Umami, what is it and why is it so confusing?
Umami holds an interesting place in the history of taste as until its recognition in 1985 by the global scientific community it was widely accepted that there existed four conventional basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. In 1908 scientist Kikunae Ikeda recognised a peculiar reoccurring un-categorisable taste in ‘tomatoes, cheese, asparagus and meats’ and then later, when returning to Japan noticed the same taste in kombu dashi, or foods flavoured with kelp and seaweed. Tentatively, he referred to this as ‘umami’ which translates to ‘palatable taste’ as it closely resembled the palatability of foods such as fish, soup stocks, some meats and dried bonito flakes. Umami, as Ikeda described it further is a deep complex, moreish flavour and lends a savoury taste to any food in which it exists. The more-ish ness of umami was something that intrigued me. After reading this I tried to connect foods I knew to be umami-rich together to try and form some kind of sensible connection. What I found was that I found them all delicious, a very juvenile observation… or so I thought! But more on that later.
Umami rich foods, simply, are foods that contain glutamate. Miso paste and parmesan. Prosciutto and soy sauce. Kimchi, anchovies, olives, mushrooms, and of course, the poster child for umami: mono-sodium glutamate. Magic miracle dust known as MSG, or as Uncle Roger refers to it, “make shit good”. This crystalline powder is mono-sodium glutamate. Pure umami flavour. In the research paper ‘The flavour enhancing action of glutamate’ Takashi and Chizuko Inui- Yamamoto talk about the difference between the four basic tastes and the fifth, umami. Part of what makes umami so interesting is that ‘[it] is a delicate and subtle taste buried within other tastes in foods, and thus only discerning persons can identify it in natural ingredients’ (Yamamoto, 1). I didn’t quite understand this as to me MSG has a significant taste. And while it is not a naturally occuring substance, I did think that I could make some relation between MSG and glutamate-rich foods. They go on to explain that to begin with MSG was created through the distillation of over 30kg of kombu or seaweed broth, creating a meagre 6g of MSG! Now, it is a much more refined process, the fermenting of sugar cane and molasses, but this goes some way to understanding just how quiet the taste profile of umami can be. But we can tell if a food is rich in umami. The taste is recognisable but more than that, there is something special about umami that this paper helps to understand.
In this same paper is evidence that umami-rich foods do more than provide unique complex and savoury flavour notes to foods they are cooked with. They have also ’been shown to increase taste intensity, and flavour characteristics such as thickness, continuity, mouth fullness, impact and roundness leading to increased palatability and preferability” (Yamamoto, 2). Further than this they have been observed to enhance the flavours of other non-umami rich foods. And it keeps going. Umami-rich foods, as the literal translation denotes, increase palatability, not just of themselves but of anything accompanying them. It’s no wonder that MSG is so highly regarded by your favourite TikTok chefs, it is distilled and concentrated umami magic! And this is what I was accidentally discovering when I realised that what connected umami foods together for me was that I found them delicious. It’s like when you discover a new word and see it everywhere. I am starting to taste the umami notes in things that I eat. And don’t get me wrong, as much as I would love to claim a sophisticated palette like our boy Ikeda, I still have a long way to go before I can say with certainty what I am tasting is umami. But I encourage you to go out and with this very basic (and probably not the most academic) understanding of umami to look for it in your cooking and food in general.
The definition of umami has become somewhat loose in the modern world and for the longest time (and still a little bit now) I don’t think I fully understand what is meant by it. It’s that classic bell curve. You know nothing, you feel like you are learning and learning and then you find yourself in a similar place where you started. Umami makes things delicious. But there is something very concrete there to categorise. The literature is complicated but the takeaway is simple: experiment with umami ingredients and see what happens. I know I will be!
There is so much more to say about umami and I will most certainly return to the topic in future entries but I’m trying to keep my first few Substacks pretty short to see if the style suits me. Thank you for sticking around to the end and I hope to see you here again!