Ajinomoto Co., Inc. (TOKYO: 2802) announced this newsletter on
August 30th:
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Professor Kikunae Ikeda (Graphic:
Business Wire)
Umami. “The fifth taste.” That mysteriously delicious quality of
aged parmesan cheese that’s not exactly salty, not sweet, not sour,
and definitely not bitter. It’s, well… umami.
There’s no denying that the culinary world is experiencing an
“umami boom.” Walk through a major city and you’ll see the word
everywhere. Some high-end restaurants have specific menu items
designed to deliver an immersive umami experience—“umami bombs.”
The wave has hit fast food, too, with offerings such as “umami
burgers” and even “umami pizza.” A few restaurants have even named
themselves after umami.
Basically, umami is trendy. It’s even been referred to as “the
culinary buzzword of 21st century.” Which means that when people
see the word “umami,” their brains and stomachs say, “Yes.”
Compare this against to MSG. For years—decades—MSG has been
reviled by the culinary industry and its patrons. For a while in
the 1980s and 1990s, it was hard to find a Chinese restaurant that
didn’t have a “No MSG” sign in its front window—and plenty of these
actually had MSG seasoning on their tables.
Basically, MSG has been looked at as the “bad guy” for years.
Which means that when people everywhere see the word “MSG,” their
brains and stomachs say, “No.”
The Amazing Truth
It may be hard to believe, but umami and MSG aren’t as far apart
as most people think. You could even go so far as to say that they
were separated at birth.
To trace the history of the relationship between umami and MSG,
we need to travel back in time. The year is 1907, and we’re eating
dinner with one Professor Kikunae Ikeda and his family1. As they
talk about their day, the Professor tastes the dashi soup stock his
wife prepared for their boiled tofu, and asks what she does that
makes it taste so good. It’s the kombu, she says—the dried kelp she
used to make it. Strangely, it reminded the Professor of the taste
of certain foods when he was studying in Germany years earlier.
And this innocent exchange between man and wife changed the
course of Professor Ikeda’s life—you could even say it changed the
course of history.
Why, he wondered, did the kombu give his soup stock such a
unique taste? And that question consumed him for years.
By 1908, Professor Ikeda had isolated crystals that conveyed the
taste he had detected1. These crystals were made of glutamate—one
of the most common amino acids in foods, and in the human body. By
1909, he had figured out the means of mass production of this
substance, in part by learning how to combine the glutamate with
sodium, which is tasty, easy to use as a seasoning, and easy to
digest1. He had invented monosodium glutamate. MSG.
How is MSG made?--- By fermentationThe
way that MSG is manufactured has changed a bit since 1908, but it’s
still pretty interesting! Check it out for yourself at:AJI-NO-MOTO®
Production Animation (ENG)
Why was it important to Professor Ikeda that his invention be
producible on a large scale? After all, he was first and foremost a
chemist, and not a businessman. We can find the answer in his own
description of his aspiration: “To create good, affordable
seasonings and turn simple but nutritious fare into delicacies.”
Simply put, he wanted all of society to enjoy and benefit from his
findings.
There was only one problem: how to describe the taste. It was
savory. It could even be called a little meaty, but it was derived
from kombu. So he gave the taste of MSG a temporary name until he
thought of a better one.
He called the taste “umami”.
The Secret of Kombu
Professor Ikeda may have invented umami, but he wasn’t the only
person in the world who was trying to decipher the mysteries of
soup stock. Around the same time, but half a world away, a pioneer
in the food industry named Julius Maggi was hard at work developing
rapid-cooking dehydrated soups. Maggi’s work eventually resulted in
the creation of bouillon cubes made from hydrolyzed vegetable
proteins—it was the hydrolysates that produced the bouillon’s meaty
flavor.
Both Professor Ikeda and Mr. Maggi were working with soup stock
to determine its component parts. But there was one crucial
difference. Japanese soup stock was based on kombu, and European
soup stock was based on vegetables. Although both men had developed
products based on soup stock, the component amino acids of their
soups were different.
According to the latest scientific research, kombu soup stock is
just plain simpler. The majority of its amino acid composition is
glutamate, followed by aspartate, and a very small amount of a few
other amino acids. On the other hand, vegetable soup stock breaks
down into a relatively balanced mixture of more than ten amino
acids.
Professor Ikeda wanted his discovery of umami to lead to the
development of something useful for people's lives. He isolated
glutamate from an amino acids mixture based on wheat protein
hydrolysate, and went on to create a business to bring its umami
taste to Japan, and then to the world. Mr. Maggi developed a
bouillon cube using a protein hydrolysate that was a mixture of
amino acids. The difference between the two inventions, based on a
single amino acid or amino acid mixtures, reflects differences in
food culture between Japan and Europe.
What Took So Long?
