Umami is one of the five discrete tastes-along with sweet, sour, bitter and salty- which is sensed by receptors on the human and animal tongue. It is a loanword from Japanese that means “flavor” and it refers to the ‘savory’ flavor of foods such as meat, cheese and mushrooms.

Umami was first discovered in Japan in 1908, when food scientist Dr. Kikunae Ikeda concluded that kombu, a type of seaweed, had a distinctive taste that was not present in most foods. He discovered that kombu’s uniquely delicious flavor was the result of its high concentration of glutamate. From there, he crystallized monosodium glutamate (MSG), the delicious seasoning that was sadly fated to become fear fodder for American hypochondriacs in the 1980s.

In 1996, a team of University of Miami researchers studying taste perception made another breakthrough; they discovered separate taste receptor cells in the tongue for detecting umami. Many Asian foods are packed with natural umami, especially Thai cuisine, which uses fish sauce, a.k.a. umami in a bottle. Unfortunately, in the United States, this awesome discovery has spurred snack food manufacturers to jump on the umami bandwagon. Hydrolyzed protein, an addictive and unhealthy sounding new additive, keeps bringing shoppers back to the junk food aisle (and probably doesn’t help the American obesity epidemic very much, but I digress).

What Do You Think? »

       

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.