page_title: Pungency
section_title: In foods
hierarchical_section_title: Pungency / Applications / In foods
caption_attribution_description: English: Spice in the Pointe-à-Pitre market, Guadeloupe Français&#160;: Epices au marché de Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe.
context_page_description: Pungency is the condition of having a strong, sharp smell or flavor. It refers to the characteristic of food commonly referred to as spiciness, hotness or heat, found in foods such as chili peppers. 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". Examples of piquant food include mustard and curry.
context_section_description: Pungency is often quantified in scales that range from mild to hot. The Scoville scale measures the pungency of chili peppers, as defined by the amount of capsaicin 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 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 and other spices like ginger and horseradish plays an important role in a diverse range of cuisines across the world, such as Korean, Persian, Turkish, Tunisian, Ethiopian, Hungarian, Indian, Burmese, Filipino (particularly Bicolano), Indonesian, Laotian,  Singaporean, Malaysian, Bangladeshi, Mexican, Peruvian, Caribbean, Pakistani, Somali, Southwest Chinese (including Sichuan cuisine), Sri Lankan, Vietnamese, and Thai cuisines.
caption: A display of spices in Guadeloupe: some pungent, some not
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