PepperswithscovilleCentralMarketHoustonTX

Pungency ( ) is the taste of food commonly referred to as spiciness, hotness or heat, found in foods such as

chili pepper Chili peppers, also spelled chile or chilli ( ), are varieties of fruit#Berries, berry-fruit plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for their pungency. They are used as a spice to ...

s. Highly pungent tastes may be experienced as unpleasant. The term piquancy ( ) is sometimes applied to foods with a lower degree of pungency that are "agreeably stimulating to the palate". Piquant ingredients include

chili peppers Chili peppers, also spelled chile or chilli ( ), are varieties of berry-fruit plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for their pungency. They are used as a spice to add pungency ( ...

wasabi Wasabi (Japanese language, Japanese: , , or , ) or Japanese horseradish (''Eutrema japonicum'' syn. ''Wasabia japonica'') is a plant of the family Brassicaceae, which also includes horseradish and Mustard plant, mustard in other genus, genera. ...

horseradish Horseradish (''Armoracia rusticana'', syn. ''Cochlearia armoracia'') is a perennial plant of the family Brassicaceae (which also includes Mustard plant, mustard, wasabi, broccoli, cabbage, and radish). It is a root vegetable, cultivated and us ...

and

mustard Mustard may refer to: Food and plants * Mustard (condiment), a paste or sauce made from mustard seeds used as a condiment * Mustard plant, one of several plants, having seeds that are used for the condiment ** Mustard seed, small, round seeds of ...

. The primary substances responsible for pungent taste are

capsaicin Capsaicin (8-methyl-''N''-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) (, rarely ) is an active component of chili peppers, which are plants belonging to the genus ''Capsicum''. It is a potent Irritation, irritant for Mammal, mammals, including humans, and produces ...

piperine Piperine, possibly along with its isomer chavicine, is the compound responsible for the pungency of black pepper and long pepper via activation of TRPV1. It has been used in some forms of traditional medicine. Preparation Extraction Due t ...

(in peppers) and

allyl isothiocyanate Allyl isothiocyanate (AITC) is a naturally occurring unsaturated isothiocyanate. The colorless oil is responsible for the pungent taste of cruciferous vegetables such as mustard, radish, horseradish, and wasabi. This pungency and the lachrymato ...

(in radishes, mustard and wasabi).

Terminology

In colloquial speech, the term "pungency" can refer to any strong, sharp smell or flavor. However, in scientific speech, it refers specifically to the "hot" or "spicy" quality of

s. It is the preferred term by scientists as it eliminates the ambiguity arising from use of "hot", which can also refer to temperature, and "spicy", which can also refer to

spice In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

s. For instance, a

pumpkin pie Pumpkin pie is a dessert pie with a spiced, pumpkin-based custard filling. The pumpkin and pumpkin pie are both a symbol of harvest time, and pumpkin pie is generally eaten during the fall and early winter. In the United States and Canada it is u ...

can be both hot (out of the oven) and spicy (due to the common inclusion of spices such as

cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed, or the ground spice derived from the seed, of several tree species of the genus '' Myristica''; fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg ('' M. fragrans'') is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fru ...

allspice Allspice, also known as Jamaica pepper, myrtle pepper, pimenta, or pimento, is the dried unripe berry of ''Pimenta dioica'', a midcanopy tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central America, now cultivated in many warm par ...

, mace, and

clove Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands, or Moluccas, in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring, or Aroma compound, fragrance in fin ...

s), but it is not ''pungent''. Conversely, pure

is pungent, yet it is not naturally accompanied by a hot temperature or spices. As the Oxford, Collins, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries explain, "piquancy" can refer to mild pungency, that is, flavors and spices that are much less strong than chilli peppers, including, for example, the strong flavor of some tomatoes. In other words, pungency always refers to a very strong taste whereas piquancy refers to any spices and foods that are "agreeably stimulating to the palate", in other words to food that is spicy in the general sense of "well-spiced". Mildly pungent or sour foods may be referred to as tangy.

