In 1907, a Japanese biochemistry professor became curious about some of the flavors in his wife’s cooking. He noticed that some foods had a much more satisfying flavor and yet didn’t fall into the categories of the four known tastes, and after some investigating he found that foods made with asparagus, cheeses, kelp, meats, mushrooms and tomatoes had something that he couldn’t match up with sweet, sour, salty or bitter.

Professor Kikunae Ikeda took these thoughts from home to work with him at the Tokyo Imperial University. After a considerable amount of investigating he discovered that the common denominator was the glutamates which were found in all of these items. He believed that he had discovered “The Fifth Taste.” He named it “Umami” and assumed that it along with sweet were the only tastes associated with pleasure. Bitter, salty and sour may be enjoyed by many people but they are not actually pleasure inducing.

He isolated the exact chemical, C5H9NO4, called L-glutamate, and was able to turn it into a product now known as MSG.

Although Professor Ikeda is nowadays considered one of Japan’s 10 greatest inventors, his contemporaries said there was no section of the tongue that detected MSG and so his theory was initially discounted.

So what exactly did Professor Ikeda discover then? Glutamic acid is a naturally occurring amino acid that breaks down into (monosodium) L-glutamate. It is found in many of the foods that the professor was studying and is created in many types of cooking processes.

Aging, brewing, braising, fermenting, heating, sun ripening, even the act of making soup naturally creates monosodium glutamate. The glutamic acid breaks down during these processes and becomes a simple and natural MSG.

The legendary French Chef Auguste Escoffier accidentally discovered this just about the same time as Professor Ikeda was doing his studies.

Chef Escoffier (pronounced Ess-COFFEE-eh) created a soup out of veal and onions that had none of the four primary tastes yet was delectable. He didn’t break it down scientifically, but knew he was on to something new.

Now over 100 years after Professor Ikeda and Chef Escoffier made their discoveries, the L-glutamate sensation has been marketed as “umami.” Most modern scientists and biologists admit that while there is no specific umami section of the tongue like the other primary tastes have, they have discovered that there are umami receptors all over the human tongue. An international symposium convened in 1985 and found that the umami flavor cannot be created by any combination of the four other tastes so umami was unique. The professor was right; he did discover a fifth, unique taste.

By Ross A. Christensen