The Fifth Flavor/Elusive taste dimension can mean the difference between balance and blah. Chefs and scientists have recently realized that, in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter, there is an elusive fifth flavor, umami, whose taste receptors have recently been found. Umami is changing the way some of them approach food preparation. The quality of umami is apparently correlated with the amino acid L-glutamate; so the Asian cuisines are apparently really onto something when they add MSG (monosodium glutamate) to food.

Aging, curing and fermenting
enhance umami. So does ripeness. A
dry-aged steak has more umami than fresh
hamburger, to no one’s surprise. A ripe
nectarine has more measurable free
glutamates than an unripe one. And
two-year-old Parmigiano-Reggiano is
practically off the charts.

Other common foods high in umami include
anchovies, the fish sauce used in Southeast
Asian cooking (nam pla in Thai, nuoc mam
in Vietnamese) and other fermented fish
products, fresh tomatoes, grapefruit (it has
more free glutamates than other citrus),
soy sauce, dried seaweed, cooked
potatoes, green tea, Gruyere cheese and
fresh clams

[via Looka!, which just celebrated its year’s anniversary]

You are being followed by Netscape/AOL every time you use the SmartDownload add-on or Netscape Navigator’s Search function. The information on what you download or search for is sent to Netscape to help build a profile on you.

Netscape is being cheeky. Whether it’s breaking privacy laws –

hmmm. It might be, but we see it more a question of whether you

can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Netscape is selling this

information. It certainly isn’t doing itself any favours by being a bit

insidious and not asking or telling people what it is doing. This

whole case (and this article) are as a result of that. But then you can

never teach a big company such ‘soft’ tactics. Never forget that big

companies couldn’t give a monkey’s about your rights unless it costs

them money.

The resulting bad publicity from all this will most likely cause some

chances in the next Navigator version. Partly because of uproar but,

sadly, mostly because Microsoft will use the furore to sell Explorer. It

will also get those wanting to stick with Netscape to upgrade faster.

All publicity can be good publicity if you handle it right.

The Register [via RobotWisdom]

Is Machrihanish the new Area 51?