So I was reading the latest Food Business News magazine from my monthly reading pile when I saw an article that said “Kokumi Strives To Become New Flavor”.
Apparently I’m a platinum member of the old fart club now, because the only tastes I knew of were sweet, salty, bitter and sour. Somewhere along the way, something called Umami got in the door, and now Kokumi wants to join the party.
According to the article, Kokumi is “the rich, strong taste in food”, while another website defines Umami as the “savouriness” of food.
Here’s the best part. The article says “By human sensory analysis, we found that various extracellular calcium-sensing receptors (CaSR) agonists enhance sweet, salty, and Umami tastes, although they have no taste themselves… these characteristics are known as “kokumi taste” and often appear in traditional Japanese cuisine.”
Soooo it’s a taste that has no taste.
Right.
Here’s the link to iPhone Genius Scan of the article…
Il semble que vous soyez un expert dans ce domaine, vos remarques sont tres interessantes, merci.
– Daniel
As someone from Germany, it’s hard to imagine anyone having difficulty with defining ‘hearty’. Potatoes are hearty, noodles are hearty, milk is hearty…and sweet, most meats are hearty and so are beans. What else would potatoes and noodles be? Sweet? I guess a little. Beans? Beans can only be hearty. To me it’s always been a flavor. So has savory (‘umami’). They just make it sound fancy shmancy because it’s a Japanese word to confuse you.
Why do they not consider hearty and savory a taste?