Wu, we are getting culinary, shortwave style.
1:07.8	I've got this lovely Amazon package full of very sour candy.
1:13.6	We're kicking off a new series. We're calling Taste Buddies.
1:17.4	We're often taught that there are five basic tastes, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami.
1:22.9	So in the coming weeks, we're going to delve into the science behind some of those.
1:27.6	Plus some other tastes that don't normally make the cut.
1:30.6	I mean, Taste is both super simple and super complicated.
	...

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