You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. I'm here with Phil Walther, straight from Dubai. Yeah, good, man. How does it feel to be back in the Middle East? It feels like being inside of a big fucking air fryer. 37 degrees. The sun is shining 23 hours a day. No, it's good. It's quite nice. I mean, it's hot as fuck, but the city has its own kind of like flair between like
really polished and kind of chaotic. And I remember the first time that I came here because I came here the first time in, when would it have been? 2021, 22? Yeah. I remember really like needing some time to adjust to what was going on. And now it's kind of like I come back and it feels very familiar, kind of very easygoing in a way. So today we're going to talk about umami. Umami, umami. Umami. So what do you know about umami? Well, umami is the mystical flavor, no? So is
it? The same with you. Was that the last flavor you learned about? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think everybody, right? You get to know what sour, sweet, salty, or bitter is, but sweet, whatever. But umami, you're already a grown -up when you start using that word or understanding what it even is, right? Yeah, totally. I wonder how it is because, I mean, the word umami, it originates from Japan. It was coined by the Japanese.
And I wonder if they learn about it as a fundamental flavor as children also, because for us, it's like the big four, right? It's salty, sour, sweet,
and bitter, right? And then umami is this... um this mystical thing that a lot of people i remember when i was starting to cook people really started getting into it and this term started getting thrown about a lot more everybody was kind of trying to describe in words um what it is i still find it hard to to talk about and to describe exactly what it is for people who have never heard this term or never like experienced umami people that know you just say umami they're
like ah yeah of course it's a sort of depth of flavor but it's quite Difficult to pinpoint it. I agree 100%. I would even say people who know what it is sometimes will do mistakes. Like, no, that's not exactly it, right? Like, I myself, there were things when I was doing research, I found out things that I would normally associate with umami. Like, for example, Maillard reaction.
Not necessarily, right? No, no, no. So also with what you said, interestingly enough, so the compound, because it's a chemical compound, it was first discovered by Kikunao Weikera, 1908 in Japan, a chemist. 1908? Yes. 908. And that's when the
word was coined. I mean, because I do understand why there is this misconception, even in Japan, which is where the word comes from, because it's very easy to think something is flavorful or salty when it's actually umami, because the things overlap each other and it's hard to separate them. And that's what happens, for example, that actually the experience this guy had is that he was... Identifying something that kombu had, but only kombu, that was not the saltiness. It
was something else. And that's when, yeah, it's glutamic acid is the compound, right? And it's something, for example, that you will find all over, let's say, for example, in Italian cuisine. You have a puttanesca, you have olives, you have tomato, you have anchovies, you have parmesan. All of those things are heavy umami carriers. Maybe you say, yeah, it's something flavorful and salty, but you don't have that exact, like, characteristic that umami has that is, yeah,
it's hard to describe. It's like something very flavorful that you really feel in your mouth, for example, when you eat, like, an anchovy or
tomato paste or tomato juice or parmesan. If you take parmesan and you think not about the saltiness but about something else, that flavorfulness, inside it that's it that's umami yeah yeah that's very very well put and people want to kind of experience the sensation a little bit you know there's like parmesan is a great example of this but i mean if you've ever tried pure msg that's basically super powering the umami right and it's a very very strange sensation if you've
never had this if you it's kind of like you know you take a little bit of salt you put it on your tongue It tastes salty, right? If you take a little bit of like pure crystallized MSG and you let it dissolve in your tongue, you have this like mouth -watering kind of sensation. Not sort of like Szechuan pepper would do or stuff. Other things can be mouth -watering too, but just this like very deep, full, round kind
of tastiness in a way. It's crazy, like, once you look into that, how many things you realize have a natural amount of glutamic acid, you know, as in, like you were saying, kind of parmesan or tomatoes, you know, kombu. That's why dashi, for me, dashi is the quintessence of umami in the way that I've experienced it. I've really, like, kind of realized for myself what I feel like umami entails. When I was in Japan for the first time, and it was the first time I had a
really, really well -made dashi. Because it wasn't, and it's interesting also to experience this with not a high level of salt. Because you can have something with umami and a lot of salt and it's very tasty. But to have a low level of salt, which in our understanding often is kind of like... It's going to be a little bit less tasty if it's
not seasoned to the top. But then to have something with a very, very high amount of glutamic acid is very interesting because even though the saltiness is very low, you have this full on flavor like bomb that hits you very, very deep. It makes you salivate. It makes you like really like want more of it. Yeah, that's exactly it. Well, you mentioned MSG. Also, interestingly enough, this guy, I will read the name again, Kikunao Aikeda, was the guy that patented MSG and founded Ajinomoto.
