What Causes Different Senses of Taste?

My mother says eggplant has no taste, but it is one of my favorite dishes. Apart from simple preference, do people have different senses of taste?

 —Robert B., Pasadena, Calif.

Yes, and our genes are responsible. For example, the herb cilantro contains chemical compounds that combine to create an aroma and taste that many people love. But one of those compounds has a soapy quality. Some people have a gene variant that makes them unable to sense some of the other compounds; other people have a variant that makes them extremely sensitive to the soapy compound. To these groups of people, cilantro tastes like soap. (Former Parade columnist Julia Child was one of them. She hated the stuff!)

Genes also account for our polarized reactions to broccoli and turnips, which may taste miserably bitter to some people and pleasingly mild to others. Some people are even “bitter-blind.” Sour molecules and spicy molecules also have specific receptors, which may be why some people gravitate to sour candy or spicy dishes and others run from them. (One’s enjoyment of various tastes, which only partly depends on whether and how strongly one can sense them, is a separate concept.)

And then there’s the matter of people having more or fewer taste buds, which enhances one’s genetic predispositions. It’s no wonder our taste varies so widely.

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