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How Umami Works! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark, Charles W Chuck Bryant and Jerry and so
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know. I tell you about
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to change the name of the show right there on
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a whim. No, no, no, all right, that's very meaty
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and savory of you. M Can you smell my juices
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I'm cooking in them. You smell like a fish stock.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you know I did it. Don't be
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: dumb on ketch Up. The origin of ketch Up, the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: good one and it actually oh you saw that? You
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: watched this? Of course I do. I had no idea.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I'm your biggest fan. You're one of the well no,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I'm one of those people. It's like this, guys so dumb,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: what kind of it? I don't get it. Get through
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the boy? Is he acting like that? But I just
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: keep watching them. I can't help it. So you saw
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the one about Ketchup, and you know about catchy Up,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the Vietnamese fish sauce that actually serves as the basis
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: for Ketchup. Yes, the American condiment which is not the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: number one selling condiment. In America. No, what is it mayonnaise? Oh? Yes,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: did you know that? Manaise clearly didn't. What kind dukes
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: is your brain? Right? Well, I'm dukes, But I'm just
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I find myself a defender of mayonnaise because
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: my whole life people have just thought it was gross.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Not everyone you would do well in like France or Belgium. Buddy, Yeah,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: like on a hamburger and hot dog people like, because
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I don't like ketchup and people think I'm weird. Oh no,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: you need some ketchup too, Not that much. I've also
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: found recently, as a grown up adult, a real live
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: one that like, you can replace ketchup with tomatoes and
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: it tastes maybe even better, depending on the ketchup you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: mean on a burger, Yes, instead of both, you just
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: mean no ketchup. Yeah, you could put in both. I'm
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: not I'm not opposed to it. No, it's just it
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I've found and it was a big surprise to me,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a really big surprise that if you just put tomatoes,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a good tomato on and no ketchup, you're actually creating
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the taste that you're looking for with ketchup. That just
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: misses it slightly because it's gotten more than tomatoes in it. Right.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: It's really, again, very surprising to me, even though I realized,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of course that tomato is made from ketchup is made
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: from tomatoes, Like, I haven't made that connection. I just
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: didn't realize how good just tomatoes were on a burger
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: without ketchup. I don't like raw a tomatoes either, so
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that. And you can't dip our French
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: right in a tomato. Well, no, I'm not opposed to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: catch up. I'll still use ketchup not here, especially for
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: dipping fries. I'm cool with that. I'm not down and
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: ketch up here is what I'm trying to say. I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: just think that tomatoes are great on a burger. But
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I also like mayo too, I think is ultimately the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: point that started me off on this. Yeah, I like
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: tomato sauce, like red sauce, but I don't like raw
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: tomatoes or just whole tomatoes. They're slimmy, and I'm not
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: supposed to eat them like an apple or anything. If
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you've been doing that, I can understand why you don't
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: like raw tomatoes. Some people do. Some people to slice
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: them in the amount plate. They're not just holding it
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in your hand eating it like an asshole. Look at
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: a monster does that? That's what I'm saying, a monster
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: becaus are well Helm the second Yeah, he was, he
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: was known, all right. So all of that to say, mommy,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: oh mommy, Oh mama, this one's about o mommy. The
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: fifth flavor, the fifth beetle, out of what they now
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: say is six fat fat carbon dioxide is also one too.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: We supposedly they've found receptors that are tailored specifically to
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: sensing carbon dioxide on the tongue, and that ultimately that
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: makes it qualify as so they're gonna be seven now,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I think way more. I don't know why science has
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: been so stingy 're so reluctant to accept the idea
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: that we have more than four flavor receptors, or more
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: four taste receptors. But oh mommy, was isolated in the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in the beginning of the twentieth century, and it wasn't
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: for almost eighty years before the West finally accepted it. Yeah.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Part of the reasons because it was the research was
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: written in Japanese. Well it's okay, that's maybe had something
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to do with it uh. And part of the issue
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: was that um, it's you Mommy is very mild and taste,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: and when you have um high concentrations of it to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: increase set flavor, you've got salty and sour mixed in.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: So I think it just confounded the West. They're like,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: what we get sour, we get salty, we get sweet,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: for sure, why we even get bitter, but we don't
