Umami taste of seafoods

Abstract

This article is a review on research of “Umami Taste”. The umami tastes of glutamates (salts of L‐glutamic acid), inosinates (salts of 5'‐inosinic acid) and guanylates (salts of 5'‐guanylic acid) were discovered in 1908, 1912 and 1960 respectively. The vigorous studies (1) in physiology, psychology and food chemistry in past few decades proved that umami taste was a basic taste independent from the four basic tastes of sweetness, saltiness, sourness and bitterness and that there was the unique synergistic effect between the umami substances of glutamate and 5'‐nucleotides. This effect realized the enhancement on not only umami taste but also the overall palatability of foods.

In particular, it was clarified that umami substances were widely distributed in seafoods such as sea urchin, abalone, crab, scallop, shrimp and lobster and contributed to constituting the tastes of the seafoods in cooperation with other substances as free amino acids of glycine, alanine, arginine, methionine, valine and proline and inorganic ions of sodium, potassium, chlorine and phosphoric acid.