On Friday, August 7, 2015 at 3:27:21 PM UTC-4, dsi1 wrote:
> On 8/7/2015 12:40 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
> > On Friday, August 7, 2015 at 4:22:33 AM UTC-4, dsi1 wrote:
> >
> >> I don't think the West has much of a history with the taste. The
> >> Japanese do because they have been fermenting rice and soybeans
> >> utilizing Aspergillus oryzae for a couple of thousand years. At it's
> >> heart, the umami taste is the end result of fermentation with this
> >> fungus. They use it to produce shoyu, miso, sake, shio koji, fermented
> >> tofu, and other products. This makes A. oryzae the most important fungus
> >> to the Japanese and is responsible for much of the flavor of Japanese
> >> cuisine. Only a Japanese could have discovered "umami."
> >
> > You get a lot of umami with nicely browned meat. We have a lot of
> > experience with that, and with a host of other foods that provide
> > umami: tomatoes, anchovies, hard cheeses, mushrooms, etc.
> >
> > Umami is not exclusively a Japanese thing, although they monetized it
> > when they invented MSG, and they provided us with a name for it.
> >
> > Cindy Hamilton
> >
>
> I understand that the West has foods with umami flavors but to the
> average Westerner, umami is a mysterious thing. The reason is because
> most of them were not raised with shoyu or fish sauce as their national
> condiment. Hawaiians understand it because they put shoyu on everything
> - from fish to stews, heck we put shoyu on rice. We totally get the
> concept.

We get the concept, but we don't talk about it. We just eat
umami-rich foods and say "Yum".

There's a lot more to umami than shoyu or fish sauce.

Cindy Hamilton