Same guy. Ah, there you go. Yeah, so this became, it's a crazy process. And interestingly enough, it's extracted from sugar. So sugar is processed and into, like, I don't know, like some kind of water -wide chemical process. And you extract crystals of MSG, which is pure. glutamic acid. And this has become like, yeah, it's like a multinational company. In Peru, it's already part of the standard
ingredients. And also something worth mentioning, MSG has gotten all this bad reputation and all of these things are like conspiracy theories
that are not scientifically proven. a chinese restaurant syndrome that is associated to msg and even like these campaigns of this is a restaurant without msg because we don't use those evil chemicals or this and that and that's just uh it's not true yeah exactly i think there's a lot of racism attached to these sorts of absolutely movements you know this like whole chinese restaurant syndrome you know is part of the I mean, it really feels like it's part of this like Asian hate kind of
thing that was happening. I mean, especially in America. And yeah, it's a glutamic acid and MSG is a, like I said earlier, like a natural component that's found, you know, like for example, kombu. Kombu is, you know, full of it. Have you ever had shio kombu? The like salted little shreds of kombu. Fucking hell. That stuff is like, it's unbelievable. So basically these are like little shreds of kombu that are like dehydrated. And the natural sort of like glutamic, glutamate,
it crusts the outside of it. It looks like it's almost like candied. And you eat it and it's just like a flavor bomb of MSG. It's super, super nice. You have to try taking a little bit of
shio kombu. and putting it into like some broth like a clear chicken stock or dashi and just letting it infuse you know just letting the shio kombu infuse the broth a little bit and then you need to try it it's like it's like putting your food on steroids basically yeah yeah or just adding energy to fries incredible will be the best fries you've ever had i've never tried that oh that's so good i've never tried that So I'm reading here at Flavorama by Ariel Johnson,
and the heaviest carriers of MSG are kombu, number one, has 3 ,000 milligrams per 100 grams. But then we have Marmite, Parmigiano -Reggiano, kelp in general, fish sauce, nori, blue cheeses like Roquefort, gang -yang, anchovies, dried shiitake, gruyere, miso, all those things are... But even in vegetables like asparagus, even potatoes or sweet potatoes, you know, that thing in the background that makes us, you would describe as flavorful,
that's the glutamic acid. And also, interestingly enough, there are other things, like other compounds that enhance the way it interacts with your taste buds, and it just makes it stronger. That's why so many things interact like in... For example, in parmesan, it's just not the glutamic acid. There are more things going on that make this thing, like, you know, explode in your mouth if you have, like, a whole spoonful of grated
parmesan. Yeah, of course. I mean, parmesan is a great example because it's like there's so many things happening together. There's the texture, there's the glutamic acid, there's the salt, there's the fat, you know. That's why it's, you know, eating a piece of parmesan cheese is so extremely tasty. All of those things, they're tasty, you know. Fat makes things tasty, you know, salt makes things tasty to an extent. MSG does. And that's why Parmesan, yeah, Parmesan
is just like, again, it's amazing. I love using Parmesan as like a secret ingredient to season certain things. Like, for example, if you have like a, I shouldn't be saying this, God, I do these bastardized things that I do in the kitchen. But like, if you have like a mayonnaise, you want to superpower it, I just like microplane some Parmesan into it and like blitz it into
it. Or like a beurre blanc. i like grate some parmesan into it like when it's hot and then just like foam it up just to give it this like and you can't taste that it's like parmesan you know but it's like uh just um bang on yeah i love i love doing that adding yeah umami enhancers that you don't notice uh if nobody told you but once somebody tells you you say oh yeah i get it i feel the parmesan but if nobody tells you you won't you would never say so And, for example,
I talked before here about adding, for example, kimchi juice to a puttanesca. Yes. And just adding more of the same stuff that is already in there, right? Like I'm just enhancing. And it blends well with all the other flavors. Or, for example, now we made the Italians cry. I can also make the Spaniards cry. I would do these croquetas where in the vegetable I would add some Japanese soy sauce and some tomato paste. And also the roasted butter has also lots of umami, beurre
nocet. So it had beurre nocet, it had some tomato paste, it had some soy sauce, and of course, Iberico ham, which is also like a carrier of umami. So I think a well -versed chef will always find ways to add umami if he wants to something. Absolutely. I think it's a real skill. And I think everybody has their own little tricks in their back pocket. For example, I have something similar. I have this recipe. It started here in Dubai, actually. I wanted to make a mushroom
espuma. But it turned into an all -around recipe for mushroom. Ragoos, mushroom cream sauces, whether they're heavy or light, whether I want like a mushroom foam, very light mushroom foam, but I always start the same way where I fry mushrooms until I have a lot of color. So they have a lot of Maillard. Then I deglaze with soy, right? So they like the soy sauce, like caramelizes a little bit and like it intensifies and reduces.
