Vapid sentence is vapid

[conuly]

"MSG can give foods a savory, hard-to-define flavor called umami."

(Emphasis mine)

Quick! Without listing off foods that taste sweet or simply referring to the presence of a sugar, define "sweet". Don't like that assignment? Then do the same for "salty", "bitter", or "sour". I'll wait.

Actually, "savory" is enough of a definition on its own. Therefore, we could more accurately say simply that "Glutamates such as MSG give foods the savory flavor known as umami". Because that's what umami is - it's the detection of a glutamate by our tastebuds, in the same way that sweetness is the detection of sugar by our tastebuds and so on.

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

We have this picture book about the guy who invented instant ramen, and it's awesome except that in the end note for parents they describe MSG as "a preservative" and I am bewildered at how someone could research and write a whole picture book on Momofuko Ando and not know what MSG is.

Umami is maybe a roasted or protein flavor? Which is yes, savory. I have no idea how to do sweet. It's pure and sometimes makes your teeth hurt? None of the other flavors make your teeth hurt, but that's probably not all that helpful.

[conuly]

...can msg even be used as a preservative? Of course salt and vinegar and sugar all can....

[crystalpyramid]

Maybe it's a preservative like spices are, where it helps things keep tasting good? But I doubt it is in a literal way like salt or sugar.

[adrian_turtle]

Most spices don't get called preservatives, though. Sausages are often heavily peppered, but it's the drying or smoking or salting that preserves them, not the peppering. Pickling is a preserving method, but pickling cabbage works just as well whether you are making it plain or with pepper. (Sauerkraut lasts all winter. The hard part was EATING it all winter, until the fresh vegetables came up in the spring.)

[moon_custafer]

Salty tastes like scratching an itch.

[conuly]

That's... not even a little my experience?

[crystalpyramid]

I feel like there's definitely a prickliness to too much salt though.

[sabotabby]

Umami is the defini—oh, racism. Right.

[conuly]

That also occurred to me.

[greghousesgf]

I always thought umami meant savory but not salty. (I'm still not sure what the difference is between sour and bitter.)

[conuly]

Sour is what you taste when you taste an acid - vinegar or lemon juice. Bitter is what you taste when you taste a base - baking soda or dark leafy greens. If you're still not sure, next spring go out and pick a big dandelion leaf and lick the sap. That's sure bitter!

[spikethemuffin]

I kind of think of it as meaty/milky "body" -- you know, what feels missing from chocolate-flavored Tootsie Roll pops or Canfield's Diet Fudge soda?

[spikethemuffin]

But, um, more hard to define than the other tastes? Hm.

[thewayne]

Miso is also a good way to introduce an umami aspect, but you're absolutely right, it's a difficult to define flavor. Mushrooms are characterized as having it, and I overall HATE mushrooms. But I bought a mushroom powder from Trader Joe's and frequently use it in a number of dishes.

I use actual mushrooms in my Thanksgiving dressing, but it's a very specific process and application and they're pretty much invisible but very tasty.

[conuly]

Is umami really more "difficult to define" than "sweet" or "sour" or "bitter"?

[thewayne]

I think they're all abstracts with no absolute scale or definition.  Like porn, "I know it when I see it."

[l33tminion]

If I were to take it as given they're not just exoticizing it based on the name, I'd say that umami does seem a bit less one-note than other flavors in some ways.

Some things taste about entirely sweet (sugar), sour (distilled vinegar), salty (salt), or bitter (unsweetened chocolate). I'm having a harder time coming up with examples of things that have a one-note (MSG tastes pretty salty, too) or excessive (maybe less-than-fresh fish tasting "too fishy" would be an example?) umami flavor. Umami flavors are definitely a lot easier to detect in the presence of salt in particular.