Professor Ikeda invented MSG and named its taste umami more than
one hundred years ago, but it took the scientific community decades
to catch on. It wasn’t until 2000 that umami taste receptors were
discovered on the tongue, making it the fifth known basic taste2.
But the history of umami actually stretches back to the dawn of
civilization.
Umami was an important taste in the Ancient World. For proof, we
need look no further than Pompeii. When Mt. Vesuvius exploded in
the year 79, Pompeii was a thriving city. With more than twenty
thousand residents, it was one of the most important cities on the
Italian Peninsula. The city was peppered with elegant villas and
vacation homes for the rich, and featured a twenty thousand-seat
arena for entertainment. However, like many vacation towns, the
city couldn’t survive on tourism alone. Another industry was needed
to support the local populace. In the case of Pompeii, that
industry was the production of garum, an extremely rich source of
umami.
Garum was a staple condiment of the Ancient World, from Greece
to Byzantium to Arabia. It was made by fermenting the innards of
fish in brine, using terracotta jugs called urcei. This may not
sound very appetizing, but your average ancient Roman would have
disagreed.
Garum appears to have been the most popular condiment in ancient
Rome—the equivalent of soy sauce in the Far East (incidentally,
another major source of umami). And Pompeii was famous for its
garum. Hundreds of urcei have been unearthed at Pompeii, and it
appears to have been a lucrative business—the biggest supplier,
Aulus Umbricius Scaurus, owned a luxurious house overlooking the
sea, replete with a private bath suite.
Almost two thousand years later, probably unaware of garum,
Professor Ikeda pioneered the scientific analysis of the umami
taste. But it still took Western science almost one hundred years
to pay attention. Why?
For starters, the manuscript describing Professor Ikeda’s
research was written, naturally enough, in Japanese, and
unfortunately, it wasn’t translated into English for decades. This
put Western chemists, for whom the lingua franca is English, years
and years behind on the basic research that would validate
Professor Ikeda’s findings.
Secondly, while the word “taste” is used colloquially by most
people, in scientific terms it has a very specific meaning. People
may say something “tastes like chocolate,” but a scientist would
say, “chocolate isn’t a taste, it’s a flavor.”
Consider this: if the five basic tastes are sweet, sour, salty,
bitter, and umami, where exactly does spiciness fit in? Well,
spiciness is considered a taste—but it’s not one of the five “basic
tastes.” The reason is that spiciness isn’t detected by the taste
receptors. Instead, it activates nerve fibers directly through
cutaneous sensation fibers on the tongue—the same fibers that
detect pain and temperature.
And chocolate? According to science, it’s a flavor, because the
experience of eating it also involves its aroma, its fullness, and
its depth.
Taste receptors are basically information receptors3. The human
body requires a variety of nutrients to remain healthy, and tastes
are the basic information that helps us detect the composition of
the different foods we eat. Ever crave something sweet? It’s
probably your body telling you it could use a little more glucose
in its blood stream. Ever crave something bitter? Probably not—and
that’s because basically bitterness is a marker for poison. And if
you’re craving umami, you could probably use a little protein in
your diet.
The Subtlest Taste
Umami is detected directly through the taste receptors, but it’s
a lot harder for most people to identify or describe than the other
four basic tastes. One reason is that the source of the umami taste
isn’t as obvious. Saltiness comes from salt. Sweetness comes from
sugar.
And umami? Umami comes from MSG.
About Ajinomoto Co., Inc.
Ajinomoto Co., Inc. (Ajinomoto Co.) is a global manufacturer of
high-quality seasonings, processed foods, beverages, amino acids,
pharmaceuticals and specialty chemicals. For many decades
Ajinomoto Co. has contributed to food culture and human health
through wide-ranging application of amino acid technologies. Today,
the company is becoming increasingly involved with solutions for
improved food resources, human health and global sustainability.
Founded in 1909 and now operating in 30 countries and regions,
Ajinomoto Co. had net sales of JPY 1,091.1 billion ( USD 10.07
billion) in fiscal 2016. For more about Ajinomoto Co. (TOKYO:
2802), visit www.ajinomoto.com.
For further information or references and literature support of
any information contained in this newsletter, please contact
Ajinomoto Co., Inc. Global Communications Department:
ajigcd_newsletter@ajinomoto.com
References:*1 Kikunae Ikeda (1933), “My Motivation for inventing
AJI-NO-MOTO” 1933, Courtesy of Aozora Bunko.*2 Nirupa Chaudhari et
al (2000), “A metabotropic glutamate receptor variant functions as
a taste receptor,” Nature Neuroscience, 3:113 - 119.*3 Xiaodong Li
et al (2002) : “Human receptors for sweet and umami taste,” Proc
Natl Acad Sci, 99:4692–4696
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170905005741/en/
Ajinomoto Co., Inc.Daisuke Nakamiya, +81-3-5524-1474Global
Communications Departmentajigcd_newsletter@ajinomoto.com