Umami is a japanese word for that savoury taste that is now generally regarded as a basic taste (the fifth taste alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter). The characters when translated literally mean ‘delicious flavour”. It was Professor Kikunae Ikeda who isolated umami early in the 20th century.
However the western world didn’t really acknowledge the existence of umami to begin with. Primarily because it didn’t fit the tongue maps we’d all been taught at school but on which rests very very little actual scientific foundation. Go figure!
I wonder what that says about this blog…
