Umami

A couple days ago when I made the Mushrooms with Chestnuts it was my first experience with chestnuts, but also with home cooking involving any mushroom other than button or portobello. Shittake mushrooms are supposed to be one of the food items richest in the fifth taste the Japanese call umami. It's now being "widely recognized" as a fact, even though I haven't been able to mention it to anyone I know and have them understand what I'm talking about. Perhaps "does that tasty umamiey to you?" just doesn't roll off the tongue like salty, sweet, sour or bitter. Basically, if I understand correctly, umami is like what we'd describe as "mouth feel" or savoriness and its rich in things like cheese, to draw a better comparison.

So to try and imprint this whole idea of umami in my head, I made a Shittake Stirfry with a few other mushrooms and a soy based sauce — something else that is rich in umami. Sliced shittake mushrooms have the texture of what I imagine eating a slug would be like. It doesn't help that they also quite resemble each other in appearance. It is definitely quite meaty and has a strong sense of savoriness, but it also has a bit of a gag factor to a foreign palette. Fortunately, the majority of the mushroom meatiness was made up by button and crimini mushrooms and the shittake mostly lent flavor to the broth used to make the rich sauce that the noodles were tossed with. I should've went the MSG, dashi and shittake route for ultimate umami potentness, but I wasn't feeling ambitious enough.