European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

The coming Umami Tsunami

by Sven Triloqvist
Wed Mar 10th, 2010 at 06:40:14 AM EST

The Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy experience

Chef Heston Blumenthal:

It's amazing how certain things pack a mighty punch. Take umami, which we have all been eating for years in things such as tomatoes, anchovies and Parmesan (that's why pizza tastes so nice). There is also loads of it in breast milk -- and now you can buy it by the tube in supermarkets. Actually it can't be just umami; it will be a combination of things that contain umami and will taste very nice on a piece of toast or in a pasta sauce.
It's a great marketing idea, although it may be hard for British people to understand as it has no flavour and no smell -- it's a taste, just like sour, sweet or bitter, and it has been shown that there are receptors on the tongue for umami, just as for the others.
It's a bit like introducing a new colour that we have been looking at all our lives but never recognised before.
The best way to find out the taste of umami is to buy a tub of monosodium glutamate, stick a finger in and put it in your mouth. It reminds me of chewing on a wet flannel in the bath as a kid. That sensation of wanting to chew it even more: that's the umami mouth feel.

Taste is on the tongue. Flavour and aroma (Olfaction) come from specialized sensory cells in the nasal cavity. Although both are part of the chemoreception system. The sensory cells in the nasal cavity are receptors for a range of molecules of different shapes that fit exactly, like keys in a lock, into the receptors. Some reports say there are about 20 basic shapes, some say more. It's all under research at the moment. The vast range of smells that humans can detect are supposedly made up of combinations of this basic shape detection, somewhat analogous to the letters that make up words.

Now the interesting things about these basic smells is that they track, fairly closely, the `elements' detected in wine by an expert `nose': smoky, tannic, jammy, earthy, sooty, oaky, creosote etc. Are these `noses' simply better at distinguishing low frequency receptor hits? Or is it one of those sneaky French things where `Terroir' requires a couple of paragraphs of English to explain?

One of the main parts pf the Umami experience is MSG or Monosodium glutamate, aka flavour amplifier, first identified in 1908. It has long been a favourite of oriental chefs, and can make even fairly bland dishes tasty. Personally I always get a headache from too much MSG, and I am always wary of dishes that taste too good for what they are.

But now all the food companies are jumping onto the taste bandwagon.

WSJ: Parmesan cheese has it. So does ketchup. It's umami, and it's changing the way everyone from top chefs to Frito-Lay executives thinks about food.

The food industry is embracing umami as part of an effort to deliver highly flavored foods to consumers while also cutting back on fat, salt, sugar and artificial ingredients. At the same time, more consumers are scrutinizing food labels for chemical-sounding words and unhealthy ingredients.

95,000 metric tons of MSG are sold in the USA each year.

Of course you can always smoke dope instead. The `munchies' make everything taste better.

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The coming Umami Tsunami | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: The coming Umami Tsunami (none / 1)

One can use Lovage instead.

And, trivial fact of the day: a common name for lovage in Germany is Maggikraut because the taste in similar to Maggi soup seasoning.

Brandy and lovage cordial sounds an interesting tipple.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Mar 10th, 2010 at 09:20:30 AM EST

Re: The coming Umami Tsunami (4.00 / 4)

it reminds me of the fruit which makes all other fruits taste better, i forget its name.

remember Kraft Accent? that was pure msg. my guest lived 5 months in china, and she said there was no way of avoiding msg there.

why would people need msg unless the food was tasteless without it?

anyway, i don't eat this for the natural msg in it, but it's a nice collateral. it helps beans cook quicker, for a start. it's just kelp, the fastest growing plant on the planet!

