Stuff You Should Know - How Umami Works!

Episode Date: August 20, 2015

For millennia humans have recognized four tastes, but in the 1980s a fifth taste first isolated in Japan gained worldwide acceptance - and took off like a rocket! Learn about meaty, musty, savory umami in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca host I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry and so This is Stuff You Should Know I thought you about to change the name of the show right there. No on a whim. No. No. No. All right That's very meaty and savory of you Can you smell my juices? I'm cooking in them. You smell like fish stock. Oh, yeah

Yeah, you know I did a don't be dumb on ketchup the origin of ketchup Mm-hmm. That was a good one and it actually oh you saw that. Sure. You watch this. Of course. I do had no idea I'm your biggest fan. You're one of the 100 Well, I know I'm one of those people that's like this guy's so dumb. What kind of an I don't get it I can't get through these was he acting like that, but I just keep watching them I can't help it. So you saw the one about ketchup and you know about ketchup. Yes, the Vietnamese fish sauce That actually serves as the basis for ketchup. Yes, the American condiment, which is not the number one selling condiment in America Is it salsa? No. What is it mayonnaise? Oh, yes. Did you know that? No, but I love mayonnaise

Clearly you didn't what kind dukes is your brain, right? Well, I'm dukes But I'm just I'm gonna find myself a defender of mayonnaise because my whole life people have just thought it was gross Not everyone you would do well in like France or Belgium, buddy Yeah, like on a hamburger and hot dog people like uh cuz I don't like ketchup and people think I'm weird Oh, no, you need some ketchup, too. Not that much. I've also found recently as a grown-up adult a real live one Mm-hmm that like you can replace ketchup with tomatoes and it tastes maybe even better Depending on the ketchup you mean On a burger. Yes instead of both, right? You just mean no ketchup. Yeah

I'm not I'm not opposed to it. No, it just it it I've found and it was a big surprise to me Mm-hmm a really big surprise. Yes that if you just put tomatoes a good tomato on and no ketchup You're actually creating the taste that you're looking for with ketchup that just misses it slightly Right cuz it's got more than tomatoes in it, right? It's really again very surprising to me even though I realize of course that tomato is made from or ketchup is made from tomatoes Partially sure like I haven't made that connection, right? I just didn't realize how good just tomatoes were on a burger without ketchup Yeah, I don't like raw tomatoes either, so I wouldn't do that and you can't dip a french fry in a tomato

Well, no, I'm not opposed to ketchup. I'll still use ketchup. I hear especially for dipping fries I'm cool with that. I'm not down and ketchup here is what I'm trying to say I just think that tomatoes are great on a burger, but also like mayo, too I think is ultimately the point that started me off on this. Yeah, I like Tomato sauce like red sauce, but I don't like raw tomatoes or just whole tomatoes They're slimy and I'm supposed to eat them like an apple or anything If you've been doing that I can understand why you don't like raw tomatoes Some people do some people to slice them and put them on a plate, right?

They're not just holding it in your hand eating it like an apple. What kind of monster does that? That's what I'm saying a monster Kaiser Wilhelm II. Yeah, he was he was known All right, so all of that to say umami Umami. Oh mama. This one's about umami the fifth the fifth flavor The fifth beetle out of what they now say is six fat That oh carbon dioxide is also one, too. Oh really, huh?

We supposedly they found receptors that are tailored specifically to sensing carbon dioxide on the tongue and That it ultimately that makes it qualify as a taste. So they're gonna be seven now? I think there's way more I don't know why science has been so stingy or so reluctant to accept the idea that we have more than four flavor receptors or more for taste receptors, but umami was Isolated in the in the beginning of the 20th century and it wasn't for almost 80 years before the West finally accepted it Yeah, part of the reasons because it was the research was written in Japanese Well, it's okay. That's maybe something to do with it and part of the issue was that

It was umami is very mild in taste and when you have high concentrations of it to increase that flavor you've got a Salty and sour mixed in so I think it just confounded the West They're like what? We get sour. Yeah, we get salty. We get sweet for sure. Why we even get bitter But we don't get this other thing. Nope, and we're not going over five So you better make this umami stuff good. That's what the West said dumb Western scientists and food scientists

So Chuck, I think we let the cat out of the bag a little bit The Japanese are the ones who first discovered umami. It's right comes from the word umai Roughly translated as delicious Chefs if you talk to a chef umami is a big hot thing right now. It really is they'll say maybe it's like a mushroomy thing It's like a earthy It's it is very subtle like I said musty. Yeah musty, which doesn't sound appealing. No, but it also makes sweet Different. That's umami's big great quality, and I think that's probably one of the reasons why It was hard for the West to accept it is

