7.4.4

Section 4 In today’s lecture, I’m going to talk about Monosodium Glutamate, or MSG, as it’s more commonly now.

Now MSG as you probably know, a flavour enhancer which is used particularly in Chinese and Japanese cooking.

Today, I’m going to explore why it’s so popular in these cuisines and, more importantly, how does it enhance the flavour of food.

The main reason why MSG is more commonly used in Japanese meals is tradition.

For many thousands of years the Japanese has incorporated a type of seaweed Know as kombu in their cooking, as they discovered it had the ability to make food taste better.

But it wasn’t until 1908 that the ingredient in kombu which was responsible for the improvement for flavour was actually discovered to be glutamate by scientists working there.

From 1908 until 1956, glutamate was produced commercially in Japan by a very slow and expensive means of extraction.

It was in 1956, that the speed of the process was improved, and industrial production increase dramatically and still continues to increase to this day.

In fact, hundreds of thousands tonnes MSG are produced all over the world today.

So what exactly is MSSG?

Well, Monosodium Glutamate contains seventy-eight point two per cent (78. 2%) glutamate twelve point two per cent (12. 2%) sodium and nine point six per cent (9. 6%) water.

Glutamate is an amino acid that can be found naturally in all protein-containing foods.

So that includes food such as meat and cheese.

It is widely known that Chinese and Japanese food contains the MSG but many people don’t seems to be aware that it also used in food in other parts of the world.

For example, It’s found in commercially made Italian pizzas, in American fast food and in Britain MSG is used in things like potato crisps.

So how exactly does MSG work?

Well, in the western world, we commonly talk of four ’tastes’, and I’m sure you’re all familiar with the concepts of sweet, sour, bitter and salt.

Well, in 1908, Kikunae Ikeda identify a fifth ’taste’. and it is thought that MSG intensifies this naturally occurring ’taste’ in some food.

It does make perfect evolutionary sense that we should have the ability to detect or taste glutamate because it is the minor acid which is the most common in natural foods.

John Prescott, an associate professor at the University of Chicago, suggest that this ‘fifth taste’ services a purpose just as the others tastes do.

He suggest that it signal to us to presence of protein in food in the same way the sweetness indicates that food contains energy-giving carbohydrates.

Bitterness, he said, alerts us to toxins in the food while sourness warns us of spoilage and saltiness signals the presence of some minerals.

So what else do we know about this fifth taste. . .