A Story of Umami
“I thought umami only came from meat!” In one of our workshops on umami, we witnessed a vegetarian tasting her way into the umami joy that can be found in so many vegetables and vegetarian dishes.
Umami is the fifth taste, the “delicious savory taste,” as it translates from the Japanese.
Our mouth has Umami taste receptors based on our need for and recognition of glutamates, a necessary neurotransmitter for the human body. Beyond the MSG debate, glutamates, regardless of source, have a place in our diets and how our bodies and brains function. Every culture in the world has found a way to bring them into our food systems, like many variations on fish sauce, whether rakfisk or lutefisk in Norway, garum from anchovies in Italy, or nuac mam in Vietnam.
Just by reading about it, your mouth is probably watering, which is the idea. Umami inspires digestion and appetite, readying the body for food it needs. That’s actually what umami does for me. It readies me for what’s next with a depth of comfort and satisfaction that actually gives me confidence! It is the taste of calm to me.
Umami is what I taste when I pause to savor the bite or sip I’ve taken, whether it’s a handcrafted miso paste whisked into a broth to deepen the flavors of spinach and tofu, or a beautiful ripe tomato that I’ve just sliced, sprinkled with a hint of sea salt and drizzled with a zippy mediterranean olive oil. A very satisfying umami experience reminds me that I can recognize the nuance of flavor, I can feel gratitude for the expression of time and character from what I’ve eaten, and I can appreciate the complexity in what I may be about to do because I have appreciated it in what I just ate.
An Umami Deep Dive with A Matter of Taste provides access to the leading conversations about umami and also gives insight to the surprisingly long list of sources for umami in our diets, from cheeses to specific fruits and vegetables, to yes, cured and fermented meats. Mushrooms, our connection to the mycelial network of our planet, also major umami players, in all their forms. Fresh, dried, cooked or raw, shiitake or porcini, umami all the way. Tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages, yes, yes, and yes. A beautifully satisfying vegetarian pasta sauce can be loaded with umami using ingredients you might have in the pantry.
Savoriness, richness, complexity, depth, the words we use to describe this fifth taste- words that almost leave food behind and get to feeling. Maybe that’s the lesson of umami. We need time to appreciate it, to go beyond the first hit of salt, or tart, or sweet, to appreciate what’s next and under it, the promise of more ideas, more vocabulary, if we are patient and wait for it.
