{"id":407,"date":"2011-01-31T15:30:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T15:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philonfood.com\/?p=407"},"modified":"2023-03-13T17:15:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T17:15:47","slug":"umami-the-fifth-taste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/2011\/01\/31\/umami-the-fifth-taste\/","title":{"rendered":"Umami &#8211; the fifth taste"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-411\" title=\"Parmesan and tomatoes\" src=\"http:\/\/philonfood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/parmesan-and-tomatoes.jpg?w=150\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"99\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/parmesan-and-tomatoes.jpg 480w, https:\/\/philonfood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/parmesan-and-tomatoes-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>When I was at school I was taught that there are four different basic tastes that our tongues sense: sweet, salty, sour and bitter.\u00a0 But nowadays there\u2019s another taste term that we are having to acquaint ourselves with &#8211; Umami.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve know about Umami for some time &#8211; it was discovered as being distinct from the other basic tastes in the early 1900s.\u00a0 But is only in recent times that the term has started to become commonplace.<\/p>\n<p>Umami isn\u2019t a flavour you can easily describe.\u00a0 It is more of an enhancing flavour, as when you have savoury foods that are rich in umami it alters the flavour and makes it taste more.\u00a0 It is actually generated by glutimates which naturally occur in many foods but is also badly associated with the artificial flavour enhancer monosodium glutamate.<\/p>\n<p>Understanding that naturally occurring umami-rich ingredients can enhance flavour can also help you craft the flavour of your dishes.\u00a0 The following foods are know to be particularly umami-rich:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>certain fish including anchovies<\/li>\n<li>yeast extract<\/li>\n<li>certain cheeses, notably parmesan<\/li>\n<li>cooked tomatoes<\/li>\n<li>certain mushrooms<\/li>\n<li>various seaweeds<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And you can see how these how these been used over time across the world to enhance the flavour of dishes.\u00a0 For example, fish sauce in south east Asia and Worcestershire sauce in the UK (which contains anchovies), nori seaweed in Japan, parmesan as a condiment in Italy, and these days yeast extract in a lot of products (commercial stocks and cubes, and many low-salt ready meals).<\/p>\n<p>I have started using some of these ingredients in my cooking in different ways.\u00a0 For example, grinding up some porcini mushrooms in to a powder and adding to a dish adds a little something, as does adding a little parmesan to dish that will take it.\u00a0 Try being a bit more adventurous with these ingredients and you may find some surprising results.<\/p>\n<p>Some useful references:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=4&amp;ved=0CDIQFjAD&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FUmami&amp;ei=fdI-TfbWFIXKhAeEvJGnCg&amp;usg=AFQjCNFSGA-j73MqN88a-jHUcL4ITtGcWA&amp;sig2=t1R5gq1djenl_QuSZenHCw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wikipedia: Umami<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.umamiinfo.com\/umami-rich_food\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Umami Information Center<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/hubpages.com\/hub\/Umami---How-Cooking-with-Umami-Rich-Foods-Parmesan-Cheese--Fish-Sauce--Anchovies-Will-Make-You-a-Better-Cook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How to cook with umami rich foods<\/a> (has table of natural glutimate levels in umami-rich foods)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was at school I was taught that there are four different basic tastes that our tongues sense: sweet, salty, sour and bitter.\u00a0 But nowadays there\u2019s another taste term that we are having to acquaint ourselves with &#8211; Umami. We\u2019ve know about Umami for some time &#8211; it was discovered as being distinct from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":559,"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions\/559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philonfood.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}