Comments on: ‘New’ Secret Ingredient that Makes Everything Taste Better?

By: Lizzie-Emily

Lizzie-Emily — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:42:09 +0000

@Scheherazade

LOL. You\’re so funny.

Did you read the next bit? \”yet only recently has the concept of umami made it out of Asia.\”
My brother studied this concept in his first year at Cambridge university back in 2004, and by then it was more than well known.

I suppose it depends on your concept of \”reccent\”. I consider anything older than 15 years to be well known to students down at college levels, such as myself, not very new at all.

By: Emma Dunlop

Emma Dunlop — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:15:11 +0000

Also see Gisele Scanlon’s The Goddess Guide for some stuff on her search for Umami (non-fiction). She travels around Paris with her crew in search of what makes her and other people happy. A lovely girly book about all things chic, fluffy and Parisian. And Umami, of course.

Emma x

By: Peter A

Peter A — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:58:36 +0000

I was hoping we could buy the actual Umami itself, the way you can buy MSG powder. I went to Waitrose specially to check this out. And discovered that purchasable Umami is made entirely from anchovies, tomatoes, parmesan cheese, garlic, yeast extract, porcini mushrooms and salt.

In other words, to create Taste No 5, they’ve just squashed together all the foods which contain the Umami glutamates and ribonucleotides and put them in a tube. Like boiling up a bunch of citrus fruits and selling it as vitamin C paste. Think I’ll stick to using garlic and parmesan on my cornflakes.

(Also, let the buyer beware, that tube of stuff ain’t veggie.)

By: Scheherazade

Scheherazade — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:23:09 +0000

@Lizzie-emily. Did you even read the article? If you had you might have read this bit right there in the second paragraph, “Umami was first isolated by Japanese chemists Kikunae Ikeda in 1908″. Interestingly enough, it seems that umami is also a word that can be used to describe twattish behaviour in forum discussions.

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:57:35 +0000

@Lizzie-emily

Yes, that’s why the word ‘new’ is inverted commas. That’s probably also the reason for the question mark.

By: Alex Baldwin

Alex Baldwin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:06:29 +0000

I dispute that headline, I tried making cheese-on-toast using this paste and it was foul. It does add a nice little “something” to stews etc. though.

By: Ms G

Ms G — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:01:11 +0000

I don’t get this umami at all. I don’t get why it is a 5th tatste according to them, and not just a simple mixture of the other 4. Marmite? I don’t see anything weird in that taste, def. not umami. And then the other types of food that contain umami .. it’s a bit over the top, imo. But hey .. it will serve a large group of people I guess.
I don’t really like chinese nor japanase food, a bit tasteless .. it lacks something, but that ‘s a matter of taste. And I dont eat meat .. makes a whole lot of difference as well.

Ofcoures, if I would ran into a yar of umami taste I’d stick my finger in it to taste it .. or a knife .. but still …

By: Lizzie-emily

Lizzie-emily — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:15:00 +0000

So? What’s new? Umami’s been known about for years by everyone. Me and all my college friends have known about it for a few years at least… It\’s not exactly new, sorry.

By: sarahhh

sarahhh — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:14:14 +0000

cooooool
i love derren brown!
hes soo amazing
they shud dedicate channel 4 to him
n he needs to do more interactive show (interactive to the audience at home)

By: keefc2

keefc2 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:13:58 +0000

See MSG discovery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate
Marmite is also a good source of Umami.