I thought I'd go ahead and start a new thread to discuss some ideas about food and cooking.
I have always enjoyed cooking. Lately I have been doing a lot more of it. I am still fairly inexperienced in haven't mastered a ton of dishes or anything like that. But a lot about cooking and food interests me. The different factors that make up taste and mouth feel, an elementary understanding of the evolutionary aspects of taste and the chemistry going on in cooking, the different techniques, the culture and history behind cooking.
Lately I have been really interested in umami, the fifth flavor sense often described as savory. I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia page on it for a quick, casual summary:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami
So, I came across a neat page that details umami rich foods:
https://www.umamiinfo.com/richfood/
I don't know the accuracy of the info on the page, particularly the measurements they list, or the idea that umami comes from glutamate and is enhanced by inosinate or guanylate (and I am not sure they are using those terms as a chemist would, as they don't seem to refer to a single chemical compound, but I am still very fuzzy on this). But it is an interesting idea and that has lead me to some interesting thoughts.
One of the things I find particularly interesting - if you were to ask me what the most savory thing I have every tasted is, I would tell you a ribeye. However, according to the above link, pork has just as much glutamate per gram of pork, but far more inosinate. Chicken has far more glutamate and inosinate per gram than beef. But to me, beef is the most savory meat. I think there are a few potential things going on here. First, maybe beef is more dense than pork and chicken, but I don't know because meats are usually measured by weight, not volume. Second, maybe it's not the glutamate or inosinate of beef but the fat that is giving it the awesome flavor. Third, maybe having less glutamate and inosinate makes the steak a more clear canvas for the other things going on like the maillard reaction, the rendering of fat, the basting of butter, the absorbtion of thyme and garlic, and the amazing mouth feel. Maybe that is all separate from umami.
Aside from the question of why beef tastes so good despite being lower in glutamate and inosinate, the chart points out a few interesting things. Apparently, guanylate is pretty rare. The most accessible source seems to be dried shiitake mushrooms, which also have a ton of glutamate. I bought some dried shiitake mushrooms and I am eager to use it. So far, I made a sauce with the grilled rehydrated shiitake mushrooms (cooked in the oil, butter, and fat left over from cooking pork chops), leeks, the shiitake mushroom stock, heavy cream, and tarragon.
I used the sauce with pork chops and chicken. Both were good. They definitely had a novel, savory taste that seemed to pleasently coat my saliva even after the meal, leaving me very satisfied. But at this point, I have found it more novel than anything. I was hoping that I would come accross the most amazing tasting food by maxing out on glutamate, inosinate, and guanylate, but it is not THAT pronounced. There is definitely something there enhancing the flavor, but the fact that a steak can be so good despite not having such high levels of this stuff seems to tell me that umami is perhaps not the be-all, end-all factor in what we traditionally call savory.
That said, I am still excited to try out different things with the dried shiitake mushrooms and other so-called umami-rich ingredients. Having read that MSG can add umami taste to food and reading that the health concerns over MSG seem to be based on dubious research, I was really hoping to buy some MSG at the store. Unfortunately, due to the bad rap that MSG gets, I couldn't find any plain old MSG. I looked at the labels on a ton of different spices and was disappointed to not find MSG in any of the spice mixes. Finally, I went to the international foods aisle and was able to find some japanese sauces with MSG, included oyster sauce, a soy glaze sauce, and a tempura sauce that has not only MSG, but disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate as well. I am liking the applications I have put the tempura sauce to so far, although they are still mostly novel and not foodgasm-inducing delicious.
So yeah, I am curious if anyone else has any thoughts on umami. Feel free to talk about other food/cooking related stuff here.