Umami's big thing is Synergizing yeah, it's a supporting cast member almost. Yeah, it takes yes. It is it's like um bud Bundy Okay, not a leading guy, but you put him in an ensemble. He's gonna bring everybody else up It's what he's known for I would give a million American dollars to be inside your brain during that five-ish seconds of you spinning around Searching for a supporting cast member and ending up at bud Bundy Will you come back in 20 years and give me a million dollars, and I will let you and that would be amazing so um

Mm-hmm with like salty sour we get again we get those things they stand on their own Umami actually has a very mild and not necessarily like Pleasurable flavor on its own. Yeah, you don't want something that's like oh, this is just umami flavored right But it is almost like it's designed to interact with other flavors It is especially salty and especially sweet agreed and umami can even interact with itself Whoa, and all of a sudden it takes what was just like a ho-hum day and turns it into The greatest day of your life with one bite of shiitake mushroom with some hot umami on umami action So it is nothing new obviously it's not like you can just identify a new taste

It's been around the Romans and the Greeks before them enjoyed something called garum and that is a sauce that Boy you want to talk about how you find something weird food-wise. Yeah, they were gutting fish and they said let's take this fish guts and blood and Let's salt it and leave it out in the sun for three months And see what happens And then you have to eat it. No you eat it. No you And someone eventually ate it they strained the liquid from the top of it and they said boy this sauce is this is garum sauce This is good stuff. It's delicious. Garum means delicious in ancient Roman. I think so and it is uh, that was umami

personified Because how umami was discovered In 1907 there was a brilliant chemist named Kikune Akita. Is that right? Kikune That AE it's got an extra little pop to it. Gotcha But yeah, you did it. Thank you. So He was a chemist and he worked at the Imperial University. I'm sorry. He was yeah

he was a professor at the Imperial University of Tokyo and He was perplexed that he tasted something one day and said this is not any of those four flavors No, no, no, I know this is different. He was all about the dashi And dashi is the basis of miso soups lots of other stuff But basically it's a fish stock made from I think tuna flakes and Kombu which is dried kelp Yes, and there are all kinds of recipes for a dashi base and it's in a lot of things from sauces and Like soba noodle sauces to like you said miso. Yeah

I'm a really really big ingredient in Japanese cuisine right and this guy was like this little boy loves his dashi And I want to know exactly what is making it so wonderful so since he was a chemist he took I think something like 12 kilograms of dashi and Boiled it down eight ten of them Isolated some stuff the first thing that came out were some obvious ones that he clearly discarded is not responsible for umami Because there were salts. He's like no, it's not that it's not salt. We understand salt. It's not salt I know for a fact. It's not so what else is in here? He starts sorting through it, right? Well, didn't he separate the dashi into its parts and then break those down? Yeah, okay?

I just jumped ahead a step. Gotcha make a terrible chemist. He's on He's on kelp at this point one of the ingredients Okay, and so with the kelp is where he found those two salts and you're right He was like well, I know these flavors and they're not what I've been experiencing on my tongue. No, they're old news old news So he looked a little further and he found well, wait a minute. What is this? It's glutamic acid. Yeah, and he's like Maybe but glutamic acid has a sour taste and that's weird like it can't be glutamic acid It doesn't quite make sense So he added some more stuff came up with a chemical reaction and what popped out on the other end is what you and I

call Monosodium glutamate MSG and he figured out that it's not glutamic acid. It's not the salts But it's actually glutamate, but then he figured out even further is a glutamate that doesn't make any sense like glutamate glutamate doesn't work Then he realized it's not the protein that's giving it the taste. It's the amino acids That actually make up proteins that give umami its taste boom so glutamate. I'm sorry is an amino acid Right, right And that's one of the things that gives you mommy's taste is the first thing that was discovered To give umami its taste. Yeah, and that was the kelp. So, you know

Dashi has his different components. So he had a student. He said, you know what? Let me get that the dried tuna flakes Mm-hmm. Bonito flakes. Yeah, bonita. Well, there's different kinds, but bonita is definitely one of them Um, and he says let me identify these components and what he found was something called You want to try that one in a cyanate is that right? Yeah, I think that is right, man It's a nucleic acid like you say. Yes. So he's like boom. I've got number two and then in 1960 another scientist named Akira Uh, Kuninaka. Nice. He worked for Yamasa the famous soy sauce. Yeah, and now you're just showing off He was And he went on to work in pharmaceuticals. It was interesting. Oh, is it chemist?