And then I add stock and whatever, and you can add cream or cream fresh, but then very important, they add a little bit of ponzu. And I add in the end katsubushi to like infuse and some like dried shiitakes and ideally some kombu also just to infuse. And then I like blitz it, I strain it. And you can't really tell this, like the katsubushi, for example, has this like little bit ham -like flavor, but you can't really pinpoint it. It's like full on mushroom flavor, you know?
Obviously the shiitake, umami, soy sauce, umami, ponzu, umami, and a little bit of sourness together with like the fat. And it makes the like most tasty, super powered mushroom sauce that basically just tastes like mushrooms, right? But again, it tastes like mushrooms on steroids. Yeah, just like similar to that, I used to make this for like the last, I don't know, like three, four years. I make the sauce that I've used for all sorts of stuff. Actually, I've been making this
for like 10 years. I made it the first time when I was in Lorea in Mexico. I make a very, very intense tomato water by just like seasoning and salting tomatoes and letting them drip. So I usually, I do like a express version nowadays, but I take very nice tasting tomatoes, quite a lot of salt, garlic, some sort of onion. Usually I use like a little bit of spring onion. And then like often I put in herbs, like a little bit of coriander. I blitz it just quickly. And
then I let it hang. So just the water drips out. And then that water I season with a little bit of garum. Just a little bit. And like plenty, maybe a pinch of sugar if they need it. Because again, it like superpowers it. And a pinch of salt. And then I thicken it lightly with xanthan gum. You get this like velvety tomato, like seafood tomato sauce. But you taste it and it's like, it's like fucking Arnold Schwarzenegger as a tomato, you know? It's just like, it's out there
to kick your fucking ass, you know? If you've ever had a nightmare where a tomato is coming into your bedroom, your sleep paralysis demon as a tomato, to kick your ass, that's basically what it tastes like. Desserts. Desserts with umami. For example, this trick of adding a little bit of blue cheese to the cheesecake or parmesan to the cheesecake, basically you're adding a layer of umami to the whole thing. This dessert of Echavarri, the grilled smoked sheep milk ice
cream with beetroot juice. That's umami with umami, basically. Beetroot has also like a fresh
beetroot juice. Also super... stimulating in in your tongue totally yeah because i mean beetroot beetroot juice has a lot of like minerals and salts and sugar you know and that's all like that it makes it very very complex a lot of people will think of beetroot juice is like oh it's like a vegetable juice but if you look at what it actually is there's so much in there that that'll make you that'll make your mouth explode yeah incredibly complex and having it raw It
also has its own, you feel that it's alive. So many microaromas happening around there. Chocolate. Chocolate is umami, basically. Have you tried chocolate with blue cheese? I don't think I have. Like a ganache of chocolate and blue cheese? Again, it's umami with umami. You know, like
toffee. Again, more umami. concentrated dairies in general i would say or cured dairies uh generated umami oh yeah absolutely you know like what um what you just reminded me of with the toffee i think i talked about this before but yeast yeast roasted yeast that is an umami bomb i mean there's a reason why it's being used as an alternative for like parmesan and vegan cooking and stuff like that and i'm 100 certain i've talked about the caramelized yeast butter that i um sometimes
make for certain things because that for me also it's like the it's full full i don't actually know if you could call it umami but it's definitely into that direction you know geez but you mean like fresh yeast or roasted yeast because roasted yeast or yeast extracts that's umami by the book for sure yeah but you mean the fresh one that's what i mean no no that's the one i mean the roasted one ah yeah no no no that's umami 100 yeah yeah leche de tigre you know like i think that like
the somehow the the citrus fruits extract like this juices from the fish that makes it this thing that explodes in your mouth you know um and yeah i mean seaweeds all sorts of seaweeds it's like seaweeds are such an incredible world of ingredients honestly i think it's like still super underrated what you can do with it When I was in Japan just now a few months ago, I ate so many nice things. But the thing that I would pick as the best one was this side dish that
I ate for breakfast. I'm pretty sure I talked about it as well. But I'll just mention it again because it was so extremely good. Where it was just braised turnips with umeboshi in kombu dashi. And she explained how she was doing it. And it's literally, she's like, I'll make a cold infused kombu dashi. And then I take the turnips. I put them in. I cook them a little bit until they're soft. Then I put in some umeboshi. I'll cook them until they're nice and flavorsome. And then
that's it. And then she spoons it in. And you were drinking this broth and eating the like sweet, deep turnips. And like... It was such a, it wasn't like super, you know, we tend to always like over season things. Like we always season to the top until you can't season anymore. And there everything was a little bit more mellow, but it was nice because like these super umami qualities, they would like come out more, you know, and you would like, it wasn't like saltiness
