When we taste food, it is a mixture of both taste and smell. As you eat, the tiny food particles drift up into the passages of the nose from the back of the mouth.
The smell of the food contributes tot he simple tastes detected bu the tongue. This explains why food tastes odd when we have a cold because the nasal organs become inflamed and therefore the sense of smell is temporarily smothered.
When we ear spicy foods, such as curry or chilly, mild pain also forms a part of the characteristic taste. If these foods did not burn the mouth slightly, they would not taste the curry or chilly at all.
If we were to lose our sense of smell, almost all the taste sensation would be lost as well, meaning that we wouldn’t enjoy the taste of our food nearly so much.
It is said that if we close our nose and try to eat an apple, there is a high chance that you taste it like a potato !!!