Umami: The 5th Taste, Explained | Food52 + Ajinomoto 

At the end, if you watch this video with the caption on, he says something like, “if you’ve had food that is deeply flavorful, chances are it’s because of your mommy.” True story, bro!

What if “umami” is just the biggest prank ever?

This is like trying to explain how something looks to a blind person This like trying to describe sound to a deaf person.

Watched the whole thing, still have zero clue what he's talking about.

A word people use to describe something that makes them seem like they know what they're talking about

Umami was first on adult swim, and now he's a flavour, wow. what's next he becomes kami?

What is umami flavor? "Oh ya know, it's like cheese, or soy sauce, or ketchup."

maybe umami is the friendships we made along the way...

Umani is just a word for people who want to sound sophisticated when they taste something.

When my food tastes bad I add nutritional yeast, fish sauce and soy sauce. Great umami flavors!

Can we all just appreciate how pumpkin-like those tomatoes are?

The auto-generated subtitles said that: "if you're eating something and it's deeply flavorful delicious, chances are it's because of your mommy". Oh, ok.

Unscientified and simplified version - Umami = Savoury.

When I cook a simple boiled pork soup (just pork ribs, onions, peppercorns, potatoes, and bok choy), I get to taste umami by seasoning my broth to my liking, then add a few shakes of MSG (Ajinomoto is my favourite brand). It's effect on my taste buds was just amazing - like when one comes in through a door to see the most wonderful room ever, that's how it felt like.

It's amazing to me that MSG is still kind of a bad word. I brought up Accent/MSG when I was talking to some people about a recipe and they looked at me very weird...like I was adding something really bad to it when before it sounded good..ya know the look, the kind of disgusted sneer like you tasted or smelled something not super heinous but still unpleasant. See..I like to look things up when I don't know something, especially if I'm putting it in my body so I had done some research on MSG, the effects of it on the body, and the so called "Chinese Food Syndrome" that started the whole slam against MSG, my love of anime helped out too because glutamate shows up a LOT in the Shokugeki no Soma/Food Wars series so it made me want to research it even more. When I told them that it appears naturally in stuff like tomatoes and mushrooms they looked stunned, people have heard MSG is bad for you for so long that when someone comes by with actual facts about it and how it is in fact NOT bad for..most people look like you slapped them with a fish.

This is amazing, a parody of a standard cookie cutter explanation video so subtle that you dont even notice at first, until you realize that it's so bland, and ever slightly quirky that it must be intentional. Thank you again for this eye opening piece, and deeply confrontational masterpiece.

Umami's components are glutamic acid, glutamate and monosodium glutamate. The glutamic acid gives it a sourness, the glutamate is salty and monosodium glutamate is also salty. Sometimes in umami there is also a sweetness a tingling sweetness. CONCLUSION: Umami is salty, sour and sometimes a bit sweet in a good delicious way. :D

Umami is the same as climate change - probably doesn't really exist, but helps people sound intelligent

Anyone come here after watching shokugeki no soma ?

This makes no sense. Basically if it tastes good it’s Umami. Thanks dude that’s a big help

Okay, from this video, I conclude that Umami is just synonymous with savory.

Soooo it's not really a flavor? It's just the feeling of wanting to eat more because its good????

Son I've been a chef for 30yrs I've worked for Barry Hilton many other folks ,there isn't a check know that would use MSG ,I want my clients to eat well and live long so they can keep coming back . I don't want them in dead in 10yrs from cancer MSG causes cancer PERIOD.

I was in class not knowing anything when I was little, I remember I learn about taste buds, spice(???), salty, sour, sweet, bitter, but then I thought of MSG, its not salty, sour, bitter or sweet, but my teacher never even mention UMAMI taste buds. lol.

Thank you for explaining this. I knew of it, but not exactly what it was.

Basically whenever you eat something and you get the feeling you just want to eat more of it, you are eating food with umami.

In fact it does taste nothing but a little whatever sour taste (cannot be described) but when mixed with food it strenghten the taste, my mom said if it overused the food would taste sticky in the throat

When I make the authentic Hungarian dishes I learned from my mother, I experience UMAMI .

I usually associate Unami flavor with well age or fermented foods, which usually gives off that “Unami” flavor, that tanginess 🤔🤷🏻‍♀️

If you're sad in life, use MSG. If you're happy in life, use MSG. -Uncle Roger

I can’t believe people are just discovering the whole umami thing... I think we have way more tastes than 5 too. We’ve definitely at least got salty, sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, umami (what seems to be savory, but people just couldn’t put a word to) and I guarantee there’s more.

I think they’re talking about comfort food.

This whole time every time I heard umami flavour mentioned I thought it was some type of fish or mushroom or fungus lmaooo this whole time it’s one of our senses

Ah yes umami. You can tell it’s umami, cause of how it is

I still have no clue what umami is supposed to taste like and till this day i believe that it's just made up.

Every taste has a clear scale. If you taste two dishes you can immediately say which one is more salty, with actual salt being 100% salty. Same with sweetness, bitters and sourness. I don't get how this can be applied to umami.

Omami is just what chicken soup taste like. So if you cook something in water vs in chicken stock, the difference is the omami taste.

You should revise your closed captioning because you're apparently talking about someone's mommy! Otherwise, super informative video, thanks!

Salty , sweet bitter and sour? what about hot? something can taste hot and spicy

umami = deep delicious background flavor that lingers. I need to try adding mushrooms to my overly sophisticated (non-traditional) Spaghetti Bolognaise sauce to add even more umami to the existing umami ingredients .. the parmesan and cooked tomatoes and beef/pork!