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: get this other thing. Nope, and we're not going over five.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: So you better make the summi stuff good. That's what
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the West said, dumb Western scientists and food scientists. So chuck,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I think we let the cat out of the bag
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Um. The Japanese are the ones who
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: first discovered ummi's right comes from the word um i uh,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: roughly translated as delicious. Uh. Chefs, if you talk to
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a chef and mommy's a big hot thing right now,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: they'll say, maybe it's like a mushroomy thing, it's like
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: an earthy it's it's it is very subtle. Like I said,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: it's musty. Yeah, musty, which doesn't sound appealing, No, but
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: it also makes sweet different. That's ou Mommy's big, great quality,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: And I think that's probably one of the reasons why
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: it was hard for the West to accept it is
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: ou Mommy's big thing is synergizing. It's a supporting cast
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: member almost. Yeah, it takes, Yes, it is. It's like,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: um Bud Bundy not a leading guy, but you put
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: him in an ensemble, He's gonna bring everybody else up.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: It's what he's known for. I would give a million
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: American dollars to be inside your brain during that five
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: ish seconds of your spinning around searching for supporting cast
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: member and ending up at Bud Bundy. Will you come
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: back in twenty years and give me a million dollars
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and I will let you man. That would be amazing.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So um with like salty sour, we get again, we
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: get those things. They stand on their own. Umami actually
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: has a very mild and not necessarily like pleasurable flavor
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: on its own. Yeah, you don't want something that's like, oh,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: this is just umami flavored, right, but it is almost
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: like it's designed to interact with other flavors, especially salty
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and especially sweet. Agreed, and ummmy can even interact with itself.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, it takes what was just
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: like home day and turns it into the greatest day
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: of your life with one bite of cham with some
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: hot umami on umami action. Uh. So it is nothing new, obviously,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: It's not like you can just identify new taste. Um.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: It's been around. Um. The Romans and the Greeks before
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: them enjoyed something called garum and that is a sauce that. Boy,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about how you find something weird
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: food wise? They were gutting fish and they said, let's
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: take this fish cuts and blood and let's salt it
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and leave it out in the sun for three months
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and see what happens. See what happened, and you have
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: to eat it, eat it you uh, and someone eventually
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: ate it. They strained the liquid from the top of
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: it and they said, boy, this sauce is this is
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: garam sauce. This good stuff is delicious. Garam means delicious
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: in ancient Romans. I think so. And it is uh
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: that was mommy personified um. Because how umami was discovered. Uh.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: In nine seven there was a brilliant chemist name uh
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Kikunai Aikita sor right that a e. It's got to
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: make you a little pop to it got you. But yeah,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you did it, thank you. So he was a chemist,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and uh, he worked at the Imperial University. I'm sorry
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: he was. Yeah, he was a professor at the Imperial
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: University of Tokyo. And he was perplexed that he tasted
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: something one day and said, this is not any of
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: those four flavors. No, no, no, I know this is different.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: He was all about the dashi. And dashi is the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: basis of miso soups, lots of other stuff, but basically
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: it's a fish stock made from I think tuna flakes
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: and um coombu which is dried kelp yes, and the're
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: all kinds of recipes for a daschi base. And it's
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in a lot of things from sauces and like sober
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: noodle sauces to like you said me, so um really
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: really big ingredient in Japanese cuisine, right, And this guy
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: was like, this little boy loves this dashi and I
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: want to know exactly what is making it so wonderful. So,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: since he was a chemist, he took I think something
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: like twelve ms of dashi and boiled it down ten
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of them, isolated some stuff. The first thing that came
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  Speaker 1: out were some obvious ones that he clearly discarded is
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: not responsible for your mommy, because there were salts. He's like, no,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: it's not that. It's not salt. We understand salt. It's
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: not salt. I know for effact it's not salt. What
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: else is in here? He starts sorting through it. Right, Well,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: didn't he separate the dashi into its parts and then
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: break those down? Yeah? Okay, I just I jumped ahead
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of step to make a terrible chemist. He's on he's
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: on kelp at this point, one of the ingredients. Okay.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And so with the kelp is where he found the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: two salts and your right. He was like, well, I
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: know these flavors and they're not what I've been experiencing
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: on my tongue now. They're old news. So he looked
