Fish Roe

Roe contains a reasonable amount of glutamate, but how much it has does not always affect how strongly it tastes of umami. As evidence, we can cite the case of Russian caviar and salted salmon roe, which have 80 mg per 100 g and 20 mg per 100 g, respectively, of free glutamate. In theory, the caviar should have a much more pronounced umami taste than the salmon roe. But it is actually the reverse, because salmon roe also has inosinate, which is absent in caviar. The answer lies in the synergistic interaction between the inosinate and the glutamate.