Umami
By Ross A. Christensen
 

Sweet, Sour, Salty, and Bitter.

These are the four taste areas of the human tongue.  Now in the food world, all the rage is the fifth taste, what the Japanese have long called “Umami” (pronounced “oo-MAH-me”). The best description of this taste is that it could be called “earthy” “heady” even “unctuous” although the word in Japanese means “savory, meaty, delicious.” Umami is the detection of earthy flavors in your food, and the presence of umami flavors is proven to enhance foods it is eaten with.

The actual taste can be traced to a natural amino acid, Glutamic Acid, which breaks down into (monosodium) L-glutamate.  This is naturally found in many foods.  It also has linking factors with other ribonucleotides like guanosine monophosphate and inosine monophosphate.  Not only do some foods naturally contain umami like tomatoes, mushrooms, and kelp, but certain processes produce it as well.  Slow cooking, brewing, and fermenting all create umami during their processes.

The recent growing acceptance of Umami as an official fifth taste can be traced back to the renowned French Chef Auguste Escoffier, who arguably is one of the most important chefs in the history of cooking.  In the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s he set the culinary world on fire.  His contributions to gastronomy are still seen in restaurant and home kitchens today, and will no doubt continue for a long time into the future.  One of the things he did was to create a veal broth that didn’t contain any of the four primary flavors, and yet it was truly delicious.  How was this possible? How could a recipe contain no “flavors” yet be so wonderful? By making a stock of veal, which contains inosinate, and adding onions, containing glutamate, he had created a big steaming bowl of umami.

Almost simultaneously (1907), in Japan, biochemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University came to realize that kelp (kombu) broth had a taste to it that was reminiscent of many other foods such as asparagus, cheeses, meats, and tomatoes that didn’t fit with the four known tastes.  He traced this factor to the glutamates which are found in all of these items.  He finally isolated this factor (its actual chemical profile is C5H9NO4) and turned it into a product, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG).  Scientists of the day ran to their microscopes and looked at the human tongue. Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter, but NOPE, no Glutamate section of the tongue!” Professor Ikeda, although he is now known as one of Japan’s ten greatest inventors, was discounted by his contemporaries, and umami itself faded into obscurity.  Now, new research started in the 1980’s and another more recent study at the University Of Miami School Of Medicine in 2000 have both come to new conclusions.  They agreed with the past assessment that “there is no glutamate section to the human tongue”, but revised their predecessors findings with “There are glutamate receptors all over the human tongue”.  Sweet, Sour, Salty, and Bitter all have specific, defined areas where those tastes can be received and transmitted to the brain.  Glutamate doesn’t have one distinct area, but receptors over the entire surface of the tongue.  So it looks like Chef Escoffier and Professor Ikeda had in fact discovered something new, something the scientists couldn’t, if not wouldn’t, see or explain.  Now-a-days still not all (western) scientists will agree with the concept that there are five primary tastes.   

There is a dichotomy with the growing acceptance of Umami, and that is the hatred the general public has for MSG.  For years, people have avoided Asian foods because of the fear of the MSG causing a headache or asthma attack.  So what is the basis for this hatred of MSG, and what is the MSG headache?  Oddly enough, it’s a myth.  People who speak of the evils of MSG are promoting their theory from anecdote and coincidence.  The thing I find really amusing is that no one, not one scientifically verified speck of proof has been found, that MSG is bad for you in any way.  Even the FDA has stated several times and over numerous studies that MSG is safe for human consumption. If you have eaten at a Chinese restaurant and had an asthma attack or a headache, it is most likely from something besides MSG, or it’s psychosomatic due to the bad press MSG has had.  After all, if it’s the MSG then you couldn’t eat sushi, Thai food, almost any meat from a crock pot, meat based soups and stews, parmesan cheese or beer because MSG occurs naturally in all these foods.  Having a Caesar salad would probably kill you; with the ingredients it contains, it might as well be an umami grenade. So it begs the question, “If glutamates are bad for you, why does your tongue have so many receptors that detect them and why do they make other tastes so much better?”  After all, your tongue doesn’t have taste receptors dedicated to cyanide or anthrax. 

Trying to avoid MSG? It’s impossible. As I stated previously, it occurs naturally in many different foods, including meats, beers, soy sauce, and fish sauce. It’s in your fast food, boxed foods, nacho cheese flavored chips, ketchup, it grows naturally in your garden vegetables; literally, it’s everywhere.  Even products that are labeled “organic” can contain MSG since it is a naturally occurring product.  Vegetarian foods use lots of MSG (under various different names) in order to give the foods a more satisfying taste.  Even your own body produces 40 grams of it per day, and human breast milk is ten times higher in glutamates than cow’s milk, regardless of the mother’s diet.

Other names for ingredients that provide umami to a food.

Some people say that using these alternative names constitutes “hiding” MSG in foods, but the truth is that glutamates come in many different products.  While just the act of adding soy sauce to your dinner adds glutamates to it, but you wouldn’t call adding ketchup to your hot dog “sneaking” MSG into your lunch, but it amounts to being the same thing.   Glutamates are a safe, natural flavor and are inescapable in the world today.  Keep that in mind when you are trying to avoid:

Calcium Caseinate

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP)

Monopotassium Glutamate

Hydrolyzed Plant Protein (HPP)

Glutamic acid

Sodium Caseinate

Vegetable Protein Extract

Autolyzed Plant Protein

Hydrolyzed Protein

Natural flavoring

Carrageenan

Maltodextrin

Gelatin

Protein Hydrolysate

Yeast extract

Yeast food

Yeast nutrient