What's For Dinner v. 17.45 Umami? What's That?

Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Salty. 

For YEARS we were taught in school that those were the DEFINITIVE “FOUR TASTES”. But they were all of them deceived. 

Why? Because for MILLENNIA chefs have used ONE taste over all others. That taste received a name back in 1908: UMAMI

U-WHAAT?

Umami is the secret that no one knew about because no one asked. 

But what IS Umami?

The TL;DR of this diary is that Umami represents SAVORY. It’s why steak tastes so good. It’s why things like morel mushrooms and TRUFFLES are prized among chefs. You can find it in meat, vegetables, fish, dairy, and even seaweed. What’s the secret?

Glutamic Acid, or glutamates, or other similar amino acids. 

Yes, amino acids. The building blocks of life. What proteins are created out of. 

There are certain ingredients, that, while they may not bring much individual flavor, bring something else. They bring a sense of “this stuff tastes GOOD”. 

In 1985, the term umami was recognized as the scientific term to describe the taste of glutamates and nucleotides at the first Umami International Symposium in Hawaii. Umami represents the taste of the amino acid L-glutamate and 5'-ribonucleotides such as guanasonine,  monophosphate (GMP) and inosine monophosphate (IMP). It can be described as a pleasant "brothy" or "meaty" taste with a long-lasting, mouthwatering and coating sensation over the tongue.

How important is this flavor? This flavor is the FOUNDATION of the cuisine of most cultures. Let’s keep it in the West and begin with Rome. Ever heard of something called “garum”? It’s an ancient Roman condiment that begins with fermenting fish with salt in the hot sun for months. The result is not dissimilar to Asian fish sauces, or even soy sauce, which uses vegetables. Why? Because fish, ESPECIALLY anchovies, contain huge amounts of those glutamates. In fact, soy sauce and fish sauce are so ubiquitous in Asian cuisine, that if you add one or the other, so-called “chefs” will call a dish “Asian” just because they’re in that dish.  In the New World? Barbacoa and all its smoke flavored relatives (Shout out to Miss Denise for her knowledge and wisdom) show off the umami of meat. Here’s a “quick” way to make a passable garum, and one way to use it:

Note the discussion of salt when it comes to this ingredient.  It plays an important part in our story of Umami—the history of MSG. 

Oh now you’ve done it, zen. You said the taboo three letters. I can hear it now: “But MSG is bad! It does terrible things! Chinese restaurants!” We’ll get to restaurants in a moment, but let’s REALLY examine MSG.

First, here’s the dirty secret: Chefs all over the world and throughout millennia have used MSG for ages. How do I know? Look at your dried kombu next time you’re in your local Asian market. See that white dust? MSG. In its natural form. Anchovies? Mushrooms? Tomatoes? ALL loaded with MSG. 

After all, the “G” stands for GLUTAMATE. And All the foods I’ve mentioned, that YOU have used as ingredients contain Glutamates. 

Look at a list of foods high in glutamates and you’ll see ALL your favorite foods:

Cheese, Tomato, Onion, Seafood, Mushrooms and other vegetables, Meat, Nuts, MILK.

In fact, breast milk is almost HALF glutamates. Yup, we consume undistilled MSG from the very day we’re born. 

I’m kind of equating “glutamates” with MSG in this essay, but that’s not quite true. MSG is the distilled and fermented glutamates extracted from glutamate rich foods. Its inspiration was a scientist’s (Dr. Kikunae Ikeda) wife asking what made her tofu miso soup so meaty tasting despite having no meat in it. The result? It was the kombu broth. So our scientist experimented and extracted and crystallized the glutamic acid in the seaweed. Thus both MSG and the name “umami” were born. The scientist patented the names and process, and thus Ajinomoto was born. Here’s a short explainer about the process of making MSG.

So if you take all these glutamate rich foods, and add a bit of MSG, what you are doing is making those foods taste better. And there is a whole industry supplying that flavor that DOESN’T claim to be MSG but is basically nothing but glutamates. Products like Worcestershire sauce, A1 sauce, Vegeta, Maggi, Marmite, Vegemite, Knorr’s, and so on. Plus miso, soy sauce, fish sauce, and condiments like that. Some of these add MSG in its form devised by Dr. Ikeda, some don’t. 

Also, if you reduce the amount of salt in your cooking, you can “beef” up the flavor with MSG to a point where the dish doesn’t need that much salt. So it is a great aid for low sodium diets. Table salt is 40% sodium, whereas MSG is around 12.8% sodium. So MSG has about 1/3 the sodium of salt. 

Now for some dark side: Do you remember all those stories about Chinese restaurants and MSG? And how MSG was so bad for you? Based on a racist lie. Thus we got “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”

Tucked between "Chinese red" and "Chinese rose", the entry in Merriam-Webster's for “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” is defined as:

While this was going on, back in the 70s and 80s, there were commercials all over TV for something called “Accent” flavor enhancer. Accent is literally MSG. So, I guess they were confident no one would read labels. 

Now, MSG is making a bit of a comeback, thanks to Ajinomoto, the maker of most of the MSG sold commercially and through retail. They’ve launched a campaign to get M-W to modify the entry of “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”

And even without the actual crystals, we add the ingredients to food the way we do to take advantage of their glutamates. Any of the proliferation of cooking channels on You Tube talk of “unctuousness” and “savoryness” in mouthfeel, constantly mention “boosting umami” and things like that. Here is an example of “boosting umami” from Chef John. Check out the sauce he makes.

It’s a common foodie joke to say that the reason that food is so much better at restaurants than at home is butter. Restaurants use WAY more butter than a home cook. But why is that again? Glutamates and glutamic acids. I’d also wager that some places sprinkle a bit of MSG into the dishes as well. After all, as Uncle Roger says, MSG means “makes s**t good”. 

In conclusion, if you’re leery of adding a bit of Ajinomoto or Accent to your food, research and find those foods that are high in glutamates. Figure out how you can maximize those glutamates. THAT is the true secret of why restaurants succeed. 

At the time of this publish, I’m at Six Flags Great America participating in a music festival. I will update on how my choirs perform. And I will tip, rec, and comment much later this evening. I have reasonable hopes. So, I’m not cooking until Monday or Tuesday. Probably Tuesday.  But that experiment will be talked about soon. I leave you in suspense. All I’m going to say about my next two diaries is “Umami”, and “Whoa, I did NOT see that coming”. 

WFD at YOUR place tonight?

What’s for Dinner? is a Saturday evening get-together where friends share recipes, talk about good food and help others answer culinary questions.

We welcome you to our virtual table every Saturday evening 4:30 PT/7:30 ET. If you would like to write a post for an upcoming date just send a message to ninkasi23!