The taste of amino acids - "umami": Mild and long-lasting effect

The sense of taste is responsible for detecting and distinguishing between sweet, bitter, sour and salty tastes. And we all know that. However, a small percentage of the population, and that refers to scientists and chefs, knows that there is a fifth taste - known in the scientific world as the taste of amino acids, and to a wider population as the umami taste.

Umami is "discovered", ie. first explained back in 1908. It was discovered by the Japanese scientist Kikune Ineda and he called it umami. The word "umami" itself is of Japanese origin and is composed of the word "umai", which means "delicious" in translation, and the word "mi", which means "taste".

Sensory receptors in mammals are small neuroepithelial cells, tightly packed into sensory bodies. These corpuscles are distributed in different areas of the tongue and palate and each of them is able to detect the taste of umami.

Each corpuscle, depending on the species, contains from 50 to 150 cells. Receptor cells in them, which are in charge of detecting atoms and molecules of carriers of certain tastes, are wrapped in nerve endings. It is through this ending that information about taste is sent to the brain. In this way, we become aware of the taste of the food we put in our mouths. Saliva also plays a major role in the transmission of taste carriers (different molecules).

By soaking the food, it is possible to transfer these molecules from the food to the sensory organs and in this way it allows us to recognize tastes.

In other words, without saliva we would not be able to taste any taste.

Umami itself is hard to describe. It causes a mild and long-lasting taste in the mouth ("aftertaste").

On its own, umami has no taste, but it gives a sense of pleasantness to a variety of foods, especially when it is in the presence of the right aromas.

As with other tastes, umami is only pleasant when it is in the right concentration.

In addition to this, the feeling of umami is influenced by other factors, such as, for example, amount of salt in food.

In essence, umami is the taste of pleasantness that most often occurs when you eat fish, meat, certain vegetables (ripe tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, spinach, celery), mushrooms, cheese and green tea, while a much more precise definition is that it is a taste caused by glutamates and 5' nucleotides.

The first contact each of us has with umami is mother's milk. Research has shown that it contains the same amount of umami as broth.

(www.mojstomatolog.net)