Umami Barmy

So … join me as we head down a culinary rabbit hole. You’ll have to pick out the bones yourself.

AMM raised a question in our latest podcast, namely ‘what taste really makes your mouth water,’ and I pretty quickly settled on Umami.

There are five recognised tastes in cooking:

Sweet (Hoorah for Sweet). Sugary stuff like treacle puddings and custard. Salty, used primarily to enhance other flavours - though not custard. That would be very wrong indeed. Sour, which cuts through richness and fattiness, Bitter, a vital and yet largely unpopular taste and Umami.

Oddly, Umami hasn’t always been there, or rather it has but no one put a name to it. As recently as 1908 a Japanese chemist called Kikanae Ikeda had noticed a taste in some foods while working as a researcher in Germany. He went home and found the same flavour in Dashi, and set about isolating it chemically, and invented Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) as a result. Despite his efforts. it wasn’t accepted as a ‘taste’ until 1995 at the International Umami Symposium in Hawaii. It took another five years before it was officially recognised as a taste.

So you can legitimately say, ‘Umami, where have you been all my life?’

Apparently it comes down to taste receptors on your tongue. There are some which specifically like Umami. Mine like Umami a lot.

Now let’s face it, MSG has had a very bad press. However, more recently it has begun to gain in popularity due to research which suggests that it can improve the taste of foods which are low in salt and fat, and so is potentially healthier. Studies suggest that it makes you feel fuller sooner, and can make relatively dull foods like Kale tastier, leading to a more healthy diet.

In 2015, a question was asked in the House of Commons (by Bristol North West MP Charlotte Leslie and responded to by Battersea MP Jane Ellison) about the long term effects of eating MSG, and the reply was that it does NOT pose a risk to health.

So where did all the negative press come from? Come a little deeper down the rabbit hole for a moment.

Back in 1968 a letter appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine claiming that Chinese food, heavily laden with MSG caused a whole long list of symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, chest pain, anxiety and burning sensations throughout the body. A later review in 2019 debunked the claims but it the phrase ‘Chinese Restaurant Syndrome’ started entering the dictionaries. The letter was later found to be a hoax, with the author having made a bet they could get a letter into the prestigious journal. However the myth has persisted and is now cited as a sign of underlying racism.

Note also that cooks who are into the science of food, such as Heston Blumenthal, are vociferously pro-MSG, interviewed in The Guardian newspaper, saying that suggestions that it was bad for you are ‘Old Wives Tales.’

In the interests of openness - I do have MSG in my kitchen. I do occasionally use it. And I like it.

Other condiments are available.

R.