Bombs Away

jim262 · **Posted:** Fri Nov 01, 2013 12:54 pm

Setting the scene....

Earlier today from an anonymous source.....…..”the seemingly constant weird use of 'umami' producing glutamates (anchovies, mushrooms, burnt tomato sauce) in all recipes lately”

About lunchtime from Serious Eats....

The Food Lab Lite: Vegetarian Escarole and Parmesan Soup...
2 tabelspoons tomato paste
4-inch chunk Parmesan rind
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce (optional)

Are Umami Bombs

A. An unnecessary crutch?
B. A necessary evil?
C. Da bomb?
D. Whenever I see them listed, I just go to the back of the cupboard and Wake Up the Flavor with Accent instead.

JesBelle · **Joined:** Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:50 pm **Posts:** 2062

As someone who has spent the day thus far subsisting on tiny 3 Musketeers bars and pumpkin whoopie pie, all I can say is that I am soooooo happy that I have brisket with mushrooms in the oven, and I plan on having them with Parmesan mashed potatoes.

cmd2012 · **Joined:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:53 pm **Posts:** 946

I'm (obviously) firmly in the A camp....and whenever I see them in a CI or CI alum recipe I pass on the recipe. I really do not need fish sauce, anchovies, soy sauce, burned (I mean browned) tomato sauce, or other MSG substitutes in my recipes unless they make sense to the original dish. I'm even starting to develop an aversion even to the words "umami" and "savouriness." I'm also bothered by the perceived need to use unflavoured gelatin to mimic the mouth-feel of real food. I'd honestly rather just put the effort in to well-browning my meat, using home-made stocks and broths, good quality ingredients, love, and time into my food to get the lovely, rich, intense flavours that all of these things will net you in a beautiful soup or stew. It's not like I'm retired and have all the time in the world either. I'd just rather spend the bit of extra time on weekends big batch cooking real food for those days mid-week where I'm not home until 8.

Given that CI almost always does this in some recipe that they are touting to offer all of the flavour without any of the time, I think they have begun to pander to a non-cooking audience with promises of equal quality of taste with these unnecessary "tricks."

SilverSage · **Posted:** Fri Nov 01, 2013 5:12 pm

cmd2012 wrote:

I'm (obviously) firmly in the A camp....and whenever I see them in a CI or CI alum recipe I pass on the recipe. I really do not need fish sauce, anchovies, soy sauce, burned (I mean browned) tomato sauce, or other MSG substitutes in my recipes unless they make sense to the original dish. I'm even starting to develop an aversion even to the words "umami" and "savouriness." I'm also bothered by the perceived need to use unflavoured gelatin to mimic the mouth-feel of real food. I'd honestly rather just put the effort in to well-browning my meat, using home-made stocks and broths, good quality ingredients, love, and time into my food to get the lovely, rich, intense flavours that all of these things will net you in a beautiful soup or stew. It's not like I'm retired and have all the time in the world either. I'd just rather spend the bit of extra time on weekends big batch cooking real food for those days mid-week where I'm not home until 8.

What she said.

pepperhead212 · **Joined:** Fri Dec 19, 2008 7:58 pm **Posts:** 1206

I NEED fish sauce, but only because I am addicted to SE Asian food, not for adding "umami", which does seem to an overused term these days. And I don't even have those CI books referred to! And I do buy anchovies in LARGE cans, but again, because I like many of the Italian recipes that use them. And tomato paste, mushrooms, and reggiano all have their place, but I don't reach for them with the thought of flavor enhancement.

Many years ago Mom gave me a Gourmet CB written in 1950 (originally belonged to GGM), and I never understood all the recipes calling for small amounts of anchovy paste. I never had any back then (and still don't...just anchovies), but it makes sense now. It's been around a long time, but only recently did they come up with a term for what it does in a dish.

Another ingredient which I never see mentioned by CI, but probably has a lot of glutamates in it, is shrimp paste. Hmmmmmm, I wonder why they haven't tried incorporating that into some non-asian dishes, like they do fish sauce!

Amy · **Posted:** Sat Nov 02, 2013 7:50 am

I can't speak for CI recipes as I don't see them any more, but in defense of chefs who do this (myself included), I do add umami ingredients into recipes (where they are not called for) to heighten the flavor.

I wouldn't poo-poo such additions...they can really elevate a dish.

Amy

cmd2012 · **Joined:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:53 pm **Posts:** 946

I blame Jack Bishop (who probably stole the idea from Kenji). From http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/06/how-to-improve-your-home-cooking-with-the-power-of-science/:

"Keep an “umami bomb” at the ready for emergency savoury injections. I love savoury foods. It’s a bit of a weakness. When both Kenji and Jack both suggested some quick ways to add savoury flavour to virtually any dish, I perked up. Jack recommends the humble anchovy — which may make you turn up your nose — as a pantry staple. He adds them to beef stews, chilli and braises. A little bit will go a long way (even anchovy paste will work) and seriously amp up the meaty flavour of your dish without adding fishiness. Kenji’s three “umami bombs” also feature anchovies, but he also keeps marmite and soy sauce at the ready for everything from marinades, salad dressings, soups, and even meatloaf. All three add incredible savoury flavour to whatever you’re making without imparting their own to the dish"

The problem is that I can taste it. It doesn't "disappear" into the background for me. Maybe I'm weird.

