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(rolls sleeves up arms)(It may be worth it to save this list for future cooking reference)

The five primary flavors are sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory(umami). The tastiest foods have a good blend of these primary flavors and pleasant secondary, tertiary and mouth feel sensations.

The six secondary flavors are spicy (piquance or pungency),
fatty or oily, coolness (like minty, menthol or camphor),
astringent (like alum or lemon), heartiness (like alcohol),
and numbness (like nutmeg or clove).

The tertiary flavors are more oriented towards textures, like crunchy, chewy, crispy, crystalline, powdery, earthy, fishy, juicy, squashy, runny, solid, hard, soft, tough, soggy, firm, and creamy. I think a good argument can be made for fizzy (carbonated) and foamy to be added to this list.

And these are different from what is called the “mouth feel” of foods:

Cohesiveness: Degree to which the sample deforms before rupturing when biting with molars.

Density: Compactness of cross section of the sample after biting completely through with the molars.

Dryness: Degree to which the sample feels dry in the mouth.

Fracturability: Force with which the sample crumbles, cracks or shatters. Fracturability encompasses crumbliness, crispiness, crunchiness and brittleness.

Graininess: Degree to which a sample contains small grainy particles.

Gumminess: Energy required to disintegrate a semi-solid food to a state ready for swallowing.

Hardness: Force required to deform the product to given distance, i.e., force to compress between molars, bite through with incisors, compress between tongue and palate.

Heaviness: Weight of product perceived when first placed on tongue.

Moisture absorption: Amount of saliva absorbed by product.

Moisture release: Amount of wetness/juiciness released from sample.

Mouthcoating: Type and degree of coating in the mouth after mastication (for example, fat/oil).

Roughness: Degree of abrasiveness of product’s surface perceived by the tongue.

Slipperiness: Degree to which the product slides over the tongue.

Smoothness: Absence of any particles, lumps, bumps, etc., in the product.

Uniformity: Degree to which the sample is even throughout; homogeneity.

Uniformity of Bite: Evenness of force through bite.

Uniformity of Chew: Degree to which the chewing characteristics of the product are even throughout mastication.

Viscosity: Force required to draw a liquid from a spoon over the tongue.

Wetness: Amount of moisture perceived on product’s surface.

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Starting with the primary flavors, many professional chefs now consider the ultimate flavor sauce to be equal parts Tabasco and Worcestershire.

It is a near perfect blend of sweet-sour-salty-bitter savory(umami) and spicy(piquance), so when added to recipes that have fats (fatty or oily taste), it covers most the taste spectrum, except for coolness, astringent, heartiness, and numbness.

The two together are the western equivalent of Chinese
Five Spice Powder, which is supposed to be a perfect blend of what they call Yin and Yang. Likewise, curry powder has an elaborate blend of spices to produce this flavor blend.

As a food, bacon is almost unique by having so much savory, a characteristic shared, oddly enough, by anchovies, which is the secret ingredient in Worcestershire sauce. But bacon also blends salty, sour and bitter very well, so sweetness is the “odd man out”.

This is why a sweet syrup tastes so good with bacon, perhaps separated somewhat in the mouth so it does not entirely cancel out the rather bland savory taste.

A good comparison is to piquance, how sweetness cancels hot sauce to some extent, but not entirely. Definitely not enough if you have eaten something way too spicy for you. This is why it works much better as a sweet, rich dairy product, as milk fat actually binds with capsicum to take it away from the taste buds, while the sweetness blocks it further.