It’s all the rage. Umami this, umami that. Japanese food has the umami flavor that we all love. The taste of umami is what makes food better. XYZ adds that umami taste to your dish. I see quotes like this all the time, in TV shows, food blogs and YouTube videos. But what, exactly, is umami? And why do we want it?
Okay, back in the Dark Ages of cooking, as in before the 1980’s, there was no such thing as umami. Well, outside of Japan at least, where the flavor of umami had been known, or at least defined, since the very early 1900’s. Kikunae Ikeda, a scientist at the Imperial University of Tokyo, now just called the University of Tokyo, analyzed the compounds in the kelp his wife used for the dashi, or seaweed stock, used in various dishes, and discovered monosodium L-glutamate, better known as MSG. What oriental shops call “Flavor Powder” and what many used to think gave you the headache after eating Chinese food. This has been proven incorrect through various blind studies, but some neurologists believe that MSG may be a potential trigger for migraines. Besides, plain MSG doesn’t actually provide flavor. It enhances a flavor that already exists, the flavor that the Western World calls savory, first described by the French chef Escoffier, in the late 1800’s.
It helps to understand flavors or, more properly, tastes. Scientists over the years singled out four basic tastes, sweet, salty, bitter and sour. They even found receptors on the tongue for each of these tastes, your taste buds, and attempted to define where the tastes were perceived in the mouth. In the 1980’s, scientists around the world began to recognize that savory might be a fifth taste, something the Japanese already knew and called umami. In fact, there’s currently a trend to classify seven tastes, the basic sweet, sour, bitter and salty, with umami being a fifth and astringent and pungent being the sixth and seventh. Of course, many foodies might disagree, and others will argue that seven is correct, some believe that the latter two are simply combinations of the first five. And some, especially in Japanese research, believe that there are more tastes, such as kokumi, or heartiness, which is found in aged or slow cooked foods.
Okay, so what tastes like umami? How about steak? Pretty much any beef protein has an umami taste to it, which is why you would find umami in bullion or stock as well as soup. The chemical compound in MSG is believed to indicate to our bodies that we have consumed protein so the body is triggered to process proteins. But the body also needs calcium as well as fats. Well, guess what?
There are distinct calcium receptors in the mouth that can identify the presence of calcium, which is that chalky taste you get from some antacids. And, although there are no fat taste buds that science has identified, the sensation of fat can be felt through the mouth and tongue, a silky, creamy feeling that makes ice cream and whole milk taste so good.. Science has found that mice can taste fat, and humans likely can too, we just don’t know how yet. Since fat is a great source of calories, our brains tell us that we like fat, which is why we tend to eat so much of it. Check the labels of most so-called diet foods and you’ll find a high-concentration of salts and fats. These are what make diet snack bars palatable. They also can skew the results of your diet.
Back to umami. The taste umami is found in many foods we eat, from asparagus and tomatoes to meats and dairy products like cheeses. Aged pamesan cheese has a fairly high concentration of the taste umami, as do fermented foods such as Worcestershire sauce, basically fermented anchovies with some spices and vinegar, to fermented bean curds, also called preserved tofu. Tofu is a curd made from soy milk, which is basically soy beans ground up and boiled. Of course, Worcestershire sauce has its origins in ancient Greece and Rome, where Garum, or fermented fish sauce, was the ketchup of the day.
Mushrooms are loaded with umami flavor and, when combined with slow cooked meats and tomatoes in a bolognese sauce, boosts pasta to a whole new world of enjoyment. If you’re reading this upside down, you might be in Australia, where Vegemite and Marmite (Fermented yeasts) are familiar sources of umami. For the less traveled and more US-based crowd, there’s always ketchup as a source of umami flavor (tomatoes, duh), as well as potatoes, baked or even french fries. Why do you think that bacon cheeseburger and fries sounds so appealing? Cooked beef, aged cheese, aged pork and tomato ketchup with your cooked potatoes. You just need a bun to hold it all together.
For what it’s worth, since the dawn of homo erectus, humans have enjoyed the flavor of umami in the very first meals. Human breast milk is especially high in umami taste. Umami falvor is about 10 times as prominent in breast milk as in cow’s milk, which may be why some babies just don’t take well to formula.
So, to experience the flavor umami at home, make yourself a nice bone-in ribeye steak, medium rare, with a baked potato and a ketchup-based dipping sauce. Or pick up a copy of The Fifth Taste: Cooking With Umami, by Anna and David Kasabian, probably one of the easiest to understand umami cookbooks out there, even though it was written a decade ago.
Umami is a flavor profile you should look for in your foods, and in your cooking. It adds depth to a dish and makes any dish feel like comfort food. Even the most exotic sushi served with miso soup feels like a good country meal. Of course, fried chicken and a biscuit will always be our go-to country food. Or maybe biscuits and gravy. Or a good barbecue with baby back ribs and baked beans. Or maybe…
Whatever your favorite food, we bet it has a touch of umami to it. Now that you know what it is, you don’t really need to hunt it down, just enjoy it as you find it.
Ummm… Biscuits and gravy…