The Five Basic Tastes

[+ Avalon]

https://parade.com/396983/johnmcquaid/flavor-101-the-five-basic-tastes/

 

I heard this tonight on the British soap "Coronation Street". I knew the first four but I wonder why a Japanese word - Umami - was chosen for number five?

[bnm73]

https://parade.com/396983/johnmcquaid/flavor-101-the-five-basic-tastes/

 

I heard this tonight on the British soap "Coronation Street". I knew the first four but I wonder why a Japanese word - Umami - was chosen for number five?

 

It's the "savory," ""meaty," or "delicious" taste of glutamates (found in tomato, mushrooms, meats, seaweeds, etc.).

 

I'm not entirely sure if there has been research to confirm that there are taste bud receptors that fire when this is tasted (like sweet, salty, etc.). It could just be something the food industry came up with, or there might be actual science. I'm not sure.

[MsGuy]

Umami is the name coined by the Japanese chemist who first discovered around 1906 that glutamates impart a distinct meaty or brothy flavor to food. Like yours, my school texts only showed 4 basic tastes, probably because folks in the West were much not much inclined to credit that a slanty-eyed, buck toothed Jap could possibly know more than us about anything scientific.

 

I remember puzzling over this very question back in high school and again in college (1960's). My personal direct experience seemed to indicate that meats and broths had a taste that did not reduce to some combination of salty, sweet, bitter and sour, but there it was in the books and who was I to question received wisdom?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami

[bnm73]

Umami is the name coined by the Japanese chemist who first discovered around 1906 that glutamates impart a distinct meaty or brothy flavor to food. Like yours, my school texts only showed 4 basic tastes, probably because folks in the West were much not much inclined to credit that a slanty-eyed, buck toothed Jap could possibly know more than us about anything scientific.

 

I remember puzzling over this very question back in high school and again in college (1960's). My personal direct experience seemed to indicate that meats and broths had a taste that did not reduce to some combination of salty, sweet, bitter and sour, but there it was in the books and who was I to question received wisdom?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami

It should be said that the scientist who "discovered umami" was the person held the patent on and first mass-produced monosodium glutamate (MSG). And since glutamates are what make things taste "umami," there is reason to be a little curious (if not skeptical).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate

 

" Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University isolated glutamic acid as a taste substance in 1908 from the seaweed Laminaria japonica (kombu) by aqueous extraction and crystallization, calling its taste umami. Ikeda noticed that dashi, the Japanese broth of katsuobushi and kombu, had a unique taste not yet scientifically described (not sweet, salty, sour, or bitter). To verify that ionized glutamate was responsible for umami, he studied the taste properties of glutamate salts: calcium, potassium, ammonium, and magnesium glutamate. All these salts elicited umami and a metallic taste due to the other minerals. Of them, sodium glutamate was the most soluble, most palatable, and easiest to crystallize. Ikeda called his product "monosodium glutamate", and submitted a patent to produce MSG..."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kikunae_Ikeda

 

"By 1909 he had developed a process for mass-producing MSG. He was able to extract MSG from wheat and defatted soybean, and patented the process for its manufacture. His Ajinomoto Co., Inc. currently employs over 32,000 people. With this method the global production of MSG increased rapidly."

Edited August 11, 2018 by bnm73