What is Umami? What Food Does It Bring to Mind?

Biology, Food
[caption id="attachment_28768" align="alignright" width="480"] Chinese foods are famous for being umami rich.[/caption]During my early years, the tongue was believed to have a variety of taste receptors nicknamed taste buds located or "mapped out" at different parts of the tongue. There were four: sweet and sour, salt and bitter. These basic tastes can be compared to the primary colors, red, yellow and blue. Any color we can come up with can be derived from some combination of red, yellow and blue. But with regard to the basic tastes, could it be there are actually more than four? Enter Umami A new variety of taste bud is postulated. From the Japanese word umami, roughly equivalent to the English savory, this new taste bud has been associated with the flavor of meat and…
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