Why do fish and chips from a takeaway shop taste better than the homecooked version?

FYI: Why do fish and chips from a takeaway shop taste better than the homecooked version?

There's a wealth of evidence to justify official recognition of a fifth taste, alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Umami has been tickling the Asian palate for almost 100 years, ever since Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University evaporated a vat of sea-kelp broth to make glutamic acid. The brown crystals left behind had a distinctive taste Ikeda recognised from many foods yet did not fall under any of the four established tastes. He called the flavour umami, described as 'savoury' or 'moreish', and set about mass producing the glutamic acid crystals widely recognised today as flavour enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG).

Some of the earliest references to taste can be traced back to Aristotle, who enhanced 'sweet' and 'bitter' with 'succulent', 'pungent', 'harsh' and 'astringent'. In Chinese cooking, umami is referred to as xianwei, with many Chinese believing 'pungent' is a sixth flavour. Some people have argued that 'spicy' should be added to the list.

Although the fifth taste category is becoming more acceptable to scientists in Europe, their American counterparts are still sceptical. This is despite the fact many western preparations, such as sauces, have their flavours enhanced with the addition of natural umami foods, including anchovies, certain cheeses and tomatoes.

Part of the problem with defining umami is that it's not so much a taste as a sensation, variously described as 'bigness', 'roundness' or 'impact'. It is largely agreed that some kind of umami effect exists, but on the question of whether it's a basic taste, a sensation, a flavour or a combination of all three, the jury is still out.

Europe's ready embrace of umami may stem from the traditional British 'meaty' spread Marmite, which comes in several other incarnations, such as Bovril in Britain, Vegemite and Promite in Australia and New Zealand and Cenovis in Switzerland. Although recipes differ slightly for each, Marmite and its foreign cousins are based on yeast extract, a byproduct of the brewing process. The extract is made up of concentrations of yeast cells that have been allowed to die and decompose, thus becoming yeast autolysates. These autolysates are also a primary source of MSG for the food industry.