You know that feeling when you're in pain but like it's a deep pain and for a long time I call that "estolande"... so stupid. That's life these days.

We don't have the word savory in my language so i have always been confused while watching cooking videos, but apparently it's basically just umami (which i do know what is since it's the same in my language)

Why is spiciness not a flavor? And why did umami get discovered so late? Literally almost everything we eat is umami - it's the non umami stuff we use in small portions to add flavour - like sugar, salt, bitter stuff (lol) and lemon juice...

In China there are 5 main traditional tastes - Sour, Sweet, Salty, Bitter and Spicy. I can get behind officially recongnising spicy as "the 5th taste" in the west too way more than "umami", as at least that's a tangible taste all of us can recognise, not some mysterious "lingering sensation"... 😂

So... umami is the flavor of wanting to appear elite, educated and superior to those around you while you describe something you yourself really don't even understand in the least - or which might not even actually exist? Okay, now i get it. Thx.

"Tweet tweet tweet... I'm trying to be a bird... Still haven't quite figured it out yet..."

It's called savory. We already have a word for it. Just call it savory

Pop Eye's Fried Chicken must be really rich in umami.

I mix mayonnaise and katchup and it's a taste that hits the taste buds and sensors very nice sweet,savory.So bad but so good.

why no discussion about animal protein? I was under the impression that chicken, pork,, beef,, etc.. also create umami through capturing the pan drippings.

I guess what I'm not understanding is, whats the difference between savory and umami? Like it sounds like he's just describing salty and savory. Or maybe with the tomato paste example and talk chemicals, is it the acidity thats in tomatoes would be umami?

I've made lots of food with umami. Never needed accent to create that. Neither did my mommy, lol.

We usefinely cchopped fermented bamboo shoot, using it for soupy dishes make the food savory and a little combo of tangy and salty NiceThose

Basically: if you’d consider it ‘hearty’, chances are that’s umami.

How is umami different from savory?

He forgot the taste “yucky”…. Lol that’s definitely a taste descriptor.

Umami, better known in the western world as savory.

*Be honest, we all searched what umami is on yt.*

Great video but the way he pronounced the founder's name killed me

i still don't know what it is like when i try tomatoes what flavor from the tomato is Unami

You just described African food, especially Nigerian.

THAT'S BECAUSE OF U MAMI!!!

0:44 I thought for sure he was going to say. His wife’s soup was so good that he loudly exclaimed “ooooh mommy!”

My Korean step mother used to put MSG in everything. Her food was tasty as hell and she said that was the secret ingredient.

Im smiling so hard watching this video.

Soup so good make you say, oooh mami

THANK YOU! Finally I understand what Umami is I’ve heard the term being thrown around since I was like 11 and I’ve never understood but THANK YOU finally I understand

Great so your saying depending on the person anything can be umami I savor sour warheads does that mean I’m tasting bitter or umami or both ??

As an alchemist this video is perfect

Pretty much something that taste satisfying good 😌

Aftertaste shouldn’t count as a taste. You can have a sweet after taste so umami is a watered down saltiness

Nobody: Characters in food wars: UMAMI!!!! (Happy noises)

ajinomoto spread MSG to the world... not sure how bad it is for your body but there are so many healthier alternatives

exactly what I was looking for

Food wars brought me here pwahaha. 🤘🏻

I thought there was already 5 taste: Spicy, sweet, sour, salty and bitter. To me umami is what butter/fat/ghee taste in your mouth...it just raises the taste a notch up of whatever you are eating.

I only came because of the Food Wars anime on Netflix

We need a “was this video helpful” option. The answer is NO! Because he said nothing

What if umami is the friends we made along the way.

1:58 put on subtitles! 😂😂😂

Idk boy, even after all this explanation I still think it’s more what you think. Like we all think spicy is a flavor even though it technically isn’t, but it is still tasty, we use it in kitchen. Umami? Umami means delicious doesn’t it? Then all food is umami because delicious. I understand it’s different but I just think the other five flavors are more of a construct of society. What’s the need of a 5th flavor if we pop. Don’t do cider it as one.

Cool, still don't know how umami taste like

Daaaang *insert person you're flirting with* Are you MSG? Cuz Umami!

Thanks mate!

Umami is a combination only 4 physiological tastes: salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. There is no 5th!

🤔i now have more questions than i do answers

my food very umami ❤❤

Salty, sweet, bitter, sour and savoury. We honestly didn't need a Japanese scientist discovering "savoury" we've always called it savoury in the West. Savoury may have confounded the Japanese for the longest time but not in the West where we already had a name for it centuries earlier. Umami is just a rather pretentious term, it's like calling cheese fromage. Savoury is indeed a lot more complex than just salt be it monsodium glutamate or any other kind of sodium. And yes the salt component is bad for us in high concentrations in our diets.

Thx umami for being delicous

This is a pro-MSG video

I just heard this from adventure time and had no idea that it existed

Msg is the king of flavor

You mean savery?

If you aren't putting this in everything you're missing out!

Same meaning as savory.

Some kewpie mayonnaise made in certain countries add msg.

When the soy hits your tongue, And Japanese research is done, *That's* umami!

THANKS SIR FOR YOUR REVIEW. I really needed it.

Can prawns be considered an example for umami?

Bullshit. It’s FLAVOR. UMAMI IS FLAVOR GUYS.