Umami

[Ben Hong]

MSG is to be found in all flavoured snacks like chips, corn snacks, totilla like chips, , pepperonis, beef jerkys...and most of the canned and ready made meats and meals. I believe that some of the so-called sliced "roast" beef, turkey breast, hams, commonly called sandwich meats have the highest concentration of msg. known to man. They have to add flavour back after they boil the stuff into submission. In fact one would have to search very very hard in order to find a savoury snack that doesn't contain it. Besides fat, msg gives any food that very desirable tastiness and mouth feel.

Like I, and others, have said before, mushrooms, soy sauce, soybean pastes, bonito, concentrated seafood products and extracts like oyster sauce, kelp, etc. all have natural msg and would enhance most recipes where they are used.

Yes, I do use Accent (msg), but not as often as one would think. I am still boiling chicken parts and beef and pork bones for stock. However, a half a teaspoon of msg in a quart of stew or soup makes all the difference in the world, if I did not have enough meat stock.

Edited June 10, 2005 by Ben Hong (log)

[Keitha]

I've never used MSG but my mom had a container of it in her spice rack for YEARS until I pointed it out and she told me the last time she remembered using it we lived in Montreal (over 25 years ago)!!!

However, I know that some restaurants use a product that is essentially MSG but is not called MSG and I've been trying to find out what it's called. Anyone have any ideas? One of the places I used to manage used it on the prime rib, pastas etc.

[SuzySushi]

However, I know that some restaurants use a product that is essentially MSG but is not called MSG and I've been trying to find out what it's called. Anyone have any ideas? One of the places I used to manage used it on the prime rib, pastas etc.

←

One MSG product used commercially is Ajinomoto. The Japanese company of the same name first commericalized MSG powder for food use.

Aji-no-moto, by the way, means "essence of taste."

Edited June 10, 2005 by SuzySushi (log)

[Susan in FL]

How did you use it?  Did you add it to everything along with salt, or just in Asian dishes?  Did you experience umami when you were using?

←

I used it selectively, rather than regularly. Back then, I thought of it as a flavor enhancer, rather than a flavoring, and didn't add it to something I thought was already very tasty. As for experiencing umami... I have no idea. I thought I knew a lot about food, but I didn't.

This thread has me thinking about trying it again! I did not get the headaches from MSG that became infamous.

[turkeybone]

Yeah so far "well roundedness" and "meaty richness" are the best descriptors of umami. Shiitakes are high in umami so saute, cover your nose and eat one, and you'll taste umami. It's not like an "experience" or the like -- its a flavor so it wouldnt come from smells at all.

[scott123]

A word to describe umami...

Glutamaic :)

[jamiemaw]

I know where to find it and I was once explained why it is the fifth taste... but I can't explain it. . . . but I jusst can't find the words to describe umami. Can any of my fellow egulleters help me out?

←

You'll know when you have your first one.

[chefdg]

In my opinion MSG is straight up cheating. Cudos to the Japanese for creating such a flavor inhancer, but if you are using it, you are trying to make up for something missing.

Unami is something that is very interesting to me, but more unknown, and maybe that's why it's so interesting. I cannot say if I have experienced it, but I'm sure I have.

[JAZ]

In my opinion MSG is straight up cheating.  Cudos to the Japanese for creating such a flavor inhancer, but if you are using it, you are trying to make up for something missing. 

←

Is using a pinch (or more) of salt, or sugar, or acid cheating? They also enhance other flavors; would you say that their use is trying to make up for something missing?

[origamicrane]

In my opinion MSG is straight up cheating.  Cudos to the Japanese for creating such a flavor inhancer, but if you are using it, you are trying to make up for something missing. 

←

Is using a pinch (or more) of salt, or sugar, or acid cheating? They also enhance other flavors; would you say that their use is trying to make up for something missing?

←

I think msg is seen as cheating if you used the powdered stuff.

[Corinna Dunne]

I had never heard of umami until I read this thread yesterday. I was captivated. Something about it resonated. I learned that mushrooms - among other foods - have umami and I kept thinking about truffles, their heady assault on the senses - taste and smell and texture - and wondered: is this more heightened taste experience the fifth taste? Is it umami?

