Umami
From Wikinfo
Umami is the name for the taste sensation produced by substances containing glutamic acid, an amino acid. It is one of the five basic tastes. Monosodium glutamate, developed as a food additive in 1907 by Kikunae Ikeda, produces a strong umami taste.
Umami is considered basic in Japanese and Chinese cooking, but is not discussed as much in Western cuisine, where it is sometimes referred to as "savory" or "moreish." It is believed that umami taste buds respond specifically to glutamate in the same way that "sweet" ones respond to sugar.
The name comes from umami (旨味 or うまみ), the Japanese name for the taste sensation. The characters literally mean "delicious flavour."
In English, the name of the taste is sometimes spelled umame, but umami (which conforms to the romanization standards of Japanese) is much more common, as, for example, in the title of the "Society for Research on Umami Taste" at http://www.srut.org/index_e.html .
The same taste is referred to as Xian Wei (鮮味) in Chinese cooking.
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Umami" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
