The fifth taste...

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:13 am

We've always been told that there are only 4 tastes detectable by our taste buds: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. All the other sensations you get when you eat are actually scents detected by your nose (which is why food tastes so flat when you have a cold).
This morning on NPR I heard a story about a fifth detectable taste, which was discovered back in the early 1900's , called Umami. A Google search turned up tons of hits including:

http://www.umamiinfo.com/

Interesting!

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:21 am

Sorry, I guess I'm surprised you are only coming upon this now. Umami is the "supposed" sense that allows us to appreciate monosodium glutimate as a flavour-enhancing agent in our food.

What I have always found fascinating about MSG is that no study has been able to pinpoint the chemical functions that cause so many adverse reactions in various people.

djm

chrisoff · Post by **chrisoff** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:51 am

djm wrote:Sorry, I guess I'm surprised you are only coming upon this now. Umami is the "supposed" sense that allows us to appreciate monosodium glutimate as a flavour-enhancing agent in our food. What I have always found fascinating about MSG is that no study has been able to pinpoint the chemical functions that cause so many adverse reactions in various people.

djm

I think you've got it backwards. I always understood MSG is a way of artificially enhancing Umami in food. Glutamate is just one type of substance which creates the taste.

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:04 am

Umami is the discovery/invention of the guy who invented MSG, claiming he developed MSG when he was in search of umami, which no-one had heard of before he invented it.

djm

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:16 am

Wow! So Chinese food only dates back to the 1900s!

falkbeer · Post by **falkbeer** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:59 am

djm wrote:Sorry, I guess I'm surprised you are only coming upon this now. Umami is the "supposed" sense that allows us to appreciate monosodium glutimate as a flavour-enhancing agent in our food. What I have always found fascinating about MSG is that no study has been able to pinpoint the chemical functions that cause so many adverse reactions in various people.

djm

OK, it´s impossible to describe a tast, but could you give some example of food that gets a lot of taste from umami? Or some referens to a known taste (like, it tastes like burned gym shoes, or something like that

)

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 10:10 am

How about "savoriness"? In addition to being descriptive, it avoids the irritating inconsistency of "The five senses are bitterness, saltiness, sourness, sweetness and umami."

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 10:25 am

That gets my vote!

apart from the spelling, of course.

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 10:46 am

My mami done told me ....

djm

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 11:36 am

Umami Tambien!

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:10 pm

Y Tu.

djm

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:22 pm

djm wrote:Sorry, I guess I'm surprised you are only coming upon this now. Umami is the "supposed" sense that allows us to appreciate monosodium glutimate as a flavour-enhancing agent in our food. What I have always found fascinating about MSG is that no study has been able to pinpoint the chemical functions that cause so many adverse reactions in various people.

djm

Yeah, I'm surprised that I never heard of it before too. My family views me as a sort of font of trivial information

sbfluter · Post by **sbfluter** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:23 pm

Is umami the taste of Uni?

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:36 pm

falkbeer wrote:
OK, it´s impossible to describe a tast, but could you give some example of food that gets a lot of taste from umami? Or some referens to a known taste (like, it tastes like burned gym shoes, or something like that )

http://www.umamiinfo.com/what_exactly_is_umami/

The taste of umami itself is subtle. It blends well with other tastes to expand and round out flavours. Most people don’t recognise umami when they encounter it, but it can be detected when eating ripe tomatoes, parmesan cheese, cured ham, mushrooms, meat and fish. Umami plays an important role making food taste delicious.

If you ever have had miso soup at a japanese restaurant, you're familiar with the umami taste. The soup stock is usually dashi, made with a combination of bonito flakes (dried fish) and konbu (seaweed), and has a very distinctive flavor. I used to weep bitterly over my thin, terrible home-made miso soup until I discovered dashi.

I remember reading about umami in high school..and that was a long time ago

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 4:00 pm

they mentioned this on public radion today but i got to work before the story came on.