umami
the fifth taste
What is umami? Umami is the fifth basic taste after sweet, salt, sour, and bitter. Umami is a Japanese word sometimes spelled umame. It means "good taste". In Chinese it's xian wei. Believe it or not umami is what makes MSG fire certain receptors in our tongues. Umami is what makes things taste "better".
Umami can be summed up as savory or hearty. In addition to monosodium glutamate (MSG), meats, cheese, broth, stock, and other protein-heavy foods are rich in umami. Think soy sauce, fish sauce, parmesan cheese, anchovies, seafood, seaweed, mushrooms. Ingredients like these are used to make things taste better. In short, umami is good.
Which foods are rich in umami? Tomatoes, shiitake mushrooms, enokitake mushrooms, truffles, soy beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chinese cabbage, carrots, kombu, seaweed, katsuobush/dried bonito flakes, niboshi/small dried sardines, bonito, mackerel, sea bream, tuna, cod, prawns, squid, oysters, shellfish,, beef, pork, chicken, parmesan cheese, and green tea.
If not the chemistry, at least the ingredients and techniques are part of traditional Asian cuisine. Umami-rich foods and cooking techniques are relatively new in the West.
Cooking techniques also affect umami. Drying, aging, curing and slow cooking increase umami. Foods high in umami include Parmesan cheese, dried mushrooms, wine, seaweed, anchovies, soy sauce, and ketchup. Fermentation as in black bean sauce, aging, curing, and slow cooking also increase umami.
Colloquially I consider umami the background taste. The filler between ingredients that binds a recipe together. Think soup stock but not necessarily soup. Adding a couple dried mushrooms to gravy? Umami at work. A piece of sea vegetable in a pot of soup? Umami again. Ketchup on everything? Why?? Umami, that's why!
Sautee the mushrooms, age the cheese, dry the seaweed, ferment the soy beans, etc. These processes enhance the natural umami in these foods.
Umami was first identified by Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese scientist, who patented MSG. MSG was first manufactured by Ajinomoto.
Trick: even small amounts of 2 or more foods rich in umami increases the effect. The theory is that when glutamate combines with specific nucleotides the effect is greater.
, by Erica Bauermeister
Copyright 2011 Jerry Whiting. All rights reserved.