If you often watch cooking programs where the host travels, you have likely encountered the word umami a few times. Often in Japanese cooking, and more recently in western cooking, umami is one of the taste sensations chefs are looking for.
The problem with cooking buzz words is that they don’t really have good descriptors that can be used. Sometimes though, a taste sensation is just that – a sensation, and it is hard to put into words. Umami falls firmly within that category.
Usually, when talking about foods that have umami, we are talking about foods that have a deeply savoury flavour – unlike those you might find in 95% of other foods.
One of the most associated dishes with the deep umami flavour is miso soup, and luckily you can enjoy that by learning how to make miso soup. Once you experience the flavour for yourself, you’ll get most of the way to understanding what umami is.
In the meantime, here are some cool things that you should know about umami.
It might not be Japanese
Although the term that we now use was coined in Japan, the flavour sensation itself is much older. Although unexplained at the time, it was the umami behind Roman’s loving liquamen. Liquamen is the fermented anchovy sauce, which was used just like we use other condiments like ketchup and mayonnaise today.
Later, a celebrated French chef, Escoffier, used liquamen in his veal stock and attributed the success of the sauce to that secret ingredient.
We’ve been enjoying the umami taste sensation long before there was a word for it.
The umami term
Umami itself is quite a nice word to say, but it wasn’t around until 1908, and it was a chemist from Tokyo called Kikunae Ikeda. Kikunea managed to separate the different flavour profiles and identified the layers that contributed to the umami taste, and one particular amino acid came out tops.
Glutamate.
Glutamate occurs in the body and in many different foods.
MSG
While MSG has had some bad press, it is the chemically created version of glutamate. Monosodium glutamate is one of the flavour enhancers that are regularly found in Chinese food, some canned foods and in things like potato chips.
Although many people consider MSG unsafe, it has third less sodium than regular table salt. And is approved as a flavour enhancer for foods.
We are built to love it
The same way we crave carbs and sugar for energy, and we don’t automatically love bitter foods, we are designed to know umami.
When we taste bitter, tangy or ‘odd-tasting’ food, most people’s natural reaction is to not enjoy it. Usually, this is a sign that it is off and therefore inedible – or might give us some toxins we need to flush out.
Glutamate is an amino acid that our bodies make and is a marker of protein being present in food. Protein foods typically give us strength, a sense of fullness and more.
So when we taste umami, we generally enjoy it – because it comes from something that is essential to our lives.
If you are all about protein, then this recipe is one for you: Chocolate Peanut Butter Nutrisystem Protein Shake Recipe – Inspiring Momma.
