Sensory Writing: Taste (Part 6 of 6)

This is part five of the Sense Series. We’ve covered sensory writing, sight, sound , touch and smell. Our final sense is Taste.

Taste is directly linked to smell. It, like smell, also happens within the body. We have to take in the food in order to taste it. Taste cannot happen passively. It is an active act, a decision. We drink the wine, eat the pizza, and savor the chocolate. As it’s linked to smell, I am going to limit my commentary, but I highly encourage you to include taste in your work.

Both taste and smell provide a shortcut to shared experiences. Of course, some people love the taste of Brussels Sprouts (me) while others loathe them. It’s the same for all foods and smells. But there is a shared understanding of those items by all who have smelled or tasted them. By including these senses in your work, you are linking to that common understanding and adding a deeper layer to your work. How your character reacts to the scents and tastes is another matter.

There are two ways to handle taste in your writing. The first is by describing the taste itself. The chocolate melting on your tongue, coating it in milk chocolate goodness. The tartness of the wine as it slips past your lips. The heat of the peppers that create fire in your mouth. These are tangible descriptions. You let your reader taste the coffee, the whiskey, the pastry. You share the tastes much like Guy Fieri does in Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives so your reader can experience them too.


The second way is to invoke taste by describing the food and beverage being served. We all have a reservoir of tastes to pull on when when encounter an image or the name of our favorite food. This salivary reaction is why commercials work. We see the burger. We remember the burger. We want the burger. It’s human nature. Writing about food is similar. It’s a shortcut to recreating those tastes. You simply describe the foods and let the reader bring the taste to mind herself.


Whichever method you choose, be creative. It’s better to use strong, descriptive words than to make a grocery list. No one thinks reading a menu is a satisfying experience unless there is a waiter standing by to take your order. Try to avoid making a straight list. If you do start listing items, add descriptions to pull your reader deeper into the scene. Remember that all setting details, including sensory writing, needs to move the story forward or add to character development.

Below are some examples of taste in fiction:

We sliced the fruit in two, holding the halves over a couple of broad leaves so that none of the juice would be lost. It was a good one, thin skinned and tart beneath its sweetness. I remember how we sucked every drop of the juice, how we rasped the flesh clear of the skin with our teeth, then sucked at what remained until our mouths were bitter and cottony.
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

She felt s if she could taste the red of the curtains. Chocolate cake drenched in wine.
Scarlet had only ever had a sip of wine, but she imagined that not even a whole bottle could bring this much iridescent euphoria.
Caraval, Stephanie Garber

You have never been so hungry; you have never been so cold. When we slept, if we slept, we dreamed of the feasts we had carelessly eaten seven months earlier—all that buttered bread, the potato dumplings, the sausages—eaten with disregard, swallowing without tasting, leaving great crumbs on our plates, scraps of fat. In June of 1941, before the Germans came, we thought we were poor. But June seems like a paradise now.
City of Thieves, David Benioff

Business was doing well, because all the locals knew that dishes made from the flowers that grew around the apple tree in the Waverly garden could affect the eater in curious ways. The biscuits with lilac jelly, the lavender tea cookies, and the tea cakes made with nasturtium mayonnaise the Ladies Aid ordered for their meetings once a month gave them the ability to keep secrets. The fried dandelion buds over marigold-petal rice, stuffed pumpkin blossoms, and rose-hip soup ensure that your company would notice only the beauty of your home and never the flaws. Anise hyssop honey butter on toast, angelica candy, and cupcakes with crystallized pansies made children thoughtful. Honeysuckle wine served on the Fourth of July gave you the ability to see in the dark. The nutty flavor of the dip made from hyacinth bulbs made you feel moody and think of the past, and the salads made with chicory and mint had you believing that something good was about to happen, whether it was true or not.
Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen

(talking about pastries)
They were absolutely perfect with coffee, and I topped each with a different glaze inspired by the gourmet coffee syrups of my coffeehouse: chocolate-hazelnut; buttery toffee; candied orange-cinnamon; raspberry-white chocolate; and sugar-kissed lemon, the flavor found in my Romano “sweet,” an espresso served in a cup with its rim rubbed by a lemon twist, then dipped in granulated cane—the way the old-timers drank it in the Pennsylvania factory town where I’d grown up.
Roast Mortem, Cleo Coyle

Vera had found half an onion somewhere; she cut it into four pieces on a plate smeared with sunflower oil. When the onion was gone, we mopped up the remaining oil with our ration bread. Ration bread did not taste like bread. It did not taste like food…
Everything that could be added to the recipe without poisoning people was added to the recipe. The entire city was starving, no one had enough to eat, and still, everyone cursed the bread, the sawdust flavor, how hard it got in the cold. People broke their teeth trying to chew it.
City of Thieves, David Benioff