The word of the day for June 29th.
Today's word is umami, spelled U-M-A-M-I.
Umami is a noun.
It refers to the taste sensation that is produced by several amino acids and nucleotides
and that has a rich or meaty flavor characteristic of cheese, cooked meat, mushrooms, soy, and ripe tomatoes.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Will This Make You Happy?
Stories and Recipes from A Year of Baking by Tanya Bush.
This recipe uses a classic marble cake technique to swirl rich layers
of cinnamon into a fluffy olive oil-scented loaf cake.
It's topped with a malted milk glaze for a punch of umami,
but you can skip it entirely or substitute a simple vanilla glaze.
Japanese scientist Kikune Ikeda is credited with identifying as a distinct taste the savory flavor
of the amino acid glutamic acid, which he first noticed in soup stocks made with seaweed.
This fifth basic taste, alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, was named umami, meaning savoriness in Japanese.
Umami can be experienced in foods such as mushrooms, anchovies,
and mature cheeses, as well as in foods enhanced with monosodium glutamate,
or MSG, a sodium salt derived from glutamic acid.
With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.
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