Taste of umami

 

Word „umami” came from Japanese and it means delicious, tasty. Umami it’s from  2000r. fifth taste witch human can taste next to sweet, sour, salty and bitter. We can easily tell that lemon is sour or grapefruit is bitter, but with umami is different. Umami is subtle and taste just delicious. That’s why it’s very often added to the meals.

Scientists found out that some products taste delicious because they consist a lot of amino acids. As a result of this discovery production of glutamate acid started on a massive scale. That acid emits natural taste of umami and it’s used to improve the taste of chrisps, Chinese sops or junk food.

But we don’t need glutamate acid to find umami! In natural food we can try it in matured cheese (parmesan), mushrooms, nuts, corn and cherry  tomatoes.

In one article I read that mothers breast milk contains umami. It means that first tastes  that children learns is not only sweet but also umami.

Another thing what’s interesting is that people on vegetarian or vegan diet are very often using products consisting umami to make their  food  as delicious as meat meals. That’s why most of vegan recipes consist mushrooms or nuts.

Sources:

• https://zdrowie.tvn.pl/a/umami-jaki-to-smak-gdzie-mozna-znalezc-smak-umami-produkty-dania
• https://www.medonet.pl/zdrowie,umami---zrodla-smaku--sztuczne-umami--zastosowanie,artykul,1729553.html
• https://cookieandkate.com/29-vegan-dinner-recipes/