Why do cooked foods typically taste better warm (right after cooked) than cool

Question

Why do cooked foods typically taste better warm (right after cooked) than cool

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

When you “taste” foods, beyond the basic five tastes (sweet, salty, bitter, savory, sour) you are actually smelling them. Which is why food generally tastes blah whenever you have a cold. Whatever the tastes of that food are, those flavor compounds are moving from your mouth back into your nose where your olfactory nerves are activated.

Warm/hot food has more energy in it, so those compounds are more active and move more readily into the nasal cavity.