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: a little further and he found well, wait a minute,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: what is this. It's glutamic acid. And he's like, maybe,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: but glutamic acid has a sour taste, and that's weird, Like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: it can't be glutamic acid. It doesn't quite make sense.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: So he added some more stuff, came up with a
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: chemical reaction, and what popped out on the other end
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: is what you and I call monosodium glutamate m s G.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And he figured out that it's not glutamic acid. It's
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: not the salt, but it's actually glutamate. But then he
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: figured out even further, it's like glutamate that doesn't make
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: any sense, like glutamate. Glutamate doesn't work. Then he realized
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: it's not the protein that's giving it the taste. It's
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: the amino acids that actually make up proteins that give
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: ou mommy its taste. Boom, So glutamate, I'm sorry, isn't
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: amino acid right? Right? Right? And that's one of the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: things that gives you mommy's tastes. This is the first
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: thing that was discovered, um, to give you mommy it's taste. Yeah,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: And that was the kelp. So you know, Dashi has
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: a different components. So he had a student. He said,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: you know what, let me get that the dried tuna flakes. Um, yeah,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: bonito delicious. There's different kinds, but bonita is definitely one
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: of them. Um. And he says, let me identify these components.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And what he found was something called uh, you want
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to try that one and the sianate is that right? Yeah?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I think that is right? Man, it's a nucleic acid.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Like you say, yes, So he's like, boom, I've got
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: number two. And then in nineteen sixty another scientist named
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Akira uh Kuni Knaka. He worked for Yamasa, the famous
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: soy saucier And now you're just showing off. He was,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: um and he went on to work in pharmaceuticals. It
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: was interesting, oh the chemist. Yeah, but it's like you
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: work for soy sauce and then you go to work
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: for a pharmaceutical company. Right, I'm good at both things.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: But you're right, it's all this chemistry. Um. So he said,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: you know what, I can identify a third thing called guanilate.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: It's another nucleotide in those shataki mushrooms you were talking about. Yeah,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: and it's not like just bonito flakes, combo and saki
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: mushrooms are the only things that produce a mommy taste.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: These are just the three things that those guys went
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to town and isolated different stuff out of right. Yeah,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I always want to see Bonita apple bum when you
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: say Bonita tribe called quest After all these years, they
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: keep making reference, they keep making appearances in episodes lately.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they have been. Huh you mentioned him in
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Hula Hoops. Yeah, this one, you can't remember which one.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: We talked about the scenario, what's the what's the what's
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the scenario? You know what? My friend Justin whom you
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: also know, his mother actually left her wallet and els
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: a gun no way, And he even called me. He
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: was like, dude, guess what happened? My mother left a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: wallet and elsa gundo. That's crazy. Yeah, it was pretty remarkable.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: We should probably take a break, Yeah, and then we'll
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about the science of taste
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: right after this. So we have done an episode on
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: taste that was great. It was great called Taste and
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: How it Works from July right, highly recommended. Yeah, but
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go over a little bit more here. Well, yeah,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I think if we're gonna talk about mommy, we'd be
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: big jerks if we just assumed, you know everything there
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: is to know about. Yeah, we got to talk about
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: what's called the gustatory system. Okay, So, um, when we're
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: talking about taste specifically, that's separate it from flavor, which
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: we'll get to. But taste begins on the tongue, right,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and on the tongue you're gonna find what we like
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to call taste buds or pepilla. The pa have taste
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: buds on them, right, Yes, there are three main types
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: of papia. You have the fun fungy form, mushroom shaped,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the foli eight. Those are the ridges and grooves at
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the back of the tongue, and the circumvallate and those
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: are circular at the front front end of the tongue, right.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And then some papi a have a couple of taste buds.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Some have hundreds of taste buds. And then when you
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: look into the taste buds themselves, um, they have receptor cells.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting is when you think about a taste buds,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh, well, there's a salty taste bud,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: sweet taste bud, ou mommy ou mommy, sweet, sour, bitter, right,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: carbon dioxide. So that's not the case. As a matter
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of fact, taste bud has different recept our selves, and
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: these different recept our selves can be tuned to accept
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: or sense different types of taste. Wasn't it the shape
