Cooking ingredients from around the world

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the sodium salt of a very abundant, naturally-occurring amino acid and is found naturally in tomatoes, cheeses, mushrooms, cured meats, and fermented products like soy sauce. It stimulates the umami taste receptors on the tongue (the most recent ones to be discovered), and its flavor profile is variously described as meaty, savory, or brothy.

MSG got a bad rap because of excessive use by some in the food industry to replace more expensive ingredients (like meat in broths) and because of claims that it causes headaches and other feelings of discomfort, sometimes called "Chinese restaurant syndrome" because of MSG use in some Asian cooking. In fact, while there may be a very small portion of the population that has adverse reactions to MSG, double blind testing has failed to show the reaction in the most people.

With that out of the way, MSG can be used as a flavor enhancer or intensifier in recipes where a savory or meaty undertone is desired. Examples would be soups, stews, meat rubs or marinades, seafoods, sauces, to name a few. It also can provide a flavor accent to vegetables or salad dressings. It rarely works well with sweet foods unless they have a savory or spicy component.

The key is to use MSG in very small amounts, much less than you would use salt. At larger concentrations, most people find its taste unattractive. As a rough guideline, you can start with a 1/8 of a teaspoon in four servings of food. If you are making broth from beef or chicken bones, for example, try adding a bit of MSG, tasting before and after. Add a small sprinkle to cooked vegetables along with your usual butter and salt (and maybe a bit of lemon juice). Try it in a rub or marinade. Sprinkle it lightly on fish before cooking.

People who are aghast at using crystalline MSG in cooking can get some of its flavor properties from foodstuffs that are rich in it. Browning a bit of tomato paste in oil or adding a squirt of soy sauce, or tossing a parmesan rind into soup or stew or sauces are all ways of adding MSG without having to say that you’ve done it. (Vegetarians and vegans sometimes use nutritional yeast for the same purpose).