"Those who pay careful attention to their tastebuds will discover in the complex flavour of asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat, a common and yet absolutely singular taste which cannot be called sweet, or sour, or salty, or bitter..."
Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, Eighth International Congress of Applied Chemistry, Washington 1912
Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, Eighth International Congress of Applied Chemistry, Washington 1912
Riveting.
Anyway, I decided to do some more research into this complex taste. Here's what I got.
Oddly, umami was not identified until around 100 years ago. In 1908, Professor Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University noticed that he couldn't exactly put his finger on the taste of dashi, a Japanese soup base made of seaweed (kombu). It didn't seem to taste like any of the four established tastes: salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. He discovered that there was glutamate, a common amino acid, in the seaweed that gave the dashi a mild, yet distinct flavor. He discovered that glutamate is also found in many other foods, for example, tomatoes, cabbage, walnuts, and parmesan cheese. Professor Kikunae Ikeda decided to call this taste caused by the glutamate "umami", a word derived from the Japanese word "umai", meaning delicious.
It wasn't until the 1980's until studies proved that umami was a legitimate taste and was internationally recognized as the fifth taste after salty, sweet, sour, and bitter.
Lily,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, that was a truly riveting commercial! It was so intense. I was almost on the edge of my seat. It's interesting, because we don't typically think of umami when pondering our tastes, but your post really offered some cool history about it. I have a question, though. What kind of study did they perform to consider it a "legitimate taste?"