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: if I remember correctly that, well, that was with the smell.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Smell and tasted closely related, and we should say that
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the spoiler alert for the taste episode. We're not a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: harm percent sure how we sense taste or smell um,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: but yes, the the predominant theory is that the a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: specific type of odorant or taste molecule will interact with
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a specific type of receptor and when it does, the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: chemical in that molecule, that food molecule um unlocks that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: receptor and by doing that, it's translated into an electrical impulse. Boom.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: So you chew your food up, gets spitty and saliva covered,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and it breaks it down, cut your tongue and that's
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: when that transduction. Uh, those electrical impulses are sent to
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the n st the solitary tract of the brain, sorry,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the nucleus of the soliditary tract of the brain. Yeah,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that's where it all happens. That's when it puts all
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: these different tastes together and says delicious, I like this
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: or more to the point, and that's probably going to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: kill you, so stop eating that. And like we said,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: taste is different than flavor. Taste is just one aspect
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of flavor for a food item or really anything to
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: have a flavor, It includes not just the taste but
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: also the smell, the side of it, the temperature of it,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: how it feels, the firm is it a little too gelatinous? Um.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: These are all things that your brain takes into account, um,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: including things like memories that you form from having it before.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Cotton candy when I was a kid gives me great memories. Yeah,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: So that plays a part in flavor exactly, like you
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: can like it releases some different aspect of it that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: only you can experience that flavor. Yeah, Like if you
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: had a cotton candy jelly bean, it would conjure up
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: that memory and that would be part of the flavor
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: r experience yea, or if it's one of your past lives.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of the science of taste and with
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: your mommy specifically. Um. Again, one of the things that
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the West was having trouble with this accepting that ou
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: momi was a real thing was that there wasn't any
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: um what's called psychophysical evidence that oummi was its own taste. Right.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: For a long time, they thought it was just a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: component of salty taste because monosodium glutamate is a type
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: of salt, Right, It's a salt protein combination that makes
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: MSG and for many many years this was the only
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: um this is the only source of oummy taste. But
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: finally in the eighties, once they had the first international
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: symposium on New Mommy, it was a real thing. Um
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the I'll bet it was too because it was in Hawaii,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and the Japanese and Americans love Hawaii, so I bet
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: everybody was partying down there. They started to do studies
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: in the early eighties and they found oh, actually no,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: there are specific receptor cells on the human tongue. And
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: it turns out not just in human tongues, but mostly
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: human tongues that are designed or geared towards accepting we're
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: sensing umami tastes. That's right. Those are the g protein
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: coupled receptors g pc rs, and that is for sweet, bitter,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and umami and uh, sour and salty those a little different.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Those sort of flow through ion channels, which is way
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: over my head, to be honest. Well, it's just like
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: if a molecule is a positive charge of a negative charge.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: If it's if it's a positive ion it has positive charge,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: it's not gonna make it through all sorts of the channels.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It's only gonna make it through positive channels. It's not
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: it's simple, I know, but as far as relating that
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: to a taste, it's just sort of I can think
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of his manage. Well that's the whole thing. It's like
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you said, it's like it's like your brain just turns advantage.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: It's transduction is taking in a chemical and turning it
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: into an electrical charge. I just think that's endlessly fascinating.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Oh sure, the senses and how they work, it's like
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: it's amazing, But not just that electricity an electric electrical generation,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: like you remember that episode Electricity maybe one of our
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: best if you ask me. Agreed, alright, So what way,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: what we have here are three kinds of receptor cells
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that they know are h that that respond to this
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: combination that makes up what MSG is. I'm sorry, what
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: UMMI is. It's that the gwenny late and the MSG.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And what they think is that they actually hold on
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to these these compounds hold on longer, which is why
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: you get these interesting combinations. When you have like, uh,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: cheese with an apple or cheese on an apple pie.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: It takes sweet and like doesn't just make it sweeter,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: it makes it like sweet in a different way right exactly. Um.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: And the same thing again when when you mixed together
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: different types of either amino acids or nucleic acids that