that you tasted. It was just a deep, deep hitting, soul tickling umami, you know. Yeah, I was thinking that there are also things that are so present in our cuisines, you know, because a lot of people say like umami, this mysterious fifth flavor from Japan. And I mean, if you think about it, like a good source of umami is just chicken stock or meat stock, right? Oh, yeah. Or tomato sauce, which are all over our cuisines, you know, like
it's all over the place. And yeah, I would say this is something we define as flavorful in our day -to -day language because we don't know how to separate it or how to identify it properly. Yeah, I mean, the only thing that the Japanese did is they defined a word for it and they researched it, they singled it out. They characterized it, exactly, yeah. They characterized it. I mean, you have to say that the Japanese cooking is
very much, to a large extent, about umami. Umami is definitely something that's very, very prevalent in Japanese cooking. But as you say, it's kind of like everybody has it. Everybody has umami in their natural cuisine. And just because one country coined the term doesn't mean that it's exclusive to that country and that only soy sauce and only kombu and only katsubushi have umami. It's definitely, I think, one of the biggest misconceptions about umami. And is there enough
umami anywhere? I mean, if you could add more, would you always add more? Is there a limit? Yes, I think there definitely is. I think you need to, in order to make that experiment, I don't know if you've ever added too much MSG to something, but take a chicken stock and add MSG to it and then taste it and just keep adding
a teaspoon of MSG and see what happens. And when your roommate finds you with pupils as large as fucking tea sauces staring at the ceiling, chicken stock over your shirt, then you know you've added too much. Okay, okay, okay. I'll have to try that. Sounds fun. I'm sure you will.
Because I don't know, for example, sometimes I do like a chicken stock and I would just... add a an instant miso soup on top of it you know like this that come with seaweed and miso and dehydrated onions and everything and then i have like this super rich miso soup and basically i'm adding umami to the umami you know like yeah Also, these things, like a puttanesca, you have tomato sauce that has anchovies and olives and parmesan. You're just adding more and more of
it. That's why I'm asking, is there a limit? Or can you always add more? Well, I don't know. I don't know. I guess you actually just said something very interesting, because I think it's a no -go in Italy to add parmesan to a puttanesca. Oh, really? Yeah, I think there's this rule that you don't add cheese to seafood pastas. But is Sputanesca considered a seafood pasta? Well, it has anchovies. It has anchovies, but I mean, I think that applies if you're doing like a vongole,
you know, or something. Because anchovies, yeah, it's seafood, but it's a very good friend of parmesan. Yeah, for sure. I mean, don't get me wrong. I will add parmesan onto any kind of pasta that I eat. No matter, no matter what, like, you know, and you can get after me however you want. I don't care who I'm with. If it's fucking Massimo Bottura or whatever, I will always be happy to add Parmesan onto my pasta because Parmesan is just fucking tasty. And I think that if it's
good, you should just do it, right? Like I would, I would also add Parmesan on top of like spaghetti vongole. I have no, I give no fucks. I don't see what the point is. I just know that it's a rule and I wanted to hear your opinion about it. Sorry, sorry about what I was just checking. And yeah, actually, it's true what you just said. The Italians don't add parmesan to the puttanesca. Sorry, what was the question? No, I said that I don't care about these sorts of rules. I was
just wondering what your opinion on it was. I don't trust any rules. I think rules were invented by someone at some point, you know, and especially eating rules. I've heard all this kind of, or like fashion rules. I've heard people saying like, no, you can't combine dark blue with black. You just don't do that. And I'm like, yeah, says who? Yeah, exactly. And I think that's like colors combination. I think exactly the same applies to flavor combinations. Nobody can tell you what
you can or can't do. Because there will always be exceptions. You can't have a red wine with seafood if it works, right? Yeah, I absolutely agree. Totally. I think if it's tasty, you should just do it. Yeah, exactly. It just has to work. Because not every red wine works with any seafood. But I'm pretty sure there are matches where it works. I think it's okay to not really understand umami fully. I think it's something that you
should search for, though. You know, like kind of step out of the box of what your understanding of food is and kind of maybe try to look for it in places that you don't. Like next time you eat a piece of parmesan, stop thinking about the saltiness and this and that. And like, you know, think about the umami and you'll see that you'll find it in a lot of things very, very prevalently. And then you can use that to your advantage and incorporate it more knowingly into
your cooking. Yeah, I would say it is that thing that you crave when your mouth waters, right? Like if you have like a steak in front of you and your mouth starts watering, you're probably experiencing or craving umami. That's what it is. That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks. If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as potluckfoodtalks. The show airs every Monday.