All About Umami: Delve into the Most Mysterious of Our Five Tastes

In elementary school, we learn that there are four primary tastes: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. However, according to the Umami Information Center, there is a fifth, more elusive taste that has only been recognized as such within the last thirty years. Umami is a Japanese word that Barron's Wine Lover's Encyclopedia defines as 'delicious essence,' itself a vague definition. There is actually no literal English translation of umami, but it is defined in Oxford University Press' A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition as 'savory,' a classification that is vague at best.

The Umami Information Center says that Dr. Kikunae Ikeda first discovered umami after he undertook a search to find the active ingredient that made konbu stock so tasty. This stock, made from kelp, has long been a staple of Japanese cooking, and konbu stock is credited with much of the underlying flavor of the dishes in which it appears. Dr. Ikeda extracted glutamate from konbu in 1908 and named the resulting flavor umami.

According to the International Glutamate Information Service, glutamic acid is a non-essential amino acid, which means that if necessary, the body can produce its own glutamate from other protein sources. Glutamate occurs naturally in a variety of foods worldwide, including human and animal milk, meat, fish, vegetables and condiments. Its exact flavor is hard to pinpoint since it changes from food to food, but umami and glutamate just make food taste good.

The love for umami is instilled in us all from birth. The International Glutamate Information Service says that human milk is rich with glutamates. So for at least the first six months of our lives, our sole nourishment is laced with umami. Umami thereby becomes inherently linked in our minds to essential nourishment, to health, and to survival.

If umami's flavor blends into the dish in which it's used, how do you know you're eating it? The Umami Information Center says that food with umami will taste better than the same ingredients without a savory addition. Umami is a subtle flavor. It's the difference between a perfectly ripe tomato and one that's underripe. Umami is why parmesan cheese improves any dish it's used in. It's the subtle saltiness that cured ham gives a sandwich, or the earthy warmth that truffles and mushrooms add to a dish. It's what makes ketchup great with fries, or soy sauce with rice. Glutamate and umami appear in all of these foods, and thousands more in every country's cuisine worldwide.

Monosodium glutamate, the hotly-debated nemesis of the health-conscious, is loaded with umami. That's why adding MSG makes even Chinese take-out taste good. But you don't have to add MSG to the pot to improve flavor. Cooking food slowly for an extended period of time will cause proteins to break down and release their glutamate. You can also add foods that are full of umami like mushroom, cured meats, corn, peas, parmesan cheese, truffles, onions, tuna, or potatoes to your dish. You can find a complete list of umami-rich foods at The Umami Information Center's website.

Umami is a tasteless yet delicious enigma, as omnipresent as it is vague. It flies under the radar until it's time to taste the food. If it's good, it must be umami.

Sources:

"What exactly is umami," Umami Information Center.
"Umami-rich food," Umami Information Center.
"The discovery of umami," International Glutamate Information Service
"Glutamate and the human body," International Glutamate Information Service