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: create a new mommy taste, they magnify this ummmy nous
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of this is meatiness of the whole thing. And um
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: also with I believe salty too, Oh mommy and salty
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: mixed together. Um. The fact that it it hangs onto
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: that that molecule longer and it just leaves that charge going.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Then that sweet can come and go, but it's it's
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: affected by it. Food science is so interesting, it is.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: And we're gonna talk a little more about food science
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and evolution right after this. All right, So here's one
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: thing I didn't get, and I reread this a few times.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I get the first part of this, which is as follows,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: is that people have long thought that tastes had a
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: part in evolution and that we were just wired to
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: know that if something sweet is probably okay to eat
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and that will give us nutrition, something really bitter may
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: be dangerous to eat, that might be poisonous. And of
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: course there's exceptions to all of this. Those are pretty
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: good general rules when it comes to uh evolution. Right,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: that that was the evolution explanation for the sense of taste, right, yeah,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: But what I don't get and is where in here
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: does it explain the evolutionary uh method of umami? Like
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: what role it played? I got this, you're ready? Well,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: is it this part about cooking? Yes? Oh it was
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: very poorly stated, it really was. But it's really interesting
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: that what you realize this that so you said that
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: ou momi is is like one of the newer tastes
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: or something like that, it actually is. Yeah, they couldn't
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: figure out like what part did this have an evolution? No,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: but even before that, like if you look at it
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: evolutionarily speaking, it's it's actually very old. Supposedly the receptors
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: are very old, like four million years old or something
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: like that. But the idea that we can taste you mommy,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: or us tasting you mommy is very actually fairly recent,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: because ou mommy is released by cooking food. Like if
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you eat a bunch of raw hamburger, that's that's not
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: gonna be umami tasting. It's not gonna taste very good.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But you cook that hamburger and you have molecularly changed
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: its composition. You've unlocked some of the proteins into its
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: constituent amino acids, and all of a sudden, you've got
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: umami taste. It's like a caramelizing an onion is completely
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: different than the taste of a raw onion or even
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a just regular grilled onion. Yeah, and the big mystery
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: of all this, evolutionarily speaking, is that what you're gaining
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: or one of the biggest sources of umami taste is glutamate.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Well that's great, but the human body produces tons of glutamate,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: so it wouldn't make sense that we would have a
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: taste receptor to find it in nature because we got
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: enough in our body. Well, you need other essential amino acids.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And if it figures that the best way to get
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: amino acids is to cook or ferment food, you want,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: you need you need fire because amino acids can be
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: bound to proteins and we don't absorb them as well,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: or our body spends a lot more energy of breaking
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: them down and digesting them than if we cook them
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: or if we ferment them. So man invent fire, man
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: starts to cook food, man advances more rapidly. Yes, that's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: one of the ideas that um why our brain developed
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: as well as it did, or we'd be came as
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: intelligent as we did was from cooking food. So we
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: were able to um break down our food a lot
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: more easily and gain from it, absorb it, and um
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: basically grow huge brains that it came from cooking. And
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: where where do we get O mommy taste from cooked
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: or fermented food where these proteins have been broken down
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: into much more easily absorbed amino acid constituents. Man, I
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: like that. I agree. I feel like I just made
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: it confusing, though, did it come across No, it's it's
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: totally makes sense. We learned how to cook food and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: that put us at the head of the evolutionary ladder.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Right and OUMMI tastes comes from cooked or for many food? Yeah,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: very clear? Uh? What is not clear or maybe it
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: is clear? Is MSG bad for you? A lot of
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: people say it makes me dizzy, or it makes my
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: heart flutter or or you know the MSG crash after
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you go the Chinese food buffet. Well, there's actually something
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: called Chinese food syndrome. Not not true. Apparently it's a myth,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: supposedly culturally bound syndrome where like very few other cultures
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: outside of the United States or the West even think
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: of the idea that MSG can make you sick, and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: that it's apparently a psycho somatic reaction where you expect
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: MSG is going to make you sick, so you get sick. Yep,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: that's one explanation. Maybe your body or our bodies are
