Umami: The Secret Behind the Humble Soup Stock

By far the majority of foodstuffs, when in their raw form, have little umami. Drawing out the fifth taste from them, therefore, becomes a question of breaking down their constituent parts, especially converting proteins into small peptides and free amino acids. Nucleic acids have little direct impact on nutrition, but they unquestionably have influence when it comes to taste and to interacting with glutamate to impart synergistic umami. This is especially true with the humble soup stock, a basic tool in virtually all cuisines. It seems that, since earliest times, cooks in all parts of the world have intuitively found ways to prepare it with ingredients that complement each other, with results that are rich in umami. Here we take a quick look at the chemical underpinnings of their ‘soup science,’ using some well-known stocks as examples.