Yeah, but it's like you work for soy sauce and then you go to work for a pharmaceutical company, right? I'm good at both things But you're right. It's all this chemistry. Sure So he said, you know what I can identify a third thing called guanailate It's another nucleotide in those shiitake mushrooms you were talking about. Yeah, and it's not like just bonita flakes Combo and shiitake mushrooms are the only things that produce umami taste Yeah, these are just the three things that those guys went to town and isolated different stuff out of right Yeah, I always want to see bonita apple bomb when you say bonita

Tribe called quest. Yeah after all these years. They keep making reference. They keep making appearances in episodes lately Oh, yeah, they have been huh? You see you mentioned them in hula hoops. Yeah, this one. You can't remember which one we talked about Scenario. Oh, what's the what's a what's a scenario, right? You know what my friend Justin whom you also know His mother actually left her wallet in El Segundo No way and he even called me. He was like dude. Guess what happened My mother left her wallet in El Segundo. It's crazy. Yeah, it was pretty remarkable Uh, we should probably take a break. Yeah, and then we'll talk a little bit more about uh, the science of taste right after this Hey everybody when you're staying at an air bnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an air bnb and if it could

What could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren and Nova Scotia who realized she could air bnb Her cozy backyard tree house and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel So, yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an air bnb too Find out what your place could be earning at air bnb dot ca slash host I'm mongesh aticular and to be honest I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born it's been a part of my life in india It's like smoking you might not smoke but you're gonna get secondhand astrology And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention

Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you It got weird fast Tantric curses major league baseball teams cancelled marriages k-pop But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crashing down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer I think your ideas are going to change too So we have done an episode on taste that was great. It was great. It's called taste and how it works From july 2010 right highly recommended. Yeah, but we're gonna go over a little bit more here Well, yeah, I think if we're gonna talk about umami, we'd be big jerks if we just assumed You know everything there is to know about. Yeah, we got to talk about what's called the gustatory system Okay, so um when we're talking about taste specifically That's separate from flavor, which we'll get to but taste. Yeah begins on the tongue

Sure, right and on the tongue you're gonna find what we like to call taste buds Or pepea The pepea have taste buds on them, right? Yes, there are three main types of pepea You have the fun funky form. Yes mushroom shaped sure the foley eight Those are the ridges and grooves at the back of the tongue and the circumvalate and those are circular at the front Front end of the tongue right and then some pepea have a couple of taste buds Some have hundreds of taste buds and then when you look into the taste buds themselves Um, they have receptor cells and what's interesting is when you think about a taste bud

You'd be like, oh, well, there's a salty taste bud sweet taste bud umami umami Sweet sour bitter that right carbon dioxide So that's not the case. No as a matter of fact a taste bud Has different receptor cells and these different receptor cells can be tuned to accept or sense different types of taste Yeah, wasn't it the shape if I remember correctly that well, that was with the smell The smell and taste are closely related right and we should say that the spoiler alert for the taste episode We're not a hundred percent sure how we sense taste. Yeah or smell but yes, the the the predominant theory is that

that a specific type of odorant or taste molecule will interact with a specific type of receptor and when it does The chemical in that molecule that food molecule um Unlocks that receptor and by doing that it's translated into an electrical impulse boom So you chew your food up gets a spitty and saliva covered Yeah, and it breaks it down coats your tongue and that's when that transduction Uh, those electrical impulses are sent

Uh to the nst The solitary tract of the brain. Sorry the nucleus of the solitary tract of the brain. Yeah Yeah, that's what all happens. That's when it puts all these different tastes together and says delicious I like this or more to the point That's probably going to kill you so stop eating that Yeah, and like we said taste is different than flavor taste is just one aspect of flavor for A food item or really anything to have a flavor it includes not just the taste but also the smell The sight of it the temperature of it. Yeah, how it feels. Is it firm? Is it a little too gelatinous?

um These are all things that your brain Takes into account Um including things like memories that you formed from having it before Yeah cotton candy when I was a kid gives me great memories. Yeah, so that plays a part in flavor Exactly like you can like it releases some different aspect of it that only you can experience that flavor Yeah, like if you had a cotton candy jelly bean It would conjure up that memory and that would be part of the flavor right experience. Yeah, or if it's one of your past lives

So that's kind of the science of taste and with umami specifically um, again, one of the things that the west Was having trouble with this accepting that umami was a real thing was that there wasn't any um, what's called psychophysical evidence That umami was its own taste. That's right for a long time They thought it was just a component of salty taste because monosodium glutamate is a type of salt, right? Yeah It's a salt protein combination that makes msg and for many many years This was the only um, this is the only source of umami taste

