Although many people feel unqualified to judge a work of art, almost everyone has opinions about food. We know immediately whether we like or don’t like a dish and readily announce that it tastes great or has no flavour.

But as opinionated as we are, most of us know little about the mechanics of flavour. We tend to think of flavour as something that happens only in our mouth, when in fact, scientists say that it is far more complicated than that. The experience of flavour involves our palate, our nasal passages and our brain, which must integrate and interpret the multiple messages from thousands of taste and odour receptors.

Taste begins on the palate but flavour does not materialise until we put our nose to the taste.