The Fifth Taste

The UK is all in a tizzy over this week's unveiling of Umami in a Tube. The purée is called 'Taste No. 5'. In addition to salty, sweet, sour and bitter, umami has been recognized as a distinct flavour in Japan for 102 years.

The word comes from the Japanese word for taste and was discovered by Kikunae Ikeda, a Tokyo chemist. He decided umami was the flavour result of foods that contained a lot of glutmate, which is a building block of protein.

Umami gained a lot of mixed attention from the public as people associated it with monosodium glutamate (MSG.)

It captures the essence of savouriness, the pungent, earthy flavour that occurs in foods like steak and mushrooms. Some also use the words brothy or meaty to describe its taste.

Umami transcends cuisines from all over the world, found in seaweed from Japan and parmasan from Italy. It's also prevalent in Wortchesterchire sauce, fish sauce, Marmite and human breast milk. Mmm... Caesar salad is very umami too.

I go through phases with HP sauce where I want it on everything: eggs, burgers, salad dressing. When I actually start to really think about it, my mouth waters.

This new umami in a tube can be added to basically any food you can think of. It has been created for the UK market by food writer Laura Santtini and the formula includes porcini mushrooms, anchovies, Parmesan cheese, black olives, garlic and tomatoes.

I hope I can get my greasy little paws on a tube soon!