But finally in the 80s once they had the first international symposium on umami. It was a real thing I bet that was a party. Um, the uh, I'll bet it was too because it was in hawaii sure and the japanese and americans love hawaii So I'll bet everybody was partying down there. They started to do studies in the early 80s and they found Oh, actually, no, there are specific receptor cells On the human tongue and it turns out not just in human tongues, but mostly human tongues that are designed or geared toward Accepting or sensing umami tastes. That's right. Those are the g protein coupled receptors g p c rs And that is for sweet bitter and umami And sour and salty those are a little different those sort of flow

Through ion channels, which is way over my head to be honest Well, it's just like if a molecule has a positive charge or a negative charge If it's uh, if it's a positive ion it has positive charge. It's not going to make it through all sorts of the channels It's only going to make it through positive channels It's not it's simple. I know but as far as relating that to a taste it's just sort of all I can think of as mayonnaise Well, that's the whole thing. It's like you said it's like It's like your brain just turns advantage. Yeah, it's transduction is taking in a Chemical and turning it into an electrical charge. Yeah

I just think that's endlessly fascinating. Oh, sure the senses and how they work. It's like it's amazing But not just that electricity and electric electrical generation like remember that episode electricity Maybe one of our best if you ask me agreed All right, so what we what we have here are three kinds of receptor cells that they know are That that respond to this combination that makes up What msg is i'm sorry what umami is it's that uh in oscinate

The guanylate and the msg and what they think is that they actually hold on to these these compounds hold on longer Which is why you get these interesting combinations when you have like Cheese with an apple or cheese on an apple pie right it takes sweet and like doesn't just make it sweeter It makes it like sweet in a different way, right? Yeah, exactly Um, and the same thing again when when you mix together different types of either um amino acids or nucleic acids They create an umami taste they magnify this umami-ness of this is meatiness of the whole thing And um, also with I believe salty too. Yeah umami and salty mixed together

Um The fact that it it hangs on to that that molecule longer Yeah, and it just leaves that charge going then that sweet can come and go, but it's it's affected by it Food science is so interesting it is and we're going to talk a little more about food science and evolution right after this Hey friends when you're staying at an airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an airbnb And if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about lisa and manitoba Who got the idea to airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now the extra income helps pay her mortgage So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an airbnb too find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca

slash host I'm mangashatikar and to be honest I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born it's been a part of my life in india It's like smoking you might not smoke, but you're gonna get secondhand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you It got weird fast

Tantric curses major league baseball teams cancelled marriages kpop But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crash down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too Listen to skyline drive and the eye heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts All right, so here's one thing I didn't get and I reread this a few times

I get the first part of this which is as follows is that People have long thought that tastes had a part in evolution and that we were just wired to know that if you Something sweet is probably okay to eat and that will give us nutrition Something really bitter may be dangerous to eat that might be poisonous. And of course, there's exceptions to all of this Yeah, those are pretty good general rules when it comes to Evolution right that that was the evolution explanation for the sense of taste, right? Yeah, but what I don't get in is where in here does it explain the evolutionary

Method of umami like what role it played I got this you ready. Well, is it this part about cooking? Yes Oh, it was very poorly stated. It really was but it's really interesting What you realize this that so you said that umami is is like one of the newer tastes or something like that It actually is yeah, they couldn't figure out like what part did this have an evolution? No, but even before that like if you look at it evolutionarily speaking It's it's actually very old supposedly the receptors are very old like 400 million years old or something like that But the idea that we can taste umami or us tasting umami is very actually fairly recent because Umami is released by cooking food. Yeah, like if you eat a bunch of raw hamburger

That's it's not going to be umami tasting. It's not going to taste very good But you cook that hamburger and you have molecularly changed its composition You've unlocked some of the proteins into its constituent amino acids and all of a sudden you've gotten umami taste Yeah, it's like a caramelizing an onion is completely different than the taste of a raw onion or even a Just regular grilled onion. Yeah, and the big mystery of all this evolutionarily speaking is that What you're gaining or one of the biggest sources of umami taste is glutamate. Well, that's great But the human body produces tons of glutamate So it wouldn't make sense that we would have a taste receptor to find it in nature

Right because we got enough on our body. Well, you need other essential amino acids And it it figures that the best way to get amino acids is to cook Or ferment food. Yeah, you want you need you need fire because amino acids can be Be bound to proteins. Yeah, and we don't absorb them as well or our body spends a lot more energy Breaking them down and digesting them than if we cook them or if we ferment them So man advance fire man starts to cook food Man advances more rapidly. Yes, that's one of the ideas that um why our brain Developed as well as it did or we became as intelligent as we did was from cooking food

