Part One: “Mono-who-dium What-amate?”
Why does aged cheese taste like a different food altogether, compared to the processed stuff?
Why does the restaurant down the block taste so much better than the one across the street?
What makes Doritos so addictive, you just can’t stop going back for another?
Three letters. One magical ingredient: MSG
MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is a naturally-occurring chemical. It has a distinct, savory taste known as umami – somewhere between sweet and salty. It’s an unsubtle, but wholly unique flavor that’s been feverishly pursued by cooks since we first began roasting things on sticks. The chemical in its concentrated form has been around for about 100 years, but the cultivation of high-salt, high-glutamate foods stretches back more than 10,000 years. If you’ve ever eaten a well-aged parmesan, heirloom tomatoes, mushrooms – even an anchovy: you’ve enjoyed the taste of MSG.
The concentrated, powdered form used in today’s kitchens was first formulated in 1908 by Japanese biochemist Kikunae Ikeda. He was trying to isolate the taste of kombu – a savory seaweed stock used in most Japanese dishes. The seasoning quickly exploded in popularity, spreading across east Asia. From there, Chinese immigrants brought it to the United States, where it became an essential ingredient in the Chinese-American classics we enjoy today.
In its pure, concentrated form, MSG doesn’t taste like much. Rather, it’s an enhancing ingredient. In solution, it dissolves into a sodium ion and a glutamate anion. These two charged particles chemically bind to existing flavor compounds in a dish, amplifying what’s already good about it. It makes unlovely cuts, lovely; a simple lime, sublime.
Unfortunately, that’s not where this story ends. It’s not really even where it begins.
Because, chances are you’re at least a little confused by my attitude towards MSG, so far.
“MSG? Isn’t that stuff really bad for you? Didn’t companies start taking it out of their food? Don’t they have to put, like, warnings on the label? What do you mean they still use it in restaurants? Haven’t people sued over this?”
I can’t blame you. I first heard about it from my parents, then the news, then my teachers. And if they all agreed something was true? It was. That was my world.
They called it “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” Growing up – and still to this day – there was this widespread, popular belief that MSG causes, among other things: headache, stomachache, vomiting, diarrhea, acid reflux, cognitive dissonance, and somehow, several forms of cancer. But MSG’s longstanding reputation as a harmful substance is, like many widespread and popular beliefs: a patently false and transparently racist fabrication. Albeit, an unintentional one.
This is the story of the world’s most infamous secret ingredient.
