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When you eat, your mouth feels in 19 ways, and it uses this information to figure out what you’re eating, and if it tastes good. According to Wikipedia, these criteria are:

• Cohesiveness: Degree to which the sample deforms before rupturing when biting with molars.
• Denseness: 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.
• Uniformity of Chew: Degree to which the chewing characteristics of the product are even throughout mastication.
• Uniformity of bite: Evenness of force through bite.
• Viscosity: Force required to draw a liquid from a spoon over the tongue.
• Wetness: Amount of moisture perceived on product’s surface.

Food scientists use mouthfeel to do crazy things. Recently, the TA.XT2i Texture Analyzer (left) was invented as a near perfect mechanical mouth. It’s built to account for all the tenets of mouthfeel. Almost every major food company in the world uses it or something like it.

So thanks to the science of mouthfeel, we have things like  “The Journal of Texture Studies: An International Journal of Texture, Rheology, and the Physical and Sensory Testing of Foods and Consumer Goods.” There are also patents on mouthfeel recipes, such as Kraft’s occult “Mouthfeel and Lubricity Enhancing Composition.”