Doritos Loaded With Umami!!

Bob_Foster · June 22, 2012, 10:23pm

I thought this was fascinating. Maybe it explains why I love Doritos.

http://www.seriouseats.com/cgi-bin/mte/mt-search.cgi?__mode=gsearch&blog_id=31&site=All&search=doritos

dteng · June 22, 2012, 10:25pm

Bob_Foster · June 22, 2012, 10:27pm

Umami is a savory taste which is one of the five basic tastes, together with sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. Umami is a loanword from the Japanese umami (うま味?) meaning “pleasant savory taste”.

CJ_Beazley · June 22, 2012, 11:02pm

We were a test market for BBQ-cheddar Doritos and they are fantastic. Surely they will make the cut and there will be a nation wide launch.

Bob_Foster · June 23, 2012, 5:09am

Where are you?

Henry_Kiichli · June 23, 2012, 10:50am

Sorry, just not my thing. I really can’t stand all the onion powder and stuff like it. Fake this, powdered that, etc.

I like plain chips, salted.

Frank_Deis · June 23, 2012, 1:27pm

I think it clarifies things to say that 1) umami is the flavor of cooked meat and 2) the “transmitter” sensed by the tongue is MSG.

Glutamate is one of the 20 amino acids of which meat (and other protein) is composed. But it represents more than 5% of the amino acids present, because glutamate is important so there’s a lot of it. Raw meat has only a little flavor – think sashimi – because the amino acids are still stuck together. Cooking releases the individual amino acids, and around pH 7 (neutral pH) glutamate is always found as the monosodium form. How do you make your sashimi taste better? You dip it in soy sauce (providing the MSG or umami flavor, which makes it taste a little cooked).

I know that there are people who are sure that they react in some allergic way to MSG in food. Those people had better not eat chicken soup…

Stuart_BeauneHead_Niemtzow · June 23, 2012, 1:41pm

the most successful product introduction in Taco Bell’s 50 year history…umami or or no-mami…

Linda_Baehr · June 23, 2012, 3:42pm

Frank Deis:

I think it clarifies things to say that 1) umami is the flavor of cooked meat and 2) the “transmitter” sensed by the tongue is MSG.

Glutamate is one of the 20 amino acids of which meat (and other protein) is composed. But it represents more than 5% of the amino acids present, because glutamate is important so there’s a lot of it. Raw meat has only a little flavor – think sashimi – because the amino acids are still stuck together. Cooking releases the individual amino acids, and around pH 7 (neutral pH) glutamate is always found as the monosodium form. How do you make your sashimi taste better? You dip it in soy sauce (providing the MSG or umami flavor, which makes it taste a little cooked).

I know that there are people who are sure that they react in some allergic way to MSG in food. Those people had better not eat chicken soup…

Interesting. I didn’t know that cooking produced the MSG form.

George_Hejna · June 23, 2012, 4:09pm

MSG messes me up. I haven’t had a dorito in 20 years.

George

Robert.Fleming · June 23, 2012, 6:30pm

Lots of people say that, but the so-called ‘Chinese Restaurant Syndrome’ has proven elusive in controlled scientific studies. Example: DEFINE_ME

George_Hejna · June 23, 2012, 8:57pm

Robert - Believe me I have read ALL the studies and understand the results. All I know is that sometimes I can eat things that give me huge GI problems very quickly. Whenever this happens the symptoms are identical. When I go back (where I can) I always find MSG somewhere. I have learned to avoid it and it has been mostly eliminated but once in a while maybe a couple of times a year it happens to me. It is always a complete surprise so I am not predisposed.

Before I even knew of my issue, I always used to get really sick when I ate dinner at a friends house. Could never even make it home. After I started figuring it out it might be MSG we started looking at her cooking and she put Accent (which at the time had MSG) on everything.

I have a friend who is a neurosurgeon who eliminates MSG from all his migraine patients diets.

George

Frank_Deis · June 24, 2012, 1:35am

OK, I have to geek out with Linda for a moment (because we didn’t do much of that when we ate at Aziza!) – if I explain it clearly enough everyone can come along. The compound, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate does not exist in nature AFAIK. Nearly all natural amino acids are L but this one is D, and it is made in laboratories. Why is it interesting? Because it is close enough in structure to “fool” certain Glutamate receptors in the brain. Furthermore, these “NMDA” receptors appear to be largely responsible for memory.

What particularly interests me from an evolutionary point of view is, that the umami MSG detector on the tongue is homologous to (has a common ancestor with) the NMDA receptor in the brain. So one way of putting it is that when you REMEMBER the taste of soy sauce (or 1990 Haut Brion, or how to write cursive letters) you are using a receptor which is very close in structure to the taste-bud receptor which allows you to TASTE the soy sauce.

I think that lamb shank was an umami winner BTW!! I should write that up here, the wine you brought was amazing.

Linda_Baehr · June 24, 2012, 9:02pm

Frank Deis:

Linda Baehr:

Frank Deis:

I think it clarifies things to say that 1) umami is the flavor of cooked meat and 2) the “transmitter” sensed by the tongue is MSG.

Interesting. I didn’t know that cooking produced the MSG form.

OK, I have to geek out with Linda for a moment (because we didn’t do much of that when we ate at Aziza!) – if I explain it clearly enough everyone can come along. The compound, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate does not exist in nature AFAIK. Nearly all natural amino acids are L but this one is D, and it is made in laboratories. Why is it interesting? Because it is close enough in structure to “fool” certain Glutamate receptors in the brain. Furthermore, these “NMDA” receptors appear to be largely responsible for memory.

NMDA receptor - Wikipedia

What particularly interests me from an evolutionary point of view is, that the umami MSG detector on the tongue is homologous to (has a common ancestor with) the NMDA receptor in the brain. So one way of putting it is that when you REMEMBER the taste of soy sauce (or 1990 Haut Brion, or how to write cursive letters) you are using a receptor which is very close in structure to the taste-bud receptor which allows you to TASTE the soy sauce.

I think that lamb shank was an umami winner BTW!! I should write that up here, the wine you brought was amazing.

Tom.Cole · June 24, 2012, 10:57pm

The only letter a friend of mine wrote me when I was in Vietnam was in 1972 to let me know that Nacho flavored Doritos had been introduced. This was earth shattering news and gave me the needed inspiration to make it through my tour of duty.

Stuart_BeauneHead_Niemtzow · June 25, 2012, 2:38pm

What happened to him after the news? I hope he was around to see Taco Bell take the nacho and run with it-- 40 years later?

Larry_P · June 25, 2012, 9:03pm

Interesting and I’m not kidding about this - we all know the concept of “flashbulb memories” e.g. you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard Kennedy (or in my case, Reagan) was shot, when you heard the Challenger had exploded, etc. I have a flashbulb memory for the first time I tasted Doritos.

Linda_Baehr · June 25, 2012, 9:14pm

I remember the first time I ever had them. It was at my dad’s aunt’s house. I think I polished off a whole bowl myself!

Larry_P · June 26, 2012, 2:33am

Mine was a birthday party for the girl who lived across the street. I couldn’t get enough of them. I can’t think of a single other food I remember like that.