umami
For the April 2009 Scavenger Hunt : Umami
for tons of information click here...What exactly is umami?
some cool excerpts are listed below.
Taking its name from Japanese, umami is a pleasant savoury taste imparted by glutamate, a type of amino acid, and ribonucleotides, including inosinate and guanylate, which occur naturally in many foods including meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products. As the taste of umami itself is subtle and blends well with other tastes to expand and round out flavours, most people don't recognise umami when they encounter it, but it plays an important role making food taste delicious.
When humans eat, they use all of their senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) to form general judgments about their food, but it is taste that is the most influential in determining how delicious a food is. Conventionally, it has been thought that our sense of taste is comprised of four basic, or˜primary, tastes, which cannot be replicated by mixing together any of the other primaries: sweet, sour, salt and bitter. However, it is now known that there is actually a fifth primary taste: umami.
China accounts for over half of the world's pork consumption, and pork features in many famous Chinese dishes including sweet and sour pork, hui guo rou (twice cooked pork), simmered diced pork and jinhua huotui (cured ham). Pork fillet is particularly high in glutamate. Broth made from pork bones is a quintessential umami rich soup. Moreover, cured ham, which is made from pork, is one of the main umami rich ingredients in the West, alongside Parmesan cheese and tomatoes.
Each country has its own traditional cured pork speciality, including Spanish chorizo, Italian pepperoni, Polish kielbasa and German frankfurters.Of the many plant foods that provide umami in western tradition, the tomato is foremost. Its attractive, full, rounded 'meaty' flavour comes from its heavy load of glutamates, and this flavour is reinforced by its unique crimson colour, the colour of blood which is the very essence of animal life. The umami theme remains constant, though the way it is expressed varies from culture to culture. Beginning in Asia with fermented soybeans, migrating through England with walnuts and mushrooms and emerging triumphant with tomatoes in American ketchup, evidence of a deep-rooted worldwide inclination to exploit glutamate-rich foods for savoury seasonings and condiments is clear.
umami
For the April 2009 Scavenger Hunt : Umami
for tons of information click here...What exactly is umami?
some cool excerpts are listed below.
Taking its name from Japanese, umami is a pleasant savoury taste imparted by glutamate, a type of amino acid, and ribonucleotides, including inosinate and guanylate, which occur naturally in many foods including meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products. As the taste of umami itself is subtle and blends well with other tastes to expand and round out flavours, most people don't recognise umami when they encounter it, but it plays an important role making food taste delicious.
When humans eat, they use all of their senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) to form general judgments about their food, but it is taste that is the most influential in determining how delicious a food is. Conventionally, it has been thought that our sense of taste is comprised of four basic, or˜primary, tastes, which cannot be replicated by mixing together any of the other primaries: sweet, sour, salt and bitter. However, it is now known that there is actually a fifth primary taste: umami.
China accounts for over half of the world's pork consumption, and pork features in many famous Chinese dishes including sweet and sour pork, hui guo rou (twice cooked pork), simmered diced pork and jinhua huotui (cured ham). Pork fillet is particularly high in glutamate. Broth made from pork bones is a quintessential umami rich soup. Moreover, cured ham, which is made from pork, is one of the main umami rich ingredients in the West, alongside Parmesan cheese and tomatoes.
Each country has its own traditional cured pork speciality, including Spanish chorizo, Italian pepperoni, Polish kielbasa and German frankfurters.Of the many plant foods that provide umami in western tradition, the tomato is foremost. Its attractive, full, rounded 'meaty' flavour comes from its heavy load of glutamates, and this flavour is reinforced by its unique crimson colour, the colour of blood which is the very essence of animal life. The umami theme remains constant, though the way it is expressed varies from culture to culture. Beginning in Asia with fermented soybeans, migrating through England with walnuts and mushrooms and emerging triumphant with tomatoes in American ketchup, evidence of a deep-rooted worldwide inclination to exploit glutamate-rich foods for savoury seasonings and condiments is clear.