Meaty receptor helps tongue savor flavor

These days, monosodium glutamate (MSG) is doing more than spicing up Asian food. It’s giving scientists a taste of how the tongue recognizes flavors.

Scientists have struggled for many years to identify taste receptors—proteins on the surface of the tongue’s taste cells that recognize flavor-producing chemicals in food. “The effort . . . has not been very rewarding up to now,” says taste researcher Bernd Lindemann from Saar University in Homburg, Germany.