Ummmm . . . Umami!

Listen to Krulwich's fabulous report at NPR.

Thousands of years ago, humans decided that we could distinguish four tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. (At right, an illustration of human taste buds from Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body.)

As Robert Krulwich engagingly reports in a recent edition of Krulwich on Science, a fifth taste was discovered in the late 19th c. at about the same time by Chef Auguste Escoffier in Paris and chemist Kikunae Ikeda in Japan. This rich, wonderful, yummy taste is the taste of deep veal stock and a good bowl of dashi--it's the taste of glutamic acid, but Ikeda named it umami, which means delicious or yummy in Japanese.

But don't take our word for it, please listen to Krulwich's original report (7:47 min.), which will take you there via the magic of radio.