The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami

by Anna Kasabian, David Kasabian

The Fifth Cooking with Umami

See how easy it is to make the most appetizing, delicious and satisfying food ever by including ingredients with umami, the fifth taste.
What is umami? It's another basic taste, like sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. But it's not an ordinary taste. Umami is that rich, savory, extra-satisfying taste of mushrooms, steak, cheese, oysters, and red wine — just a few of the many foods loaded with umami. Umami is a quick and easy way to boost flavor dramatically by waking up taste buds you never knew you had.
Science only recently proved its existence, and the world of food and cooking is catching on fast. In the last year, reports on umami appeared in the New York Times, Saveur, Wine Spectator, Food and Wine, The New Yorker, and numerous other publications. And every day more chefs and home cooks are wowing guests, family and friends with fabulous-tasting umami-rich food.
The Fifth Cooking with Umami is the first book ever to tell what umami really is, which foods have it (and which don’t), and how to use umami every day for some of the best meals you’ve ever had.
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With more than 50 umami-rich recipes from 25 top American chefs.

Advance Praise for The Fifth Cooking with Umami

“Anna and David Kasabian have not only written a scientific tell-all book about this mysterious ingredient, but they have also included amazing recipes - revealing a new genre in cooking and exciting new tastes for the palate.”
Mario Batali, chef and author

“Great cooks throughout the centuries have spontaneously understood the essential quality of individual ingredients and have instinctively combined these to create superlative concoctions. In this fascinating book, the Kasabians argue convincingly that this intuitive knowledge of cooks has a Umami.”
Jacques Pepin, chef, author and educator

“Finally a cookbook I've been waiting for-one that explains the elusive qualities of umami. Anna and David Kasabian are trailblazers. Not only do they explain and describe this mysterious element of flavor, they show us how to use its power in our cooking. An important and original book."
Michael Ruhlman, author, The Making of Chef , The Soul of a Chef and Charcuterie

“I found the book to be an excellent synthesis of what umami IS with its practical use in cooking. I believe it will be a milestone in the deliberate incorporation of umami  into western gastronomy.”
Dr. Robert L. Wolke, author, What Einstein Told His Cook and What Einstein Told His Cook 2, The Sequel

“As exciting and intriguing a read as you’ll find in any cookbook published this year. Then there are the recipes. If umami is a good taste — and it is — what better than a cookbook to showcase it?
Mark Bittman, author, How to Cook Everything (From the Foreword)

Over 50 delectable umami recipes, for every occasion and for every level of cooking skill, such
·Spicy Chipotle Pork Tacos with Sun-Dried Tomato Salsa from Rick Bayless
·Sea Scallops with Mashed Potatoes and Red Onion Confit from Daniel Boulud
·Cornish Game Hens Braised in a Pot with Summer Vegetables from Bradley Ogden
·My Father’s Famous Shrimp Hors d’Oeuvres from Lydia Shire
·Lamb Shanks with Tomatoes from Christopher Kimball
·Spicy Sour Botan Shrimp from Nobu Matsuhisa
Plus more everyday umami recipes, including
·Maxed-Out Meatloaf
·Ragumami Tomato Two Meat Pasta Sauce
·Asparagus Frittata
·Coq au Vin Nouveau
·Please-Pass-the-Umami Toasts
·Vegetarian Muffaletta Roll-Ups
·And more

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking

176 pages, Hardcover

First published November 8, 2005

About the author

Anna Kasabian is a freelance writer, journalist and the author of 16 books—13 on interior design and architecture, and three cookbooks.
Her work as a porcelain artist is an extension of her passion for design.

Reviews

[Aja Marsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - most of the recipes i could go do without, generally (maybe there was just too much meat and fish happening there for me to get excited about), but i enjoyed the intro to umami section at the beginning, especially the little side bars-- talking about the science and history of umami, as well as fun taste experiments (one involving jelly beans!). that was the best part of the whole book. also, the food styling and photography felt pretty dated, which surprised me.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of umami was decent, but the recipes looked pretty bland -- ironically, since they had lots of umami!

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grammar-school science classes continue to teach that the human tongue can distinguish only four true tastes: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. The burn of chiles and the cool of mint are not considered "tastes" in this basic scheme. Just over a hundred years ago, a Japanese food scientist identified an amino acid which he claimed tasted "savoury" and named it "umami." Interest in umami was slow to grow outside of Asia, where it was firmly adopted by the addition of MSG (mono-sodium glutamate) to many dishes. Americans sometimes claimed it have them headaches and dubbed the effect "the Chinese restaurant syndrome." Pish tosh! The human body produces glutamate and it occurs naturally in hundreds of foods. Chef David and food-writer Anna Kasabian, a husband and wife team, combined to produce an excellent book which explores the science and history of umami before suggesting ways to maximize its savoury taste in all manner of dishes. They explain how glutamate, inosinate, and guanylate combine to enhance the flavours of many foods beyond those containing these substances. Twenty five well-known chefs contributed two recipes apiece to produce a sort of umami-rich cookbook. The book is well illustrated, the recipes easy to follow and several science experiments are offered for those deeply into kitchen science.

[Mila · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing earth shattering here although I was surprised to find out that fish sauce has umami. I found a recipe for Tempura Batter from Chef O'Connell who says he experimented for years. 1 cup cake flour and 1 cup (less 2 T) very cold club soda. I'm looking forward to using this recipe for next year's crop of green beans. The umami part is his dipping sauce which has: 1 T rice wine vinegar, 7 T fish sauce, 2 T sugar, 1/2 c water, juice of 1 lime, 2 T shredded carrot, 1/4 minced cilantro, 2 cloves minced garlic, 2 finely chopped jalapeno peppers.

[Douglas Larson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An inportant book for cooks and chefs, but I didn't have time to delve into it deeply. I will do so at another time.

[Zac · Rating 2 out of 5]

a bit elementary, but a good introduction to something that is still surprisingly unheard of to most folks.