Discovering Umami

SEASONED CHEFS WAX ELOQUENT ON WHY THE FIFTH ELEMENT HAS GARNERED SO MUCH PRESS LATELY – AND THE ONE BIG REASON THAT THE TREND IS LIKELY TO STAY FOR A LONG TIME.

- Madhulika Dash

Ever wondered what is so fascinating about ketchup that it simply makes anything taste great? Or why Chinese cuisine with its sour on sour combination has become such a world phenomenon? Or what is exactly about commercial chips that makes them taste so much better than homemade ones?

The answer, says seasoned Chef Sabyasachi Gorai (owner, Fabrica By Saby), “is an ingredient called Monosodium Glutamate or MSG – the term that in the past one decade has earned more bricks for being responsible for quite a few health issues (mostly unproven) than credits for being the miraculous tastemaker that it is.” Adds Chef Gorai, “it is MSG that cranks up the deliciousness in a dish – be it your ketchup, soup, smoked pork, mustard over hot dog and even the kasundi ilish we make in Bengal – and make it so addictive and memorable.”

The reason why we connect more with food that has glutamic acid, says Chef Vikas Seth (Culinary Director, Sriracha) is because of in-built receptors in our body that recognise this flavour and send it to the brain which interprets it as delicious or tasteful.”

It was this very science that Professor Kikunae Ikda unearthed, when one day he found his Dashi broth soup to be tastier than other days - he figured that this was from the addition of kombu, a type of microalgae and flakes of fish known as katsuobushi. He then went on to create monosodium glutamate (MSG), which he called Ajinomoto and the rest is history. Unable to decipher how to describe the taste, which falls somewhere in between all major taste profiles, he termed it Umami – the Japanese word for deliciousness.