Umami

Umami (/uːˈmɑːmi/, from Japanese: うま味 ) or savory taste is one of the five basic tastes (together with sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness). It has been described as savory and is characteristic of broths and cooked meats. People taste umami through taste receptors that typically respond to glutamates, which are widely present in meat broths and fermented products and commonly added to some foods in the form of monosodium glutamate (MSG) and others. Since umami has its own receptors rather than arising out of a combination of the traditionally recognized taste receptors, scientists now consider umami to be a distinct taste. Foods that have a strong umami flavor include broths, gravies, soups, shellfish, fish and fish sauces, tomatoes, mushrooms, hydrolysed vegetable protein, meat extract, yeast extract, cheeses, soy sauce and human breast milk. A loanword from the Japanese (うま味), umami can be translated as 'pleasant savory taste'. This neologism was coined in 1908 by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda from a nominalization of umai (うまい) 'delicious'. The compound 旨味 (with mi (味) 'taste') is used for a more general sense of a food as delicious. Scientists have debated whether umami was a basic taste since Kikunae Ikeda first proposed its existence in 1908. In 1985, the term umami was recognized as the scientific term to describe the taste of glutamates and nucleotides at the first Umami International Symposium in Hawaii. Umami represents the taste of the amino acid L-glutamate and 5’-ribonucleotides such as guanosine monophosphate (GMP) and inosine monophosphate (IMP). It can be described as a pleasant 'brothy' or 'meaty' taste with a long-lasting, mouthwatering and coating sensation over the tongue. The sensation of umami is due to the detection of the carboxylate anion of glutamate in specialized receptor cells present on the human and other animal tongues. Some 52 peptides may be responsible for detecting umami taste. Its effect is to balance taste and round out the overall flavor of a dish. Umami enhances the palatability of a wide variety of foods. Glutamate in acid form (glutamic acid) imparts little umami taste, whereas the salts of glutamic acid, known as glutamates, give the characteristic umami taste due to their ionized state. GMP and IMP amplify the taste intensity of glutamate.Adding salt to the free acids also enhances the umami taste. Monosodium L-aspartate has an umami taste about four times less intense than MSG whereas ibotenic acid and tricholomic acid (likely as their salts or with salt) are claimed to be many times more intense. Glutamate has a long history in cooking. Fermented fish sauces (garum), which are rich in glutamate, were used widely in ancient Rome, fermented barley sauces (murri) rich in glutamate were used in medieval Byzantine and Arab cuisine, and fermented fish sauces and soy sauces have histories going back to the 3rd century in China. In the late-1800s, chef Auguste Escoffier, who opened restaurants in Paris and London, created meals that combined umami with salty, sour, sweet and bitter tastes. He did not know the chemical source of this unique quality, however.