Kombu Seaweed Profile & Information

Kombu Seaweed Profile
Also known as- Laminaria japonica, konbu
Introduction
Kombu is a well-known dark, green, long thick sea vegetable from the kelp family. Used frequently in Japanese cooking, it is an essential ingredient of dashi, and as a flavorful stock for soups and stews. Can also be sprinkled and crushed in practically any dish which requires a salty taste.
Constituents
More than other seaweeds, kombu is a rich source of glutamates, notably monosodium glutamate (MSG), the chemical that lends its distinctive flavor to dashi.
Parts Used
Entire plant, dried.
Typical preparations
You can find kombu in 5 to 6-inch (12 to 15 cm) dried pieces from online purveyors of natural herbs and alsoin health food stores and Japanese groceries. In the specialty shop you will find nalto kombu (shredded kombu for quick cooking), tororo kombu (shaved kombu in vinegar requiring little or no cooking), shio-kombu (boiled kombu flavored with soy sauce), kombu-zuke (lightly pickled kombu), and kombu-ko (powdered kombu that can be sprinkled on food or used in drinks).
Summary
Not only rich in flavor by virtue of natural MSG, kombu also provides healing and soothing mucilages that coat the lower digestion tract relieving peri-anal inflammation, colitis, and constipation.
Precautions
Use with caution if you are sensitive to MSG. If you have hyperthyroidism, limit use to once a week.

i use the whole sea veggie in grains and beans, and powdered as a condiment, for 30 years now.

in fact the tastiest recipe for sea veg i ever tasted is with kombu.

you cook it in boiling water for 40 mins or so, (or take it out of the beans when it's done), then pat the pieces dry, and fry them in olive or sesame oil, and season with a little garlic and a few drops of tamari/shoyu/ properly fermented soysauce, until crispy. don't let it cook until it dissolves into jelly, but don't take them out to fry too soon, or all you'll have is tasty sea-jerky leather.

flavour: amazing, essential, earthy, oceany, the texture crunchy, very pleasurable.

great way to get trace minerals and iodine too.

food is the best medicine!

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Mar 11th, 2010 at 05:38:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Food is the best medicine (4.00 / 3)

I eat quite a lot of maki so I get some input from seaweed - though I guess the wrap is not kombu - which I'll look out for, next time I visit the ethnic food area in the Kallio district of Helsinki. I need to stock up on PG Tips too, and brown basmati, and marmite, and horlicks - oh dear, a major shopping trip.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Thu Mar 11th, 2010 at 06:19:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Food is the best medicine (4.00 / 3)

try arame and wakame while you're at it. they are easy to sneak into soups in discreet enough amounts not to raise an eyebrow.

dulse was the first one i tried, and i got such a good hit i ate the whole packet!

then i got turned on to sushi nori, which we'd roll with all sorts of things like salads, not just rice and wasabi.

then i tried a wakame/tomato salad, and that was a knockout. then i started feeling when i didn't eat them for a while, so started using regularly.

the fried crispy kombu, that is by far the best though... hiziki is the strongest flavour, i wouldn't start with that one, though there are some great recipes for it. if you soak seaweed, pour the water onto your animal's food, or on plants.

agar-agar is useful for gels.

i go to an ethnic food shop too, we get shitake mushrooms there at about a sixth of the price of the health food store.

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Mar 11th, 2010 at 10:32:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The coming Umami Tsunami (4.00 / 4)

Facebook | The Underground Restaurant: Tsunami of umami/breast is best

What is umami? It's the fifth taste after salt, bitter, sweet and sour, discovered in 1908 by Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda, who was trying to define the taste of 'dashi', a typically Japanese broth. Chemically, umami is a L-glutamate, which is why MSG (Monosodiumglutamate) makes food so moreish. Umami is a Japanese word (onomatopoeic in that it sounds like 'yummy' )and the nearest translation is probably 'savouriness'.
I realised earlier this year that almost all the food I like is umami: Marmite (naturellement), cheese, tomatoes, anchovies, seaweed, mushrooms, umeboshi plums, soy sauce, seafood, pickles, in fact anything fermented... meat is probably the only umami ingredient I don't like.
Umami also satiates and produces serotonin; in other words it makes us feel full and happy when we eat. In my research I found it particularly interesting that human breast milk is very high in umami, much higher than cow's milk or formula. I'm not a scientist but this leads me to believe that umami is somehow necessary for human development. Clearly breast milk had to go on the menu, but who would donate?

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Mar 10th, 2010 at 10:48:36 AM EST

The coming Umami Tsunami | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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