Abstract
This paper reviews the points behind the more than a hundred-year delay for the acceptance of umami as a basic taste along with the sweet, sour, salty, and bitter tastes after its discovery by a Japanese scientist in 1908. One of the main reasons for the late recognition of umami taste is the difference in culinary culture between Europe and Japan. Recent collaborative studies with chefs and researchers on traditional soup stocks showed different taste profiles for the Japanese soup stock ‘dashi’ and the western-style soup stock. The profile of free amino acids in dashi, when compared to the one in the Western style soup stock, explains why umami has been more easily accepted by Japanese who have being traditionally experiencing the simple umami taste of dashi. The recent exchange on cooking methods and diverse types of umami-rich foods in different countries has facilitated a new approach to culinary science blending culinary arts, food science, and food technology for healthier and tastier solutions.
Highlights
Umami is the taste imparted by a number of substances, predominantly the amino acid glutamate and 5′-ribonucleotides such as inosinate and guanylate
Conclusion and future outlook Using umami taste in a low-salt diet increases the palatability of the foods [16]
Chefs who understand umami taste realized that umami keeps the palatability of dishes even though the concentration of salt is lower than usual
Summary
In 1913, Ikeda’s disciple Shintaro Kodama identified 5′-inosinate (salt of inosine-5′-monophosphate) as the umami substance in dried bonito, which have been traditionally used for cooking dashi in Japan [6]. Two great inventors in Europe and Japan After the discovery of umami, Ikeda and Saburosuke Suzuki, an iodine manufacturer, developed in 1909 a new seasoning, monosodium glutamate (MSG), to add umami taste, the key taste compound of dashi, to a wide variety of Japanese home-cooked dishes [8]. Free glutamate is one of the major amino acids found in various types of soup stocks, and it is rapidly extracted from food ingredients in the early stages of cooking. In Japan, food ingredients that are especially high in umami, such as dried seaweed konbu and dried bonito, are used for cooking the Japanese soup stock dashi. Because of the unique and long process of making dried konbu and bonito for Japanese soup stock dashi, umami can be rapidly extracted during cooking. The proportion of glutamate in relation to the other free amino acids in soups is the same
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