Five things you don't know about umami, the new fifth taste

Our textbooks said that there are four basic flavours - sweet, sour, bitter and salty, and we believed it for a long time - a few thousand years actually. All along, a lot many chefs instinctively knew that there was something extra that made their food tasty, but it was only in 1908 that Japanese chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda identified that "extra" and a fifth flavour umami was added to the list. Umami explained a lot that was vague about "taste" until now, but things moved in slo-mo even after that, and earnest research on umami began only about two decades ago. A big turning point came in 2000 when researchers from the University of Miami identified an l-glutamate taste receptor and named it "taste-mGluR4", a discovery that finally dispelled all doubts about the existence of umami. 

The textbooks still don't list it as a basic taste, though. But as all indications suggest that umami may actually be an important factor in keeping us healthy, it's a good idea to know more about it.

Score it!

So where can you find it? Some foods have it naturally but it manifests strongly when foods age (cheese like parmesan and gorgonzola), are roasted, fermented, ripened, or when they are slow cooked (steaks, soups, and broths). Basically, umami comes into play when inherent protein in the food is broken down to form an amino acid L-glutamate (besides others); when glutamate binds to specific receptors on our tongue we taste umami. Common food sources are: sun dried tomatoes, asparagus, sardines, clams, pork, cured ham, wine, beer, green tea, Chinese cabbage, walnuts, soy, olives, sea weeds, corn, peas, mushrooms, chicken, and fermented foods like miso, Worcestershire and soy sauce. We taste it first though via breast milk, which is loaded with it.

Ikeda, too, after his discovery, went on to produce glutamate commercially and patented it as flavour enhancer MSG (Mono Sodium Glutamate). MSG only does (maybe more potently) what natural glutamate present in food already does effectively. Many experts - chefs, food scientists, and food manufacturers believe that MSG can play a large role in reduced-sodium food as it contains only about one-third of the amount of sodium found in table salt of similar volume, but whether MSG is good or bad for us, is an altogether different debate - fodder for a different column.

Why is umami important?

Should we consciously incorporate umami in our diet? Seems there are enough good reasons to do so:

First, of course, is the yummy factor. Umami (umai means delicious and mi means essence) flavour is more salty that the salt flavour - a sort of meaty, savoury, broth like, full-flavour taste. Many scientists in fact describe it as a 3D taste - an explosion of multiple deep flavours.

Food scientists say that umami foods amplify satisfaction and deliver a feeling of fullness. "More for less" is how they put it. The how and why are still being questioned and studied, though.

Umami is a flavour balancer of sorts. It intensifies the taste of salt and sweet, and balances bitter and sour flavours. The discovery that it increases the perception of the salty taste has the scientists in a thrall, and many now feel that adding umami to a dish can help add a delicious depth of "salty" flavour without adding salt, which is obviously great news for many people.

It is increasingly also becoming clear that umami foods (a series of studies were published in the journal Flavour in January 2015) can improve the taste of low-fat foods, thus making them more palatable. 

Finally the way sweet is considered (perceived) as the taste of carbohydrates, umami is apparently the taste of proteins. And the good news is that in umami food, amino acids are available in a free state, ready to be instantaneously absorbed and used by our bodies - so they tend to be restorative (think chicken soup). In fact, glutamate is crucial for metabolism and works like a neurotransmitter in our brain.

Definitely reasons enough to make friends with the fifth taste! Meanwhile work is already on to try and decipher if there is a sixth primary taste too: piquance (from peppers), kokumi and fat are vying for this place. Will keep you posted.