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: just different in how we process and metabolize MSG, or
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: maybe you have oded a little bit too much of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: anything could be a bad thing, right, Uh, it could
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: be all these things. But what science is saying is
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: there's no evidence that MSG is bad for you quote
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: unquote right, And apparently study after study found that people
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: that that MSG doesn't cause these things. Yeah, it's it's weird,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: So get off the couch, lazy, you're just looking for
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: excuse to not cut the grass. And so MSG again,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: it has kind of a bad has kind of a
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: bad rap here in the US, but it's everywhere. And
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: it was actually one of the first things that Um, yeah,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: professor Akita Um did was he figured out a way
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to patent extra thing monosoda imglutamate from wheat, which is
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: where it sound much more abundantly than in like kelp,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and package it into a seasoning, and he he had
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: no ill will. He's like, this is great. This can
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: make that boring dish like taste better that healthy boring
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: dish tastes better. So it's not it's ironic then that
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: people think it's bad for you, when in fact, when
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: he packaged it, he was like, this is gonna be
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: good for you. It's gonna make this thing that's good
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: for you taste even better and our country is going
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: to be very healthy. Right. Yeah, but it's hard to find,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: he said. It wasn't everything, but it's disguised and ingredients. Yeah,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: against stealthily because MSG has a bad rap here in
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the West. Yeah, they should just put MSG right. They do.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Sometimes for the most part, though, they will call it
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: something like hydrolyzed wheat protein because remember it can be
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: extracted from wheat um. Sometimes they'll call it just natural flavors, yeah,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: because all these things are natural. What else texturized vegetable protein,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: autolized yeast extract right, uh yeah, or just natural flavors.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: So if you see that, that can be a lot
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: of things though, but just natural flavors, you don't know
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: what you're eating. But there are some upsides to using
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: this MSG. It's actually it actually can be used in
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the way that Professor A. Keda envisioned it, which is
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: taking stuff and making it slightly healthier. Actually, when you
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: have UM, when you use certain like a potassium chloride
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: rather than sodium chloride to make MSG, you can actually
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: replace the sodium in UM a dish. So if you
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: have a sodium problem, you can use some of this stuff. Hey,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: how about that, Uh, low fat food that didn't taste
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: so good? A little MSG it tastes better, right, Although
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: recent medical research suggests that you should be not eating
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: low fat food, that regular fat food is not bad
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: for you. Or hey, old person, you don't taste so
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: good anymore and need medication that even dampens that. Right,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Why don't you throw some MSG on there? Why why
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: don't you back to life? You know? Yes, so chuck um.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Whether MSG is a bad rap or not, it's definitely
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: all over the place. Uh, and it is making things
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: taste good in my opinion, Moms here to stay it is.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: But there's other ways to to get an umami flavor
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: out of food. And this this article actually has some
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: helpful tips for your cooking. If you want to go
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: and cook and get a umami taste. Have you ever
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: been to umami Burger? No? I haven't. It sounds awesome,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: it's good. I like it. It sounds like you can
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: make one at home with some mushrooms. Yeah. Umami Burger
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: is a chain. Uh. I don't know where they have them,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: but I had in Los Angeles and they add a
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: powdered mushroom and seaweed to the beef with little soy sauce.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: You don't even know what you're eating except that it
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: tastes good. You know, you're like, hmm, detect the mushroom
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and seaweed in this burger, all right, it's just umami
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: flavored um And you know it's interesting. There's this uh
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's called like Umami Information dot Com or
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: something like that, really interesting site. But they point out
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: that um while you associate umami with Asian cooking, it's
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: actually found all over the world, like in Italy with
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: tomato sauces and catch up in the United States. Uh,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: in cheeses in Europe. Um. In West Africa they have
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: something called um oh what is it called sambara. I
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: think it's kind of like a miso in West Africa
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that sounds kind of delicious. Sombala that sounds good, just
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: like the sounds of it exactly. So it's it's interesting
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: that like people have been cooking with ou mommy stuff
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: long before we ever knew the word U mommy um.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And it's been around the world too. Uh, carmelzing onions
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: we mentioned in like butter nothing better? Um what else? Um?