Then, call it serendipity, but last night I had a taste experience that caught my attention. It was while I was eating lobster. As it is a rare treat, I forrage hard for every morsel of meat. So the legs get sucked dry, the meat behind the eyes gets devoured and so too does the more gelatinous, flat sliver of meat in the 'flipper bits' at the end of the tail. It was the taste of the flipper meat that startled me. Whereas it is normally very sweet (in, say a 1.5 lb lobster), the meat on this 'flipper' (from a 2.5 lb lobster) seemed to be wrapped in a coat of another flavour. It was the taste of the shell, like lobster bisque, but lighter with a fresh touch of anise.

The true moment of awareness of something 'cerebral' came later, when the smell of the lobster shells being simmered for stock wafted across the room. It was like a trigger and set off a stream of consciousness and taste memories. I rolled my tongue around the inside of my mouth, thinking about the residual lobster taste as I did it. I noticed how dry my mouth was, as if lightly coated in tannin. The more I sucked on this taste, the more I thought that this was something different. Something that did not fit the sweet, sour, bitter and salty quartet. I thought, this is like truffle. And as I thought of truffle, I thought, truffle is like miso in the same way. I thought more about this taste and sensation and realised that it seems to act on the surface of the top of the tongue and work its way down to the top of the throat.

So then I thought about some other 'coveted' foods and tried, in my memory, to compare their taste with this new oeuvre. Caviar: a bit, oysters: a bit, foie gras: a bit. I realised that the taste that I felt linked these foods was iron. Aah, iron and tannins. That got me thinking about red wine. And terroir. And silage.

Then another taste memory popped up. The yolks of hard boiled eggs. thay have the taste too. That sense of dryness on the palate and the edge of iron. This brought to mind an incredible meal I had recently in Can Roca, just outside Barcelona. One of the dishes was 3 hour slow cooked eggs, sea urchin and black sausage oil. (This dish was discussed quite a bit on the Can Roca thread). I realised that not only was this taste in the egg yolk, but also very much in the black sausage oil, and to a lesser extent in the unctuous sea urchin. And then I wondered: is this cerebral taste what is driving the cullinary revolution in Catalunya at the moment?

I thought about how I had raved to friends about the 'new gastronomy' food when I returned from Catalunya. How I had found it so exciting and experiential. How I long to get back to once again experience that sense of being transported into a higher level of taste pleasure. And how I think that everyone should try this wonderful, new food. I wouldn't call it spiritual, more hedonistic.

So there you have it. A pretty raw and rather long description of a taste experience. I am not claiming that what I experienced was umamic or that I have discovered the cullinary G spot, the holy grail. The experience was purely sensory and at times subsconscious and in no way scientific. But what I will say, is that there are more tastes out there. Think of the layers of taste and nuance a wine expert can find in a great red wine, and you begin to realise that there's so much more than sweet, sour, bitter and salty.

[Ben Hong]

In my opinion MSG is straight up cheating.  Cudos to the Japanese for creating such a flavor inhancer, but if you are using it, you are trying to make up for something missing. 

Unami is something that is very interesting to me, but more unknown, and maybe that's why it's so interesting.  I cannot say if I have experienced it, but I'm sure I have.

←

Straight up cheating? I think not. Jaz got it right when he says that it is no more cheating than a pinch of salt or a dash of vinegar, etc. Sanctimony does not become you.

Everybody has experienced umami. Repeat, EVERYBODY has tasted and experienced umami on a daily basis. If you've drank mother's milk, cow's milk, eaten cheeses, any meats at all, soy products, products of the sea, etc. Umami is that ethereal mouth feel and pleasurable taste in foods that, like constituent sugar in foods, distinguishes a good tasting food from something that we would not want to eat again. It keeps us coming back. Why do you think that flavoured potato chips outsell the plain variety by many times? I can abso-freakin'-lutely guarantee that people would not be eating hot dogs if umami (msg) were not present.

Yeah, you've experienced it.

