Posted on 01/12/2014 2:21:14 PM PST by rickmichaels
In 1908, over a bowl of seaweed soup, Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda asked a question that would change the food industry forever: What gave dashi, a ubiquitous Japanese soup base, its meaty flavor?
In Japanese cuisine, dashi, a fermented base made from boiled seaweed and dried fish, was widely used by chefs to add extra oomph to meals — pairing well with other savory, but meatless foods such as vegetables and soy. For some reason that was generally accepted but inexplicable, dashi made these meatless foods meaty — and Ikeda was determined to find out why.
Ikeda was able to isolate the main substance of dashi — the seaweed Laminaria japonica. He then took the seaweed and ran it through a series of chemical experiments, using evaporation to isolate a specific compound within the seaweed. After days of evaporating and treating the seaweed, he saw the development of a crystalline form. When he tasted the crystals, he recognized the distinct savory taste that dashi lent to other foods, a taste that he deemed umami, from the Japanese umai (delicious). It was a breakthrough that challenged a cornerstone of culinary thinking: Instead of four tastes — sweet, salty, bitter and sour — there were now five. A new frontier of taste had been discovered, and Ikeda wasted no time monopolizing on his discovery.
(Excerpt) Read more at fullcomment.nationalpost.com ...
I can only find one place for it using multiple search engines.
http://www.uniquetraining.com/catalog/
Be cautious!
Any idea what’s in “MSG Buster”?
No offense intended, but... If MSG is so dangerous, why are there a billion Chinese?
No idea at all. I suggest emailing or calling the company. I imagine it is not a big seller but that there is a need for it amongst those who suffer from MSG.
MSG = “Makes Stuff Good”
It is not dangerous to everyone, just to a few of us. If you were ‘one of the few’, you would understand what we are talking about.
I am sure that a few Chinese have a problem with it too.
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