http://www.macheesmo.com/2012/01/what-is-umami/
Dashi does make everything taste wonderful.
Love seaweed. Hate MSG/Aspartame.
I want umami!
http://www.macheesmo.com/2012/01/what-is-umami/
Here is “The Chef’s List” of the characteristics of food, combinations of which define the great recipes.
The five primary flavors are sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory(umami).
The six secondary flavors are spicy (piquance or pungency), fatty or oily, coolness (like minty, menthol or camphor), astringent (like alum or lemon), heartiness (like alcohol), and numbness (like nutmeg or clove).
A good argument can be made for fizzy (carbonated) and foamy, as if not as secondary flavors than perhaps tertiary ones, more oriented towards textures, like crunchy, chewy, crispy, crystalline, powdery, earthy, fishy, juicy, squashy, runny, solid, hard, soft, tough, soggy, firm, and creamy.
Finally there is the “mouth feel” subgroup.
Cohesiveness: Degree to which the sample deforms before rupturing
when biting with molars.
Density: Compactness of cross section of the sample after biting
completely through with the molars.
Dryness: Degree to which the sample feels dry in the mouth.
Fracturability: Force with which the sample crumbles, cracks or
shatters. Fracturability encompasses crumbliness, crispiness,
crunchiness and brittleness.
Graininess: Degree to which a sample contains small grainy particles.
Gumminess: Energy required to disintegrate a semi-solid food to a
state ready for swallowing.
Hardness: Force required to deform the product to given distance,
i.e., force to compress between molars, bite through with incisors,
compress between tongue and palate.
Heaviness: Weight of product perceived when first placed on tongue.
Moisture absorption: Amount of saliva absorbed by product.
Moisture release: Amount of wetness/juiciness released from sample.
Mouthcoating: Type and degree of coating in the mouth after
mastication (for example, fat/oil).
Roughness: Degree of abrasiveness of product’s surface perceived by
the tongue.
Slipperiness: Degree to which the product slides over the tongue.
Smoothness: Absence of any particles, lumps, bumps, etc., in the product.
Uniformity: Degree to which the sample is even throughout; homogeneity.
Uniformity of Bite: Evenness of force through bite.
Uniformity of Chew: Degree to which the chewing characteristics
of the product are even throughout mastication.
Viscosity: Force required to draw a liquid from a spoon over the tongue.
Wetness: Amount of moisture perceived on product’s surface.
MSG is the devil’s work. That stuff puts me in the hospital with a severe migraine.
I tolerate MSG in smaller doses but aspartame gives me major headaches with just a small amount and I get sick if I have a larger amount.
I also try to avoid MSG, soy - evil stuff - and sulfites. My mom is allergic to sulfites. There is something in Dr. Pepper that makes me sick but not sure what. Guess one of those 23 secret ingredients.
I always try to read labels and you can’t even trust something you have bought for years because they can change with no warning. I used to buy different brands of gum with no problem, then one time I got a massive sick headache and I looked and Wrigley had added aspartame to a non sugar free gum. Then I went and looked at some of the other gums and several had also added aspartame. So I basically stopped buying gum.
No offense intended, but... If MSG is so dangerous, why are there a billion Chinese?