Tuesday, February 13, 2001

You can now add a 5th taste to the four basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. It's called umami,

"The concept of umami, a name that comes from the Japanese word for deliciousness, is described in the West by elusive and bizarre terms like satisfaction, savory, meaty, bloom, and tingling, as well as furriness on the tongue, and sweet saline taste accompanied by some astringency. Chefs allude to its chameleonlike ability to alter its taste according to the flavor environment, serving to heighten the continuity, impact, mouthfulness, amplitude, or total intensity of foods".
I must be able to taste umami, I like every one of the foods on the list of foods that contain it.
"Umami is a prominent motif in aged beef, cured pork, and meat stocks, parmesan, aged cheddar, and Havarti cheeses; abalone, squid, sardines, shrimp, scallops, oysters, and sea urchins; Worcestershire sauce, bouillons, glacé de viande, Marmite, and Bovril; and a few vegetables, including Chinese cabbage, ripe tomatoes, cooked potatoes, lotus root, corn, asparagus, peas, green beans, and green tea".

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