Umami

According to Dara Ó Briain’s brilliant book Secret Science, ‘Umami is the Japanese word for deliciousness and, alongside sweet, salty, sour and bitter, is one of the five tastes that make up all of our foods’. When I was writing this book, my then-nine year-old son, standing behind me, parroted this verbatim. I almost fell off my chair in shock that firstly, he knew what ‘umami’ meant, and secondly, I couldn’t take the credit for it! Umami is a deeply savoury flavour, and in vegan cookery, can be obtained from soy sauce-based dishes, slow-cooked broths, meaty mushroom notes, yeast extract and dark miso paste.