— Irene M

So umami was the last of the fifth taste to be added as a basic taste. And umami means savory. It's really like, uh, meats are really savory but so are tomatoes and mushrooms and fermented foods. To be technical umami means that you have either glutamate and oscillate or something called ggl lysate in the food which then attaches to the receptor. You don't need to know any of that. All you need to know is there's something mostly glutamate that attaches to the taste cells that brings on this umami flavor. And boy does it increase the palatability of your food. So if you're a vegetarian and you want umami flavor, peas, onions, tomatoes, um, mushrooms, my favorite mushrooms, um, are a way to add umami to different dishes. If you're not a vegetarian you can add meat, you can add fish, chicken, beef, pork, whatever you like. And a little bitty amounts. You don't need a lot of the animal-based proteins. But a little bit is gonna add a ton of flavor. Now I'm gonna tell you who um, mommy's best friend is. It's Cami. And I'm not making this up. This isn't some um, comic strip from another country. Cami. Their thinking is another basic taste, but it's really not. It's a companion to umami and Cami is the mouthfeel. It's like this fullness. And Cami is in things like shrimp paste or soy sauce and fermented foods and alcohol. So when you pair those two together, boy oh boy do you get an explosion of flavor in your food. So Irene, I hope you try some of these things and let me know how they go.