A taste by any other name...

Recently I was reading an article in a professional culinary magazine and there was an article about "umami". Now I certainly don't think I know everything about food but I like to think I stay informed and I'd never heard of this. This word, umami(oo-ma-mee), refers to the fifth flavor that the mouth can taste. I was always taught that there are four flavors: sweet, sour, bitter and salty; this is the fifth taste - savory(?, there is no direct English translation). It was discovered in Japan one hundred years ago by an individual trying to determine the flavor profile for seaweed broth and he determined that glutamates and inosinates produce a "deliciousness". This is not so much a simply described taste as a binding taste philosophy.

I think as I read more about it I liked this word not simply because I like many of the things associated with umami: tomatoes, cheese, ham, shiitake mushrooms; I really like the concept of this other taste that through synergistic action makes these other tastes taste better. It's very much like, and the natural equivalent to, monosodium glutamate. Now I don't like MSG, but I certainly understand why it's used. Who doesn't want there food to taste better. The great part about this word/concept/taste is that it suddenly makes me realize why chefs have been putting certain flavors together forever, it's natural MSG! There are lots of opposing tastes that we put together; sweet and salty, sweet and sour, salty and sour. Now when I combine a salty or even sweet thing with an umami (glutamate based) flavor I'm going to be much more conscious of how people react to the dish and how I might feel that dishes flavor relates to similar dishes that aren't rich in umamai. This seems like something I should have learned in culinary school or at least in the last decade, but it seems they haven't really emphasized this information until recently. So for those of you who are like me and just realizing this taste sensation (even though we've been eating like this for years) revel in its new found wonder.