This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

The four basic tastes: salty, sweet, sour and bitter were good enough for Democritus, Plato and Aristotle but not, apparently, for Escoffier in France or Kikunae Ikeda in Japan. Ikeda was a chemist who identified a fifth flavor found in kombu, a kind of seaweed, and which he called umami which is Japanese for “yummy.” But scientists scoffed: this fifth flavor, they said, didn’t exist; it was all in people’s heads. Ikeda proved them wrong. Through chemical analysis, Ikeda discovered glutamic acid. He then went on to patent monosodium glutamate to give non-umami foods the umami mojo. But it also gave headaches. And so, ironically, Ikeda ushered in the era of asking it to be left out of food altogether. Umami mia!

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.