[Rebecca263]

To us umami is a mushroom* that is sauteed with a bit of soy sauce and bitten into while it is still hot and juicy. Try it, you've found Umami! I agree with the above posters, umami is a delicious, meaty and primordially satisfying taste, but I think that properly used the termis not meant for meat. Strawberries macerated with Balsamic vinegar have a tendency to an umami moment, but not as well as vegetable proteins cooked with some kind of salt. Tofu is particarly wonderful, but tricky to find in the umami realm, it won't give you the sensation if it is breaded or soft. Of course, I heard "Umami! Yay!" last night when we ate our turkey meatballs, but I'm certain that's just anime loving teen talking, and not accurate usage of the term.

*edited to mention, a BIG mushroom, like a Portobello, not those white buttony ones!

Edited June 11, 2005 by Rebecca263 (log)

[magnolia]

Interesting you should have posted your query on June 9, as there was a session on Umami at the Cheltenham Science Festival that evening.

After hearing a panel of speakers including Edmond Rolls, an Oxford professor whose expertise is umami and neuroscience; Ichiro Kubota, Chef at Umu; Heston Blumenthal, Chef of The Fat Duck; and a few others...try to describe umami, I was none the wiser. Edmond Rolls showed graphs that demonstrated the effects of satiety on eating behaviour - i.e. when someone's hungry, they want umami-tasting foods - the more they take in, the more sated they become, and the less important umami is to them. Chef Kubota gave his recipe for dashi. Chef Blumenthal described how the sensations and associations of eating various foods could be subverted in surprising but delightful ways, by the use of chemicals - and how our experiences in the future will be increasingly enhanced by technology that tries to recreate these associations.

But there was no consensus - and nobody could describe umami in one word or even five or 10. There was a lot of discussion about the role that MSG plays...and a lot about the various combination of taste 'sensations' that make up umami.

At first I walked away frustrated, as I'd hoped someone could tell me what to look for. I find that the ability to taste and discern different flavours, sensations, smells, etc. - is becoming increasingly important in my work. If I can't identify umami, am I impaired? I find bonito flakes, marmite and parmesan, salty; ketchup, sweet and salty; pineapple, sweet and sour; good chocolate bitter and sweet. All of these have a high umami quality.

But I suppose that even at 100 years old, the concept of describing umami as a 'taste' is quite young. It has taken thousands of years to reach any kind of agreement over what constitutes one-word descriptors like sweet, salty, bitter etc. And even what strikes you as unpleasantly bitter is probably not so bitter to me.

So I guess I'll have to be satisfied with "you know it when you taste it" for now.

Edited June 11, 2005 by magnolia (log)

[KatieLoeb]

Protein-aceous is the best I can do. Mouthfilling/coating like meat. Drink a spoonful of miso soup and see if it makes sense then.

[Susan in FL]

This all sounds so culinarily spiritual, in an Eastern Wisdom sort of way.

[Ben Hong]

Umami is "meat taste without meat". That je ne sais quoi taste sensation one feels/gets when eating any animal protein, certain vegetable products like fermented soy, seaweed, etc.

To paraphrase Lao Tsu;

Search for it, you will not find

Feel for it, you can't touch.

Smell, it has no scent.

IT IS.

←

Susan, here you go.

[Really Nice!]

This is a long shot, but Professor Shizuko Yamaguchi of the Tokyo University of Agriculture has done significant research on Umami over the past 20 years. You might want to contact the university to try and contact the professor with your questions.

[godito]

With the research I've done this past couple of days I've found that the Umami leaves the sensation of "open-ness" in your mouth. It fills it, like there was some heavy, flavorful air in there. And I found that what makes it a teste is:

a. It's not a sensation that can be neutralized (like chilli peppers)

b. It's not an aroma...., you can't "taste" it through your nose (that's the difference between a taste and a flavor)

c. Once you know what it is, you can pick it up from other flavors (like you would with something salty or sweet)

But as for the best way to describe it:

I guess I'll have to be satisfied with "you know it when you taste it" for now.

[Hiroyuki]

Umami is not such a mysterious, subtle taste. It's tangible enough. Try miso soup without dashi and you will know what I mean. So far, about 30 umami substances such as SMG have been found.

And, don't forget that there is another taste not fully described in English - shibumi (astringency).

Persimmons and green tea are described as shibui (adjective form of shibui) not nigai (bitter)!