june-2010

58
JUNE 2010 | UNITED.COM
food&drink
shiitake, parmesan, tomato and fancy ketchup.
Umami, which has arguably existed as long as humans
and food, is having its media moment. Last year, food
scientists at Philadelphia’s Monell Chemical Senses
Center announced new research showing that humans are
hardwired to detect this fi fth taste and probably to crave it.
Indeed, many of the world’s cuisines highlight foods rich in
umami—truffl es, soy sauce, tomatoes and aged cheese, for
example—all of which just happen to show high levels of a
naturally occurring chemical, glutamic acid.
It turns out most everyone has functional receptors that
recognize glutamate. What’s more, when combined with
the acids (or, more specifi cally, ribonucleotides) isonine and
guanosine—found in fermented foods, from yeast-based
bread to wine—“umami synergism” occurs, fl ooding the
mouth with an amped-up savoriness. “If I put free glutamate
in water, you would taste it, and you wouldn’t say it’s salty,
sweet, sour or bitter,” Monell researcher Paul Breslin explains.
“What makes it subtle, however, is that it’s not particularly
appealing alone, like sweetness in candy. People usually want
umami in the context of foods that contain other qualities.”
None of which would be news to the late Kikunae Ikeda,
who invented the term umami a century ago and gave the
world its chemical clone, monosodium glutamate (MSG),
which in the days before “wholesome” and “organic” were
culinary watchwords was a common ingredient in many
takeout items, canned soups and other packaged foods.
“China’s best chefs still swear by MSG,” says Ming Tsai,
LEMON BROCCOLINI-SHIITAKE SAUTÉ
WITH GARLIC CHIPS
Makes four servings
• 1 /4 cup plus 1 tbsp. Wanjashan
organic soy sauce
• 2 bunches broccolini, broken
into 2-inch pieces
• 1 /3 cup thinly sliced garlic
• 1 /2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups sliced shiitake
• 1 /2 teaspoon Korean chili fl ake
(or red chili)
• 1 /3 cup chopped
preserved lemon
In a stock pot, add the soy sauce to a quart of water and bring
to a boil. Parboil the broccolini until tender-crisp, about three
minutes, and shock in ice bath. Dry pot. Add extra virgin olive oil on
medium-high heat. Add garlic and stir until golden brown. Remove
garlic and drain, leaving a
little oil in pot. Sauté the
shiitake. Add back garlic with
chili fl ake, preserved lemon
and blanched broccolini.
Heat through. Check
seasoning and serve. For
added umami, sprinkle with
Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Copyright 2009 Ming Tsai
host of PBS’s Simply Ming, who prefers to create his deeply
savory dishes naturally, with wheat-free soy sauce and sake
lees, for example. “There are still three white powders in the
Chinese kitchen: salt, sugar and MSG.”
Though the additive has long been associated with
adverse aff ects, including headaches, researchers have
yet to prove a defi nitive link. “Most likely the majority of
people who claim they have ‘Chinese food syndrome’ just
ate a lot of heavy food high in sodium,” says Tsai,
who nonetheless avoids the chemical. “That would give
anyone a headache.”
Eager to learn—and, well, taste—more, one Sunday
morning I show up at Providence, a restaurant on Melrose
Avenue in Los Angeles, along with 30 other enthusiastic
foodies here for a 90-minute demonstration and tasting
of umami-rich dishes conducted by chef-owner Michael
Cimarusti. Walking into the contemporary space, we’re
presented with our own red Providence notebooks,
Providence recipes and umami research printouts from
something called the Umami Information Center.
Cimarusti, a bearded, easygoing New Jersey native with
long curly hair, soon appears in a chef’s coat and black
Japanese cook’s cap. He greets a number of the students,
some of Providence’s most devoted regulars—including a
well-to-do married couple in their forties, a conservatively
dressed older couple and a hip thirtysomething winery
owner who pulled up in a late-model Porsche—and explains
that we’ll be focusing on dashi, a master broth made from
kombu (edible kelp high in free glutamic acid) and dried,
fermented bonito fl akes (high in ribonucleotides). Dashi, he
explains, cooking on a high table with a mirror above the
back of his head, is the basis of Japanese cuisine, the potion
that prompted Ikeda to create the word “umami.”
We’re ready to taste.
“It’s really important to get the highest-quality soy sauce
you can fi nd,” Cimarusti says, as we each pick up small
plastic cups fi lled with light and dark soy and toss them
back, sampling the compounds like wine. Cimarusti holds
up a real piece of high-end petrifi ed bonito (or katsuobushi)