Monday 17 September – Wednesday 20 April 2011
Umami: the science of taste in Japanese cuisine
Daiwa Foundation Japan House
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation
Umami, the fifth taste, was first identified as a taste in 1908 by Japanese scientist Dr Kikunae Ikeda while researching the strong flavour of seaweed broth.
Dr Ikeda stated: “There is a taste which is common to asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat but which is not one of the four well-known tastes of sweet, sour, bitter and salty.” This rich, satisfying taste is called umami.
In this seminar, Ichiro Kubota, the Michelin-starred chef of Umu in Mayfair, and Philip Harper, a British sake master brewer (toji) based in Japan, spoke on the significance of umami in Japanese cuisine and sake. Professor Tim Jacob, a leading researcher in the science of smell and taste, chaired their presentations.
This seminar was attended by representatives from The Good Food Guide, The Fat Duck, The Providores, Kikkoman, Bucchus Restaurant and Sketch.
Rare Sake from Tazaki Foods and Green Tea from East Teas were available to taste after the seminar.
About the contributors
Ichiro Kubota
Ichiro Kubota is founding head chef of Umu restaurant in London. His focus is on introducing classic and reinvented Kyoto kaiseki cuisine to London. Kubota’s passion for food and cookery was nurtured at a very young age as he watched his father, one of the heads of the Kyoto Cuisine Association. Whilst in Kyoto, Kubota spent five years at the prestigious Tsuruya restaurant and moved to the traditional Kyoto restaurant Hassun working alongside his father, the Executive Chef, and also worked at Shirukou. Then he left Kyoto in 2002 and worked at the Michelin-starred Hotel La Villa in Corsica, Georges Blanc and Daniel Duverger in Lyon, France.
Philip Harper
Philip Harper is a sake master brewer (toji) and the first foreigner to pass the Nanbu Brewers’ Union examination to qualify as such. He discovered sake shortly after arriving in Japan on the JET Programme as an English teacher in 1988. He joined the staff of a highly traditional sake brewery in Nara in 1991 and has forged a career in the industry ever since. He has been a judge in numerous sake tasting events in Japan and overseas. His publications include The Insider’s Guide to Sake (1998) and The Book of Sake (2006).
Professor Tim Jacob
Professor Tim Jacob (chair) is head of the Smell Research Laboratory at the School of Biosciences, Cardiff University. As a leading authority on issues concerning smell, he is particularly interested in the way in which our senses of taste and smell combine to allow us to experience the flavour of food and drink. For almost twenty years, umami has been an important part of his research. His writings include ‘The Science of Taste and Smell’ in Art and the Senses (eds. Francesca Bacci and David Melcher: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).