Here’s a fun experiment: hold your nose and take a sip of chicken broth. That lingering good taste? That’s umami in action. It’s often described as “savory” or “meaty,” but those words don’t exactly capture its essence; they don’t quite define umami. Just like you can’t really describe “salty” without using the word salt, umami is its own unique sensation, and unique taste buds are responsible for detecting this umami flavor.
History
Humans have been striving to increase umami in food since the dawn of human civilization. In ancient Europe, a fermented fish sauce called garum, similar to Southeast Asian fish sauce was widely used as a seasoning by Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, while in Asia, soy sauce was created by fermenting soybeans. The compounds responsible for this distinctive taste were poorly understood until a Japanese chemist, Kikunae Ikeda, isolated glutamic acid from kelp in 1907. He proposed the link between this amino acid and the taste he called umami (旨味 - meaning the “essence of taste”). The validity of professor Ikeda’s work was debated for decades, and it wasn’t until 1985 that the global scientific community accepted umami as a basic taste.
How Do We Taste Umami?
Taste buds are our body’s way of recognizing foods that contain nutrients that our bodies need, while also helping us avoid toxins. Just like we have taste buds on our tongues to detect salty, sweet, sour, and bitter tastes, we have several taste receptors (mGluR1, mGluR4, and TAS1R1 + TAS1R3) capable of recognizing various compounds as umami. These receptors bind with amino acids such as glutamate, signaling your brain about the hit, which then interprets it as umami. Some of these taste receptors can also bind with nucleotides, such as inosine monophosphate (IMP) and guanosine monophosphate (GMP), creating a synergistic effect that’s like adding 1+1 and getting 10. As for why we crave umami-rich foods, biology is part of it, but it may also be psychological. Breast milk and its analogs are extremely rich sources of amino acids, so for most of us, our first taste memories are literally loaded with umami. Just thinking about these foods can get your saliva flowing. A comforting bowl of chicken broth stimulates umami taste receptors, transporting you back to childhood, and in Japan, dashi serves a similar purpose.
Umami in Foods
Although coaxing umami out of food is a hallmark of Japanese cuisine, you could make the argument that it’s the cornerstone of cuisine from any part of the world. The world’s most popular foods, like pizza, hamburgers, sushi, and fried chicken, are all umami examples. Ripe tomatoes, soy sauce, aged cheese, and even chocolate are packed with the fifth taste. Whether they knew it or not, chefs have been striving to create umami foods since humans started cooking. With that in mind, here are three ways you can increase the umami and depth of flavor in foods:
Use amino acid and nucleotide-rich ingredients
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, so foods rich in protein tend to have a robust umami flavor. Alanine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, and proline are just a few examples and can be found in a wide variety of plants such as kelp, tomatoes, and green tea; and animal products like dry-cured ham, cheese, and anchovies. Nucleotides such as IMP and GMP have a synergistic effect with amino acids boosting the sensation of umami beyond what either one alone would produce. IMP is found in meat and seafood, while dried mushrooms are a rich source of GMP. Try this out for yourself by making a batch of my Umami Seasoning Salt.
Cooking
The act of heating food to cook it results in the degradation of protein into its constituent amino acids. This alone can increase the taste of umami in food, but as the temperature rises, you get a form of non-enzymatic browning called the Maillard reaction. Whether it’s the browned crust on Jalapeño Cheddar Rolls or Burnt Basque Cheesecake, or the deep mahogany color of sautéed onions, the Maillard reaction is the chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that creates new flavor compounds as well as umami.
Fermentation
This is the most time-consuming of the three methods for increasing umami because the fermentation process is time-consuming. However, it can be the most effective, as microbes and the enzymes they release breakdown protein into amino acids. Some examples of this are soy sauce (soybeans and wheat), miso (soybeans and rice or barley), cheese (milk), katsuobushi (the dried fermented fish used in dashi), and sake(rice). These fermented foods can also be added to non-fermented foods to increase the flavor of umami. Try adding some of these ingredients and techniques to your favorite foods; no doubt you’ll truly understand the power of these amazing compounds.
Umami Video
