Kitchen Cocaine

A Flavor Addicts Guide to Umami

Greetings Anon, 🏝

Octopod appreciates all of the comments/DM’s with questions, requests and even though at times it feels like being in a Pinball machine, and not Under the Sea, it’s been enjoyable to keep putting out content that is being well received! 🙌

Before we begin today, The Paid Post this week will be on Level 1 NGMI Pizza 🍕 Making at Home 🏠 . There have been lots of requests for this so I’m putting together a simple, efficient and easy-to-do Pizza 🍕 process for you to make at home. If you’re still ordering Dominoes, The Hut or from that Roman Cartoon character, you should be thinking to up your Flavor and ditching the high sugar, seed-oil laden, preservative-filled pies you’re ordering in. If you’re an aspiring Chad, you should have easy Pizza Making in your arsenal, it makes a great date night. Upgrade now if you want in!

There will be a future Macro-Post about Flavors and the Human Palate, but for today we are going to dive into the most mysterious flavors of the human palate…

Umami

Why does Octo refer to this as Kitchen Cocaine? 

For many reasons, which will be explained, primarily because Umami “bumps up” the flavor enjoyment of foods, whenever present. It’s one of those tastes that you don’t notice at the forefront, but if you’ve eaten food that tastes like “there’s just something missing”, in many cases it’s a lack of Umami. Once you learn to harness this in your cooking, there’s no turning back!  

So What is Umami?

At it’s most basic definition, the Umami taste is described as “depth”, “meaty” and “savory”. In Japanese, the word Umami translates as “essence of deliciousness”. This is a more nuanced perception than sour or sweet, which we can readily identify. To understand Umami further, lets take a step back in time. 

HISTORY

Depending on your age, you grew up in school learning about the 4 basic tastes the human palate can detect: Sweet, Sour, Bitter & Salty. You might also remember the hot-zones for these. Sour, for example, is most heavily detected on the sides of the tongue, and sweetness towards the front. Umami was only recently confirmed as the 5th taste, compared to the other 4.  

Rewind back to 1908 and a Japanese scientist, Dr. Ikeda, discovered a 5th flavor perceived on the palate, apart from the sweer-sour-bitter-salty spectrum. This savory revelation came while downing a bowl of Dashi broth, which is the bedrock broth of Japanese cuisine, and built with two integral ingredients: kombu and dried bonito (more on that at a later time). From this initial discovery Dr. Ikeda tracked down the Umami taste being directly linked to glutamates. 

It wasn’t until 2002, that flavor scientists made identified specific umami taste receptors on the human palate, which then ,and umami an “official” taste. Before that time it was speculated but not “official”.

(*Autist Note: Understanding flavor perception is a complex business, which is heavily connected to your olfactory system, aka sense of smell. Today we are strictly addressing taste receptors on the human palate). 

Image from Ajinomoto

GLUTAMATES

Glutamates are amino acids which are found in all protein-containing foods (at different levels of concentration). They are also produced in the human body and are integral to brain function and metabolism. 

It is these glutamates that provide the flavor sensations of deeply savory, meaty, complex, and lengthen the taste of foods overall. 

COMMON INGREDIENTS

As stated earlier, glutamates are present in all forms of protein-containing ingredients, but some contain vastly more than others. Here’s a short, and by no means comprehensive, list of some important Umami ingredients!

Beef

Chicken

Bonito

Sardine

Mushrooms (fresh and dried, particularly porcini and shiitake)

Tomato 

Green Peas

Onion Broccoli 

Kombu (a type of kelp seaweed)

Cheese (particularly aged/hard cheeses; think Parm)

CONDIMENTS/SEASONING

Here’s a few condiments that add instant Umami bombs to dishes when used appropriately 

MSG

Miso

Soy Sauce

Fish Sauce

Kimchi

Marmite

Mushroom Powders

Dashi Powder

Tomato Sauce

Worcestershire sauce

Chicken Bouillon Powder

Goya Sazon Seasoning

Maggi Seasoning 

MSG

I’m sure one or two people got triggered by the MSG. I’ll briefly breakdown the myths and why MSG previously has received a bad wrap, and why I use it regularly. 

MSG is my Kitchen Cocaine. It’s a pure flavor booster and contains 1/3 the amount of sodium as table/kitchen salt. Whereas most cooks try adding more salt to increase flavor impact, there comes a point where the flavor of salt becomes dominant and your food is still lacking “fullness”. Enter glutamates, Umami & MSG to solve that. 

In fact, Octopod knows many a Michelin * Chef who adds bouillon powder to stocks and sauces.. they just don’t tell anyone. Why? Because it adds that deeply savory, meaty, complex, “je ne sais quoi”. To be sure, kombu, soy sauce, miso, fish sauce, etc all add that Umami punch but if you don’t have MSG in your pantry you’re missing out on easy flavor bomb opportunities. 

One of my favorites, the “Salt & Pepper” seasoning in the classic Chinese lexicon. A combination of salt, msg, Sichuan peppercorn and white peppercorn, this seasoning is just magic on shrimp, crab, squid… and well, anything. Without the MSG… it’s not worth it. 

MYTHS

Ok, so where did all of this MSG hate come from? It all started in 1968, when The New England Journal of Medicine published a letter to the editor entitled “Chinese-Restaurant Syndrome.” The author, physician Robert Ho Man Kwok, described experiencing heart palpitations and other symptoms anytime he ate at a Chinese restaurant. 

Then in 1969, a scientist named JW Olney conducted a study where he injected mice with MSG. This resulted in significant neurological problems. A few other studies followed, citing poor reactions of all kinds after ingesting MSG.

From that point on, it became too easy to vilify MSG, especially when it was associated with food that at the time was still considered “exotic”. Interesting to note, despite the fact that many foods other than “Chinese Restaurant Food” contained MSG, including baby food.

Correlation vs Causation, anyone?

It’s only as of late that many people in the Food and Flavor Science community have really pushed back on a lot of previous research where weak results drove big conclusions on MSG. Octopod sees this a textbook case of mass delusion. 

Octopod has a relative that regularly uses Goya seasonings, but won’t buy a Greek Seasoning because it contains MSG… 😂 (I sh!t you not, smile and nod)

Feel free to form your conclusions, DYOR and definitely reach out if you have more questions. I believe that a very small number of people may have a sensitivity to MSG, but it is a tiny minority. 

Just as we’ve seen the number of Gluten Allergies skyrocket in restaurant goers in the past decade. I can’t tell you the number of times Octopod had Gluten Allergy guests only to go out to the table and find the guest(s) eating the house made bread “well, I just wanted a taste.. I guess it’s not really an allergy”…. 

Concluding

You will see going forward, that recipes will sometimes contain “MSG”. This is optional and feel free to leave out. If you noticed, tomatoes are major Umami ingredient, and that’s part of what makes Pizza 🍕 so delicious and craveable… don’t forget to do the Paid Sub for the Pizza Drop this week.

Wishing you new and delicious food adventures with Umami…. the Kitchen Cocaine! 🥂