(LS) — There’s four kinds of tastes right? Sweet, salty, bitter and sour. You learned that in elementary school health class. Well, many scientists and foodies are starting to recognize a fifth taste sensation that started in Japan – umami.
What is Umami?
Pronounced ‘ooo-mommy’, umami, which is Japanese for delicious taste, is a certain je ne sais quoi that doesn’t fit into the other four tastes. A savory flavor, umami subtly helps blend the four tastes in a way that many people don’t even notice. Umami derives from a combination of glutamate, a type of amino acid, and robonucleotides that abound in many meat, fish, vegetables, and dairy products. It’s not intended to stand as its own flavor, but rather to better blend the other four flavors. The flavor is hard to pinpoint, but it has a mild, lasting aftertaste that causes increased salivation and a sense of hairiness on the tongue.
Umami was discovered in 1908 by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo International University, as he was able to isolate glutamate in sea kelp to identify its unique taste. He then went about searching for glutamate in other foods that he found to have a similar essence as the kelp, detecting the same unique je ne sais quoi in asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat. Dr. Ikeda’s experiments eventually discovered that other compounds like inosinate and guanalyte created the same flavor sensation of umami found in the sea kelp.
However, despite Dr. Ikeda’s efforts, the world didn’t start widely recognizing the existence of umami until the 1980s. Today, it is a universally accepted fact among both scientists and gourmands.
You may not be aware of it, but you’ve been eating umami for years.
Asia Sauces
Fish sauce, soy sauce, and miso are staples of the diet throughout Asia. These sauces are made by fermenting a combination of salt, fish, beans and grains, and umami is created through the fermentation process.
Ancient Roman Sauces
The Asians aren’t the only ones to use fermented fish sauces. Due to the scarcity of salt, the ancient Romans used fish sauces called garem and liquamen to flavor their foods. While the concept of umami was thousands of years from being created, that was the flavor Romans tasted in these sauces. Like the Roman Empire, garem and liquamen are part of history, but they still have modern counterparts in anchovie paste.
Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes
Contrary to popular belief, tomatoes are not Italian but are derived from South America. After Columbus took them back to the Old World, they became popular throughout Europe and the New World. On top of being a food staple and basis for many Italian, Spanish and Mexican dishes, tomatoes are prevalent in sauces like ketchup, chili sauce, and Worcestershire Sauce that add the umami flavor to any meal.
In the Stocks
Do you ever notice the sticky sensation you get on your lips from eating soup? That’s the remnants of the glutamate from the vegetables in the stock and the inosinate from the meat. The combination of these creates umami.
The following is a list of umami-rich foods:
- Seafood: kelp, seaweed, dried bonito flakes, sardines, mackerel, bream, tuna, cod, prawns, squid, oysters, shrimp.
- Meat: beef, pork, and chicken.
- Vegetables: tomatoes, truffles, soy beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, shitake mushrooms, enokitake mushrooms, carrots, and Chinese cabbage.
- Miscellaneous: green tea, parmesan cheese, soy sauce, and chicken eggs.
Umami has even infiltrated the All-American staple: the hamburger. Los Angeles’ Adam Fleischman has started an Umami Burger food chain in an effort to harness the flavor of umami to make the world’s best burger. From a single start up, he’s now got four franchise that have many burger lovers declaring the Umami Burger to be the best L.A. has to offer – and in a city famous for burger joints like Fatburger, Bob’s Big Boy, and In-n-Out. People love the taste; even if, they just can’t put a finger on what the flavor is that they like. That’s umami!
