Make Shit Good
Many cuisines have an entire area of cooking that's about concentrating free glutamate in a finished dish, providing an umami sense that probably evolved to help tell us when we're eating foods that are good sources of protein and minerals. That's the story of pretty much every meat or mushroom stock, demi-glace, tomato sauce, fermented foods like fish sauce, miso, gochujang, Marmite and aged cheese, and broccoli and black beans.
MSG is a pure form of free glutamate--glutamic acid bound to a sodium ion that dissociates from it in solution--and allows for adding that sense at will without drastically changing the flavor profile of a dish. The 5'-ribonucleotides, commonly available as disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate, amplify the effect of MSG significantly when added to it at a 3% ratio. Though they're expensive in absolute terms, a small bottle of "I+G", a 50/50 mix of the two, can be had for not much money and will last practically forever. The mixture of glutamic acid and inosinic acid is exploited to great effect in Japanese dashi, combining glutamic acid from kelp and inosinic acid from dried and fermented skipjack (鰹節, katsuobushi).
Glutamic acid is an amino acid that occurs in great quantity in nature, and though glutamate is neurotoxic in the brain, there's no obvious relationship to dietary glutamate, nor is there any compelling evidence that glutamate sensitivity is a common problem. The hysteria over MSG is the result of a dubious letter published in a scientific journal in 1968 that may itself have been a racist hoax, and even studies of people identified as sensitive to MSG have consistently failed to reproduce symptoms. Many of the purported symptoms of MSG sensitivity can just as easily be caused by eating a meal high in sodium.
My pet conspiracy theory is that adding MSG to foods where it's appropriate may actually be good for us: though free glutamate increases the palatability of foods and generally leads us to eat more, we are bombarded on all sides in the modern world by ultra-processed foods that contain free glutamate (as monosodium glutamate, hydrolyzed proteins, or yeast extract) and/or the ribonucleotides. These foods often contain these additives to provide the gustatory qualities of meat, beans and high-protein vegetables while consisting almost entirely of low-quality carbohydrates and fats (see, for example, Nacho Cheese Doritos), and I think our ongoing exposure to these foods has helped to decouple the immediate reward of an umami-rich meal from the longer-lasting sensation of satiety from having eaten nourishing food.
So: use MSG for good. Use it to make your chicken taste more delightfully chicken-y, to make your black beans irresistible, to punch up your stir-fry. Every fast food outlet and snack peddler out there is already using it against you.
Ingredients
- 97g monosodium glutamate (MSG)
- 1.5g disodium inosinate
- 1.5g disodium guanylate
Directions
Mix ingredients and store in an airtight container or salt cellar.
Notes
Wherever an intensely savory/umami flavor is desired, add about 1/2 tsp. to each pound of meat, or 1/2 tsp. to every 4-6 servings of beans, soups, stews, curries or casseroles.
