New research shows that odors can actually be coded as tastes in the brain’s primary taste cortex, overturning decades of assumptions about how flavor is built. They focused on the insula, the brain’s primary taste cortex, and used multivariate pattern analysis to compare the neural activity evoked by tastes and odors. When we eat or drink, taste on the tongue is combined with retronasal odors rising from the oral cavity into the nose. These odors are what make strawberries seem sweet and coffee seem bitter, even though the tongue itself can only detect five basic tastes. This understanding could also support therapies for people with impaired taste perception, by developing ways to boost flavor signaling through the nose.