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: You can put parmesan cheese rinds into a super stew
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: and it'll o mommy. That thing up. That's a good one.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: If you're making a stock, use bones of an animal
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and suppose against that kind of thing. The guy who
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: invented veal stock is reputed to have believed that there
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: was a fifth taste that had yet been unidentified back
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century. He's like, I just boiled this calf.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: He's like that there's something going on here besides the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Big four. Wow, nobody believed. Uh. If you're cooking with mushrooms,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and I recommend this with all vegetables, roast those things
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: a little bit first. It brings out all kinds of
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: flavors and it makes your brain bigger. Like if you
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: if you got to make an omelet, don't just throw
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: raw peppers and stuff in there, cook that stuff up
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: a little bit on the side, then add that to
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: the egg mixture. It makes the world of difference. You know,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: everybody should watch Internet Roundup just just to get an
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: idea of what like our little gesticulations are. Like when
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: you're talking about like cooking peppers on the side and
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: throw them in there, like just the you're making very
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: cute little hand gestures over there. We'll always joke with
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Emily that I'm gonna open an omelet stand on the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: beach one day. It's my retirement job. She's like, why
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: an omelets stand on the beach. I was like, because
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: no one's ever done it. No, they really haven't you
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: ever go to the beach. You're laying there in the
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: hot sun. Like I could use an omelet every time.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I think. I just want my retirement job to be
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: very slow paced and not busy, and you'll get to
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: eat omelets. You got anything else? Um, cooking with wine
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: is a good one too, Yeah, that's o Momi City.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Um No, just go forth and try O mommy ng
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: up your dishes and you will be happy. You will
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: be happy. It's it'll be an indefinable quality, but you'll
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: know it's you, mommy. Yes, should be something about it.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I can't put my finger on it. You'll say this
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: stuff is ouh my, which again means delicious roughly in Japanese.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about ouh mommy, you
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: can type that word in the search bart how stuff
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: works dot com. Uh. And since I said, oh mommy,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: it's time again for a listener mail, I'm just gonna
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: call this a nice, simple thank you from a listener.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Those are nice. Uh, sometimes it is nice. You know.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: It's for Meredith from Granite Falls, Minnesota, and she's just
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: thanking us because she has a boring summer job. She said,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I work at a hospital and I scan a bunch
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: of old files into an external hard drive. That's what
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I do is I remove a lot of staples, stare
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: at the scanner, and a wait works to be done.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: I'll or and over. Yeah. Can you imagine there? It's like, oh,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: we need to ditchitize all these records. Let's hire someone
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah. So God bless you Meredith for
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: doing that. I found listening to eight hours of music
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: just wasn't doing the trick anymore. Then I discovered the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: wonderful world of podcasts, and you guys are my all
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: time Thames. You guys are so funny and I love
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: all the dumb jokes you make. I don't know if
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: they're dumb. I think like groundbreaking is a dog way. Yeah. Uh.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: They really make my day, guys. And even if I
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: don't understand all the tangents you go off on because
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I'm only twenty one and don't understand most of these
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: references you make the movies or pop culture things from
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: decades gone by, I still enjoyed that the podcast is
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: more of a conversation between you guys than just strictly
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: reading from a script. Oh yeah, we don't even have
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a script. Clearly, that would be the worst script ever.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: M One of these days I'll have a real story
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to share directly related to a recent show. But for now,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you so much and
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: keep up the amazing work that is best wishes from Meredith. Meredith,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: thank you. And she's a PostScript that says, I absolutely
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: love it when Josh Josh calls Chuckers. Don't even know why.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I just mad, some smile, we nice and it just
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: has a ring. Suckers it's a fun word. It is.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: It's like ou mommy said, mommy a watch. I wonder
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: how many times I don't know if we should have
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: an umami counter on the website. You know, yeah, it
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: would be cool. I don't know if we are familiar
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: with the technology that could do that, though, And at
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the end it just turns into a big pile of
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: salty dried fish cuts. I seriously am making some top
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: notch me so soup. I've been inspired too. You've gotten
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: pretty good everything. Yeah, yeah, I've gotten pretty good at
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: um hot and sour soup. But I make it from
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: a mix and just add some stuff to it. This
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make from like dashi and miso from scratch. Well,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna like ferment the soybeans or anything like that.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: But you're gonna make your own dashi. No, I'm gonna
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: buy dashi. You should make your own dashi. I'm not
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: gonna make my own doshi. You know how bad my
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: apartment would smell if I like fermented and then boiled
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: down fish just to make the stock. Need it crazy?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: You need a spice kitchen. I do need a spice kitchen,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: now that you mentioned it, um No, but I will
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: let you know how the miso soup turns out. Okay.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook, dot com, slash stuff
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email, the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast, the house, Stuff Works dot com, and as always,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: join us at our home on the web, Stuff you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands
• 35:32
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