Umami Rich Food
View allAll Photos Tagged umami
Europe, The Netherlands, Zuid Holland, Rotterdam, Hoek van Holland, Uluwatu Beach restaurant, Terrace (slightly cut from B&T)
Umami isn’t the name of one of the best Hoek van Holland beach restaurants shown here, but it’s close to it ;-) the word presents one of the core qualities of the restaurant’s kitchen and means savoriness. It’s one of the five basic tastes (the others are: salty, sweet, sour and bitter).
This is number 18 of the Hoek van Holland album.
.. a distinct savory flavor .. ok, I might be able to link that particular flavor to this picture, I might not. I was going through Sarah Tracy's book Delicious, so Dr. Ikeda crystalized the glutamate, which, to our days helps with bringing out the fifth taste in some dishes. Certainly it didn't take too long for health concerns to be raised related to MSG, the never ending story. Alright, can I have my dark chocolate now?
Happy Wednesday to everyone out there!
| 400mm | 1/125sec | f/22 | ISO 400 |
If you are ever in the Los Angeles area and not a vegetarian, make sure you stop by Umami Burger. They look small but they are really filling. The one pictured above is the Manly Burger, but I suggest the Truffle Burger....so good!
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Opening week at NYC's first Umami Burger: review and description on my blog, www.donuts4dinner.com.
Umami is not a "thing", it's a type of flavour like sweet, sour, bitter and salty. It's generally translated as "savoury" and is said to be the flavour of things like Marmite, soy sauce, fish sauce, anchovies... perhaps "tangy" would be more descriptive. Whatever, our Coop has now started promoting a range of foods labelled Umami and one of them is a packet of young bean and vegetable sprouts which do have a strong, tangy flavour.
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, orËœprimary, 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.
05.04.2009
For April's Monthly Scavenger Hunt
Umami is basically the name given to the taste of proteins, which includes the most wonderful of culinary creations, cheese! I wonder how early man first discovered cheese....did his milk go off and he thought, oh well, lets shove it behind a rock for a week and we'll eat it if we're really desperate?
The oriental spoon is a nod to the origin of the word (Japanese) as the cheese is decidedly French.
Another foodie shot I know, I did go and read on the beach for a while, but it didn't grab me photographically today. I'll be venturing further afield tomorrow, hopefull with some outside shots.