Briefs · Frontier Science
What is umami?
Umami hid in plain sight for a century. Umami means ‘delicious taste’. Kikunae Ikeda named it in 1908 after isolating glutamate from seaweed, but it was only accepted as a basic taste in the early 2000s, once its receptor was found on our tongues in 2002. Its job is to detect protein: sweet finds energy and umami finds protein. It lurks in Parmesan, soy sauce, tomatoes and shiitake, and it is one of the first flavours babies taste, since breast milk carries glutamate at 175 milligrams per litre. The verdict is deliciously delayed: the taste we always knew, finally named.
Read the original at The Conversation (Science and Technology)
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