Umami
ARTS AND TRADITIONS OF THE TABLE: PERSPECTIVES ON CULINARY HISTORY
ARTS AND TRADITIONS OF THE TABLE: PERSPECTIVES ON CULINARY HISTORY
Albert Sonnenfeld, Series Editor
Salt: Grain of Life, Pierre Laszlo, translated by Mary Beth Mader
Culture of the Fork, Giovanni Rebora, translated by Albert Sonnenfeld
French Gastronomy: The History and Geography of a Passion, Jean-Robert Pitte, translated by Jody Gladding
Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food, Silvano Serventi and Franoise Sabban, translated by Antony Shugar
Slow Food: The Case for Taste, Carlo Petrini, translated by William McCuaig
Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari, translated by ine OHealy
British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History, Colin Spencer
A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America, James E. McWilliams
Sacred Cow, Mad Cow: A History of Food Fears, Madeleine Ferrires, translated by Jody Gladding
Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor, Herv This, translated by M. B. DeBevoise
Food Is Culture, Massimo Montanari, translated by Albert Sonnenfeld
Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking, Herv This, translated by Jody Gladding
Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America, Frederick Douglass Opie
Gastropolis: Food and New York City, edited by Annie Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan Deutsch
Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism, Herv This, translated by M. B. DeBevoise
Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, Andrew F. Smith
The Science of the Oven, Herv This, translated by Jody Gladding
Pomodoro! A History of the Tomato in Italy, David Gentilcore
Cheese, Pears, and History in a Proverb, Massimo Montanari, translated by Beth Archer Brombert
Food and Faith in Christian Culture, edited by Ken Albala and Trudy Eden
The Kitchen as Laboratory: Reflections on the Science of Food and Cooking, edited by Csar Vega, Job Ubbink, and Erik van der Linden
Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food, Jon Krampner
Let the Meatballs Rest: And Other Stories About Food and Culture, Massimo Montanari, translated by Beth Archer Brombert
The Secret Financial Life of Food: From Commodities Markets to Supermarkets, Kara Newman
Drinking History: Fifteen Turning Points in the Making of American Beverages, Andrew Smith
Italian Identity in the Kitchen, or Food and the Nation, Massimo Montanari, translated by Beth Archer Brombert
Fashioning Appetite: Restaurants and the Making of Modern Identity, Joanne Finkelstein
The Land of the Five Flavors: A Cultural History of Chinese Cuisine, Thomas O. Hllmann, translated by Karen Margolis
The Insect Cookbook: Food for a Sustainable Planet, Arnold van Huis, Henk van Gurp, and Marcel Dicke, translated by Franoise Takken-Kaminker and Diane Blumenfeld-Schaap
Religion, Food, and Eating in North America, edited by Benjamin E. Zeller, Marie W. Dallam, Reid L. Neilson, and Nora L. Rubel
Ole G. Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbk
Umami
Unlocking the Secrets of the Fifth Taste
Photography, layout, and design
Jonas Drotner Mouritsen
Translation and adaptation to English
Mariela Johansen
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright 2014 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-53758-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mouritsen, Ole G.
Umami: unlocking the secrets of the fifth taste / Ole G. Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbk
p. cm. (Arts and traditions of the table: perspectives on culinary history)
Includes index
ISBN 978-0-231-16890-8 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-53758-2 (e-book)
Library of Congress Holding Information can be found on the Library of Congress Online Catalog.
2013952514
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at .
Cover design by Jonas Drotner Mouritsen.
www.umamibook.net
References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Contents
RECIPES
The undertaking of a joint project that encompasses as many diverse aspects of a topic as this book does is rarely possible without the assistance and support of a wide range of individuals and organizations. In the course of the many months that went into gathering the material, testing recipes in laboratories and kitchens, and exploring new options, we accumulated an enormous debt of gratitude to those who gave so freely of their time and knowledge to assist us along the way. Their scientific curiosity and passionate interest in the culinary arts have inspired and guided us in the process of composing and writing this book.
Of the many individuals who put technical and professional knowledge at our disposal, cheerfully participated in our experiments, and facilitated our expeditions around the world to seek out umami, particular thanks are due to: the fascinating people who gather together as The Funen Society of Serious Fisheaters and The Dozen Society, who helped to shape our sensitivity to umami from the pantry in the sea; our good friend and fish expert Poul Rasmussen, for enjoyable and inspiring conversations and gastronomical experiments with fish, shellfish, ikijime, clambakes, and fish sauce production; and the chefs Torsten Vildgaard, Lars Williams, and Sren Westh from Restaurant noma and Nordic Food Lab, and the chefs Pepijn Schmeik and Remco van Erp from Restaurant Eendracht for providing insight into their playful, yet serious, approach to culinary adventures.
for photography; Sakiko Nishihara, for information about Taste No. 5; Pierre Ibaalade Co., for a guided tour of its facilities for salting and drying hams in Bayonne, France; Dr. Lee Miller, for supplying kusaya; Reidun Red and Martin Bennetzen, for providing Norwegian rakfisk; Dr. Jorge Bernadino de la Serna, for samples of Spanish botargo; brewer Ole Olsen, for information about free amino acids in beer; Henrik Jespersen, for information about rakfisk; Dr. Sren Mrch, for participating in experiments on ikijime and the preparation of a clambake; and Dr. Michael Bom Frst, for valuable background about sensory sciences.
We would also like to thank Dr. Kumiko Ninomiya, for useful information on dashi preparations, Japanese fish sauces, and umami compounds in soup broths, and for making available the original writings of Kikunae Ikeda, as well as unpublished data on glutamate content in ichiban dashi. For their hospitality, we would like to thank the following people: Dr. Koji Kinoshita, for help and guidance during a visit to the Osaka area, for valuable information about Japanese traditions and food culture, and for advice regarding the Japanese version of the quotes by Kikunae Ikeda; Drs. Kumiko Ninomiya, Ana San Gabriel, and Kazuya Onomichi, as well as other members of the Umami Information Center and the Ajinomoto Research Laboratories, for outstanding hospitality when Ole visited Tokyo in 2013 and for arranging a tour to inspect
