The Food Network named umami one of the top 10 food trends of 2010, reports Canada's newspaper The Globe and Mail. Umami is sometimes called the fifth flavor because it's as distinctive a taste as sweet, salty, bitter and sour. The taste is hard to define, but it is most frequently described as "meaty" or "savory." Though it's historically associated with monosodium glutamate, or MSG, umami is also part of many common foods. In traditional Japanese cuisine, the umami taste is created by a combination of kelp, dried shitake mushrooms and bonito flakes.
Seafood
Seafood is one of the best sources of umami. That's because most forms of seafood contain a nucleotide called adenylate, which the Umami Information Center says is one of the main contributors to umami's unique taste. Seaweed, fresh and dried bonito, dried sardines, mackerel, tuna, sea bream, prawns, cod, oysters, squid, shellfish and kombu, which is used to make dashi, are all sources of umami.
Meat
Meat that contains the nucleotide inosinate typically offers an umami taste. You'll find inosinate in beef, chicken and pork, but The Globe and Mail recommends reaching for aged meats or cured meats, like ham and bacon, to get the strongest umami effect. Chicken has a milder umami flavor than more robust meats like beef and pork.
Vegetables
Plant-based foods with high concentrations of the nucleotide guanylate also offer the umami experience, according to the Umami Information Center. Mushrooms, especially shitake mushrooms and enokitake mushrooms--both staples of Asian cuisine--are especially rich in umami. You can also taste umami in tomatoes, soybeans, carrots, Chinese cabbage, sweet potatoes and truffles. Soy sauce, made with a base of fermented soy beans and grains, also adds a strong umami taste to foods.
Other Foods
A few other foods also contain the nucleotides that make the unami taste. Green tea, especially when it is not roasted, is rich in glutamate and tastes both sweet and umami. The long aging process of Parmesan cheese allows the cheese to develop glutamates that produce an umami taste.
