Happy anniversary, Umami!

Umami was discovered a 100 years ago (yesterday), by japanese Kikunae Ikeda, who named the fifth discernable taste; UMAMI. Umami is Japanese and means Good or Fresh!

Greeting card from CardMaven at www.etsy.com

Sea weed thing

I love working with pattern design. I try to experiment with shapes and patterns whenever I get inspired. Here's my latest creation. I started out with two random shapes, and it reminded me of shells and black seaweed bladders. I found some images later on which confirmed my impressions. When applying the pattern to the metal canister, it seemed to look like a box of Sushi to me.

What exactly is UMAMI?

"The flavour of food is determined by a number of different factors including taste, smell, colour, temperature and overall appearance, as well as by physiological or psychological conditions. Some of the most important factors are the basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami.
It was Japanese scientist Dr. Kikunae Ikeda who first discovered that glutamic acid, an amino acid, was responsible for the umami taste of Konbu.
Although there is no English word for it, umami is a savoury taste imparted by glutamate and ribonucleotides, including inosinate and guanylate, which occur naturally in many foods including meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products.
The taste of umami itself is subtle. It blends well with other tastes to expand and round out flavours. Most people don’t recognise umami when they encounter it, but it can be detected when eating ripe tomatoes, parmesan cheese, cured ham, mushrooms, meat and fish. Umami plays an important role making food taste delicious."

This text was cut from umamiinfo.com where you can learn more about UMAMI!