History
Professor Kikunae Ikeda from the Tokyo Imperial University isolated glutamic acid as a new taste substance in 1908 from the seaweed Laminaria japonica, kombu, by aqueous extraction and crystallization, and named its taste "umami". He noticed that the Japanese broth of katsuobushi and kombu had a peculiar taste that had not been scientifically described at that time and differed from sweet, salty, sour and bitter. To verify that ionized glutamate was responsible for the umami taste, Professor Ikeda studied the taste properties of many glutamate salts such as calcium, potassium, ammonium, and magnesium glutamate. All salts elicited umami in addition to a certain metallic taste due to the other minerals. Among those salts, sodium glutamate was the most soluble and palatable, and crystallized easily. Professor Ikeda named this product monosodium glutamate and submitted a patent to produce MSG. Suzuki brothers started the commercial production of MSG in 1909 as Aji-no-moto, meaning "essence of taste" in Japanese, the first time that monosodium glutamate was produced in the world.
Read more about this topic: Monosodium Glutamate
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