Everything about Umami totally explained
is a proposed addition to the currently accepted four
basic tastes sensed by specialized receptor cells present on the human
tongue. The same taste is also known as
xiānwèi in
Chinese cooking.
Umami is a
Japanese word meaning "
savory" or "deliciousness" and so applies to the sensation of
savoriness, specifically to the detection of the natural
amino acid,
glutamic acid, or
glutamates common in
meats,
cheese and other
protein-heavy foods. The action of umami receptors explains why foods treated with
monosodium glutamate (MSG) often taste "heartier".
Glutamate has a long history in cooking: it appears in
Asian foods such as
soy sauce and
fish sauce, and in
Italian food in
parmesan cheese and
anchovies. It is the taste of
Marmite in the
UK, of Golden Mountain sauce in
Thailand, of
Maggi Sauce worldwide, of Goya Sazón on the Latin islands of the
Caribbean, of
Salsa Lizano in
Costa Rica and of
Kewpie mayonnaise in
Japan. It also is directly available in monosodium glutamate (MSG).
Inasmuch as it describes the flavor common to savory products such as meat, cheese, and
mushrooms, umami is similar to
Brillat-Savarin's concept of (link in French), an early attempt to describe the main flavoring component of meat as extracted in the process of making
stock.
Chemical properties
Umami was first identified as a basic taste in 1908 by
Kikunae Ikeda of the
Tokyo Imperial University while researching the strong flavor in seaweed broth. Ikeda isolated monosodium glutamate as the chemical responsible and, with the help of the
Ajinomoto company, began commercial distribution of MSG products.
Taste receptors
Acknowledged subjectively as a special taste by Eastern civilizations for generations, umami has been described in
biochemical studies identifying the actual
taste receptor responsible for the sense of umami, a modified form of
mGluR4 named "taste-mGluR4".
Umami tastes are initiated by these specialized receptors, with subsequent steps involving
secretion of
neurotransmitters, including
adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and
serotonin. Other evidence indicates
guanosine derivatives may interact with and boost the initial umami signal.
Cells responding to umami taste stimuli don't possess typical
synapses but instead secrete the neurotransmitter ATP in a mechanism exciting sensory fibers that convey taste signals to the brain. These taste receptors are located everywhere on the tongue.
In monkey studies, most umami signals from
taste buds excite
neurons in the
orbitofrontal cortex of the brain, showing spatially-specific characteristics:
- There is a cortical map representation for the taste of glutamate separate from that of other taste stimuli like sweet (glucose), salt, bitter (quinine) and sour (hydrochloric acid)
- Single neurons having vigorous responses to sodium glutamate also respond to glutamic acid
- Some neurons display a mechanism of satiety, indicating a process by which taste receptors in the mouth may interact with cortical neurons to curtail eating
- Umami flavor is strongest when combined with aromas (for example, monosodium glutamate and garlic), a result leading to speculation that glutamate may stimulate umami effects by acting simultaneously with the aromas, texture and appearance of food.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Umami'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://umami.totallyexplained.com">Umami Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
