Ok, talk to to me about umami? Please?

[NotQuiteCockney]

I've really still not got my head around the whole "umami" thing. They can't go inventing new flavours, it's like finding new planets in the solar system (oh bugger, they're doing that too, aren't they.).

I know meat and parmesan and tomato sauce are umami. And MSG. And soy sauce. What about mushrooms? And chocolate seems like it would be, at least if mushrooms are ...

[Blandmum]

No, it has always been there, we have only just cottoned on to it. Oriental cookery has recognised it for longer, due to their use of soy and msg

So be basicaly taste sweet, sour, salt. bitter and umami

The msg triggers taste receptors in the tongue because it contains a sodium salt of a neurotransmitter, glutamate.

Bet you wish you never asked

here if you want to read some more

I used to work with the UKs main researcher on umami in his pre umami days

[FrannyandZooey]

I knew this would be your thread, NQC

if you think mushrooms and chocolate are similar tastes, I hope dh is cooking when we come to stay

[NotQuiteCockney]

I know they didn't "invent" it, I was being silly :-P.

I probably don't actually want to know the science behind it, I do believe that it's real (well, intellectually, if not emotionally, iyswim).

It doesn't help that I'm one of those people who reacts to MSG, but not to glutamate. And I was raised to believe that MSG = evil, more or less.

Ah, it seems I was right about the mushrooms, but presumably not about chocolate. And I had wondered whether nam pla was glutamate in liquid form, and it is! (Weird stuff, smells like feet, but in tiny quantities, really helps a meal.)

[NotQuiteCockney]

Mushrooms and chocolate do have a flavour in common. (I went off both of them, very much, while pg with DS1.)

Damnit, I am going to learn to cook that beans + chocolate dish, just to annoy brits. (Chocolate isn't necessarily sweet, and you can get cooking chocolate back home that has no sugar at all in it.)

[NotQuiteCockney]

Oh, and fear DH's cooking. I don't think he does vegetarian, for one thing.

Did I mention that DS1 shows signs of being a vegetarian? Today he finally got the idea that farm animals are what we eat. I think he thinks we eat city farm animals, despite my clarifications, but still. And he got all teary and decided he didn't want to eat meat any more ... except for sausage pasta. So he'll be one of those "nothing with a face, except for sausage pasta" vegetarians.

I was very pleased anyway, as he seems sometimes a bit thuggish and overly laddish to me, and signs of more empathy are very welcome. (I know he's not actually thuggish, but still ...)

[snowleopard]

To me, umami is typified by a) the crystally bits in posh parmesan and b) the brown bits you get on chicken if you fry it quite hot - in fact the same goes for mushrooms.

[NotQuiteCockney]

Can something be umami without being salty? I guess mushrooms aren't salty?

[Blandmum]

Glutamate and monosodium glutamate are not the same thing though.

Glutamate is a naturaly occuring neurotransmitter. Without it you'd be buggered....your nerves wouldn't work properly. MSG is the soduim salt of msg

[NotQuiteCockney]

That man who ate everything chap says they're interchangeable and MSG allergies are bollox. (Well, I'm not allergic per se, my lips just go a bit weird.) He's not that hardcore with the science, though.

But I guess I only ever get MSG with quite processed salty food, so maybe that's it?

[Blandmum]

If he says that glutamate and MSG are the same he is talking bollocks. MSG has a sodium atom added to the glutamate.

May not sound like much, but when you consider that chlorine is a poison gas, and sodium is a metal that bursts into flames in water....put the two together and you gat table salt!

[NotQuiteCockney]

Fair point. I suck at chemistry.

It did seem a bit weird, given I've known loads of people who reacted to MSG, including one who got kinda dozy and drunk!