Kikunae Ikeda

was a Japanese chemist and Tokyo Imperial University professor of chemistry who, in 1908, uncovered the chemical basis of a taste he named umami. It is one of the five basic tastes along with sweet, bitter, sour and salty.

Education Ikeda graduated in 1889 from Tokyo Imperial University in chemistry. In 1891, he became a professor at the Higher Normal School of Tokyo, in 1896 he became an associate professor at Tokyo Imperial University. From 1899, Prof. Ikeda studied in Germany for two years at the laboratory of Prof. Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald at the University of Leipzig, which was then the center of physical chemistry. After a brief stay in London, he returned to Tokyo in 1901 and became a full professor in chemistry at Tokyo Imperial University.

Discoveries

In 1907 at the Tokyo Imperial University in Japan, Ikeda was eating dinner with his family when he suddenly stopped. That day the dashi broth in his soup was more delicious than normal; after stirring a few times he realized the difference was the umami flavor from the addition of kombu, a species of brown macroalgae, and flakes of fish known as katsuobushi. He understood that kombu was the secret to that flavor, and from that day on he studied the chemical composition of kelp.

By 1908, he had isolated brown crystals of glutamic acid (glutamate) which conveyed the characteristic flavor. The chemical monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the chemical basis for the umami flavor. He chose to call it . By 1909 he had developed a process for mass-producing MSG. Using this method the global production of MSG increased rapidly. his Ajinomoto Co., Inc. employs over 32,000 people. MSG ranks as one of the top flavor enhancers after salt and pepper.

Kikunae Ikeda also studied other foods to see if they contained umami, and confirmed that glutamate was responsible for part of the flavor of meat, seaweed and tomatoes. He believed that humans likely developed a taste for glutamate because it signaled the presence of proteins.