Amy · **Posted:** Sat Nov 02, 2013 10:31 am

Carey,

Or, maybe you're just a "super taster."

The key is keeping it light...it's like salt and pepper...used judiciously they are marvelous. Think of it like MSG (not that I'm advocating the use of MSG)...a little goes a long, long way.

Amy

TheFuzzy · **Posted:** Sat Nov 02, 2013 11:37 pm

I don't know that I buy the idea of "super tasters". Some people are just more sensitive to certain foods, due to a combination of history and/or taste bud genetics. More the former than the latter, I'd think, but I've never seen a good study on the topic. My sweetie is sensitive to both capsicum and citric acid, I tend to react badly to even just a little too much salt, and we all know folks who are sensitive to cilantro.

Regarding the "umami bomb", my first thought is that glutamate is like salt or sugar -- if you become accustomed to having a lot of it, you lose all sensitivity to it and have to keep adding more for "kick". My second thought is this is just another form of culinary indulgence, like super-spicy dishes, putting bacon in everything, cooking with lots of booze, using tons of fancy salt, etc. These things are fun, but really bad if taken beyond the experiment or "theme dinner" stage. And, really, how different is adding 4 forms of glutamate to the same recipe than a cheap Chinese restaurant adding tablespoons of powdered MSG to everything?

However, note something about the specific recipe linked. Consider the recipe which Kenji is recreating in vegetarian form:

Quote:

His version had these terrific little chicken dumplings ... ... Chef Canora uses an incredible broth made at his restaurant with whole turkeys, chickens, and beef bones simmered all day in giant pots.

So Kenji is vegetarianizing a soup which originally had chicken and a heavy stock made from three kinds of meat and bone marrow. No wonder he's using four different sources of glutamate to replace that! While a soup made with just the tomato and parmesan would probably be pretty good, it wouldn't come close to Kenji's memory of the original soup.

wino · **Posted:** Sun Nov 03, 2013 7:31 am

from Wiki:

Quote:

A supertaster is a person who experiences the sense of taste with far greater intensity than average. Some 35% of women and 15% of men are supertasters.[1] Supertasters are more likely to be of Asian, African, and South American descent.[2] The cause of this heightened response is unknown, although it is thought to be related to the presence of the TAS2R38 gene, the ability to taste PROP and PTC, and at least in part, due to an increased number of fungiform papillae.[3] Any evolutionary advantage to supertasting is unclear. In some environments, heightened taste response, particularly to bitterness, would represent an important advantage in avoiding potentially toxic plant alkaloids. In other environments, increased response to bitterness may have limited the range of palatable foods. It may be a cause of picky eating, but picky eaters are not necessarily supertasters, and vice versa.

The term originates with experimental psychologist Linda Bartoshuk who has spent much of her career studying genetic variation in taste perception. In the early 1990s, Bartoshuk and her colleagues noticed some individuals tested in the laboratory seemed to have an elevated taste response and took to calling them supertasters.[4][dubious – discuss] This increased taste response is not the result of response bias or a scaling artifact, but appears to have an anatomical/biological basis.

Contents
[hide] 1 History
2 Identifying a supertaster
3 Specific food sensitivities
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

History[edit]

In 1931, Arthur L. Fox, a DuPont chemist, discovered that some individuals found phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) to be bitter while others found it tasteless.[5][6] At the 1931 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fox collaborated with Albert F. Blakeslee (a geneticist) to have attendees taste PTC: 65% found it bitter, 28% found it tasteless and 6% described other taste qualities. Subsequent work revealed that the ability to taste PTC was genetic in nature. In the 1960s, Roland Fischer was the first to link the ability to taste PTC, and the related compound propylthiouracil (PROP), to food preference and body type. Today, PROP has replaced PTC in taste research due to a faint sulfurous odor and safety concerns with PTC.[citation needed] As described above, Bartoshuk and colleagues discovered that the taster group could be further divided into medium and supertasters. Most estimates suggest 25% of the population are nontasters, 50% are medium tasters, and 25% are supertasters.[7]

The bitter taste receptor gene TAS2R38 has been associated with the ability to taste PROP[8] and PTC;[9] however, it cannot completely explain the supertasting phenomenon.[10] Still, the T2R38 genotype has been linked to a preference for sweetness in children,[11] avoidance of alcohol,[8][12] increased prevalence of colon cancer (via inadequate vegetable consumption)[13] and avoidance of cigarette smoking.[14]

Identifying a supertaster[edit]

Tongue's fungiform papillae revealed with blue food dye.
Supertasters were initially identified on the basis of the perceived intensity of propylthiouracil (PROP) compared to a reference salt solution. However, because supertasters have a larger sense of taste than medium or nontasters, this can cause scaling artifacts.[6] Subsequently, salt has been replaced with a non-oral auditory standard. That is, if two individuals rate the same physical stimulus at a comparable perceptual intensity, but one gives a rating twice as large for the bitterness of a PROP solution, the experimenter can be confident the difference is real and not merely the result of how the person is using the scale.[citation needed]

Many studies do not include a cross-modal reference and simply categorize individuals on the basis of the bitterness of a concentrated PROP solution[15][16] or PROP impregnated paper.[17] It is also possible to make a reasonably accurate self-diagnosis at home by careful examination of the tongue and looking for the number of fungiform papillae[citation needed]. Blue food dye can make this easier. Being a supertaster or nontaster represents normal variation in the human population like eye or hair color, so no treatment is needed.

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