Why does cooking oil make things taste better when it doesn’t taste good by itself?

Question

I get why sugar makes things taste better since it tastes good by itself but why does something like cooking oil which doesn’t taste good on its own make food taste better than it otherwise would be?

In: 734

Answer 1

If you just pour oil over your food at the table it tastes like oil and is gross. When you add oil in the cooking process, a lot of chemicals (flavors) are fat soluble and dissolve into the cooking oil. That’s why beef with a bit of fat content tastes better than lean beef, the beefy flavors dissolve into the fat which carries them to your tongue.

Salt does something similar. If you add salt at the table you just have salty food, but if you add salt in the cooking process it dissolves into the food. Sodium ions interact with a lot of the flavor molecules in your food and make them more available to taste.