Umami

 During our discussion in class a few weeks ago about the 5 basic human tastes I was surprised to find out that many in our class had not heard of umami—the fifth, and perhaps most mystifying human taste. Having grown up in a household in which my mother forcibly made me try every food known to mankind and then taught me about each food, I have been hearing about umami for at least the last few years and never thought twice about the fact that umami is not a well-understood taste. Looking back on my elementary education, I now realize that I was never thoroughly (if at all) taught about umami in school.

For those who didn’t get a good grasp on what umami is, Miram Webster dictionary defines umami as “a taste sensation that is meaty or savory and is produced by several amino acids and nucleotides.” Some good examples of umami are mushrooms, seafood, tomatoes, seaweed, soy sauce, parmesan cheese, and of course MSG flavoring.

In addition to its mysterious reputation, and that most of us were not explicitly taught about it in school, what I find most interesting about umami is that restaurants and food companies have begun to capitalize on its “recent discovery” as the 5^th taste. Umami’s relatively new discovery allows it to be promoted as “hip” and desirable.

While some of you may be wondering where I could possibly have gotten the idea that umami is “hip,” you’ve probably never had Umami Burger. Umami Burger, one of the most popular and trendiest burger chains in Los Angeles, is the first thing I think of when someone says umami. Umami Burger rhetorically makes use of umami’s savory and deeply satisfying sensation and promotes the idea that their burgers are unmatched my any other, because only they have truly mastered the sensation of umami. Here are a few quotations from their website: “The ART of creating that perfect mouthful,” “Where YUM is the new WOW!” “One BADASS BITE!” Clearly they take their creation of umami very seriously! While these quotations are rather dramatic, I have to admit, Umami Burger is in fact pretty darn delicious and does create burgers with explosive amounts of flavor. Afterall, GQ did name Umami Burger burger of the year in 2010.

While this is just one example of umami being used to market a product as new and distinctive, I know that there are many more similar products out there (“Taste No. 5 Umami Paste” is another good example). I’m curious to see if umami continues to be a trendy flavor, and if it will eventually become just as widely known as all of the other human tastes now are. After all, the fact that many people in our class didn’t know what it was means that umami has a long way to go before people readily include it in the list of basic human tastes.