Uses

Pungency is often quantified in scales that range from mild to hot. The

Scoville scale The Scoville scale is a measurement of spiciness of chili peppers and other substances, recorded in Scoville heat units (SHU). It is based on the concentration of capsaicinoids, among which capsaicin is the predominant component. The scale ...

measures the pungency of

s, as defined by the amount of

they contain. Pungency is not considered a taste in the technical sense because it is carried to the brain by a different set of nerves. While taste nerves are activated when consuming foods like chili peppers, the sensation commonly interpreted as "hot" results from the stimulation of

somatosensory The somatosensory system, or somatic sensory system is a subset of the sensory nervous system. The main functions of the somatosensory system are the perception of external stimuli, the perception of internal stimuli, and the regulation of bod ...

fibers in the mouth. Many parts of the body with exposed membranes that lack taste receptors (such as the nasal cavity, genitals, or a wound) produce a similar sensation of heat when exposed to pungent agents. The pungent sensation provided by chili peppers,

black pepper Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diameter ...

and other spices like

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

and

plays an important role in a diverse range of cuisines across the world. Pungent substances, like

, are used in

topical A topical medication is a medication that is applied to a particular place on or in the body. Most often topical medication means application to body surfaces such as the skin or mucous membranes to treat ailments via a large range of classes ...

analgesic An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic, antalgic, pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used for pain management. Analgesics are conceptually distinct from anesthetics, which temporarily reduce, and in s ...

s and

pepper spray Pepper spray, oleoresin capsicum spray, OC spray, capsaicin spray, mace, or capsicum spray is a Tear gas, lachrymator (tear gas) product containing as its active ingredient the chemical compound capsaicin, which irritates the eyes with burning ...

Mechanism

Pungency is sensed via

chemesthesis Chemesthesis is the detection of potentially harmful chemicals by the skin and mucous membranes. Chemesthetic sensations arise when chemical compounds activate Sensory receptor, receptors associated with other senses that mediate pain, touch, and T ...

, the sensitivity of the skin and mucous membranes to chemical substances. Substances such as

, capsaicin, and

thiosulfinate In organosulfur chemistry, thiosulfinate is a functional group consisting of the linkage (R refers to organic substituents). Thiolsulfinates are also named as alkanethiosulfinic (or arenethiosulfinic) acid esters. They are the first of the seri ...

s can cause a burning or tingling sensation by inducing a

trigeminal nerve In neuroanatomy, the trigeminal nerve (literal translation, lit. ''triplet'' nerve), also known as the fifth cranial nerve, cranial nerve V, or simply CN V, is a cranial nerve responsible for Sense, sensation in the face and motor functions ...

stimulation Stimulation is the encouragement of development or the cause of activity in general. For example, "The press provides stimulation of political discourse." An interesting or fun activity can be described as "stimulating", regardless of its physic ...

together with normal taste reception. The pungent feeling caused by

, capsaicin, piperine, and

allicin Allicin is an organosulfur compound obtained from garlic and leeks. When fresh garlic is chopped or crushed, the enzyme alliinase converts alliin into allicin, which is responsible for the aroma of fresh garlic. Allicin is unstable and quickl ...

is caused by activation of the heat thermo- and chemosensitive TRP ion channels including

TRPV1 The transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 1 (TRPV1), also known as the capsaicin receptor and the vanilloid receptor 1, is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the ''TRPV1'' gene. It was the first isolated member of ...

and

TRPA1 Transient receptor potential cation channel, subfamily A, member 1, also known as transient receptor potential ankyrin 1, TRPA1, or The Mustard and Wasabi Receptor, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''TRPA1'' (and in mice and rats by ...

nociceptor A nociceptor (; ) is a sensory neuron that responds to damaging or potentially damaging stimuli by sending "possible threat" signals to the spinal cord and the brain. The brain creates the sensation of pain to direct attention to the body part, ...

s. The pungency of chilies may be an

adaptive response The adaptive response is a DNA damage response pathway prevalent across bacteria that protects DNA from damage by external agents or by errors during replication.Landini, P, Volkert MR. (2000Regulatory Responses of the Adaptive Response to Alkylatio ...

to microbial pathogens.

Favoring by humans

Capsaicin evolved in peppers to deter particularly seed-eating rodents that destroy seeds by grinding, thwarting their

germination Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, ...

, while at the same time allowing birds to eat them and disperse through much greater distances via defecation, thus also preventing the new seedlings from competing for natural resources with their parent plant (in birds, pepper seeds are not destroyed by consumption and digestion). It was found that birds do not feel pungency due to lack of TRP channels, but mammals, including rodents and humans, do have them. Unlike most other mammals, however, many humans favor pungent and spicy food (including traditionally spicy regional cuisines). Multiple reasons for that have been proposed. The thrill-seeking theory suggests that some people are attracted to spicy taste due to intense sensations or thrills. According to the antimicrobial theory, general spices have been added to foods in hot climates due to

antimicrobial An antimicrobial is an agent that kills microorganisms (microbicide) or stops their growth (bacteriostatic agent). Antimicrobial medicines can be grouped according to the microorganisms they are used to treat. For example, antibiotics are used aga ...

properties of related substances. The only other mammal known to consume pungent food is northern treeshrew (''Tupaia belangeri'').

References

External links