So we were able to um break down our food a lot more easily and gain from it absorb it and um Basically grow huge brains. That's awesome that it came from cooking and What where did we get omami taste from cooked or fermented food where these proteins have been broken down into much more easily absorbed Amino acid constituents. Man, I like that. I agree I feel like I just made it confusing though. Did it come across? No, it's it's totally makes sense We learn how to cook food and that put us at the the head of the evolutionary ladder, right? And umami taste comes from cooked or fermented food. Yeah Very clear

What is not clear Or maybe it is clear is msg bad for you a lot of people say it makes me dizzy or it makes my heart flutter or Or you know the msg crash after you go to the chinese food buffet. Well, there's actually something called chinese food syndrome. Yeah Not not true. Apparently. It's a myth. Supposedly supposedly culturally bound syndrome Where like very few other cultures outside of the united states or the west Even think of the idea that msg can make you sick. Yeah, and that it's apparently a psychosomatic reaction Where you expect msg is going to make you sick. So you get sick Yep, that's one explanation. Maybe your body or our bodies are just different in how we process and metabolize msg

Or maybe you have od a little bit too much of anything. It could be a bad thing. Right Could be all these things But what science is saying is There is no evidence that msg is bad for you quote unquote Right and apparently study after study found that people That you that msg doesn't cause these things. Yeah, it's it's weird. So get off the couch lazy You're just looking for an excuse to not cut the grass and so msg again. It has kind of a bad It has kind of a bad rap here in the u.s. But it's everywhere and it was actually one of the first things that um

Akita. Yeah, professor akita Did was he figured out a way to patent Extracting monosodium glutamate from wheat Which is where it's how much more abundantly than in like kelp and package it into a seasoning And he had no ill will he's like this is great. This can make That boring dish like tastes better right that healthy boring dish tastes better. Exactly So it's not it's ironic then that people think it's bad for you And in fact when he packaged it he was like this is going to be good for you

Yeah, it's going to make this thing that's good for you taste even better and our country is going to be very healthy, right? Yeah, but it's hard to find you said it wasn't everything but it's disguised and ingredients Yeah, but again stealthily because msg has a bad rap here in the west. Yeah, they should just put msg Right, they they do sometimes for the most part though. They will call it something like hydrolyzed wheat protein Yeah, because remember it can be extracted from wheat. Um, sometimes they'll call it just natural flavors Yeah, because all these things are natural. Exactly. Uh, what else texturized vegetable protein? Yeah, autolyze yeast extract, right? Uh, yeah, or just natural flavor. So if you see that that can be a lot of things though But just natural flavors. Sure. Yeah

You don't know what you're eating. No, but There are some upsides to using this msg It's actually it actually can be used in the way that professor akeda envisioned it Which is taking stuff and making it slightly healthier actually when you have When you use certain like a potassium chloride rather than sodium chloride. Yeah to make msg. You can actually replace the sodium in um A dish So if you have a sodium problem

You can use some of this stuff. Yeah, or hey, how about that? Uh, low fat food that didn't taste so good Add a little msg. It tastes better Right, although recent medical research suggests that you should be not eating low fat food that Regular fat food is not bad for you or hey old person You don't taste so good anymore And you take medication that even dampens that right? Why don't you throw some msg on there? Why don't you old person taste buds back to life? Right? You know, yes

So chuck, um, whether msg is a bad wrap or not. It's definitely all over the place Uh, and it is making things taste good in my opinion. Umami's here to stay It is but there's other ways to to get an umami flavor out of food And this this article actually has some helpful tips for your cooking if you want to go and cook and get an Umami taste you ever been to umami burger? No, I haven't it sounds awesome. It's good. I like it It sounds like an la you can make one at home With some mushrooms. Yeah umami burger is a chain

I don't know where they have them, but I had it in los angeles and they add A powdered mushroom and seaweed to the beef with a little soy sauce You don't even know what you're eating except that it tastes good, right? You know, you're like, hmm. I could detect the mushroom and seaweed in this burger All right, it's just umami flavored umami. Um, and you know, it's interesting. There's this, uh I think it's called like umami information

Dot com or something like that. Really interesting site, but they point out that um While you associate umami with uh asian cooking It's actually found all over the world. Sure like in italy with tomato sauces. Yeah and ketchup in the united states in cheeses in europe um in west africa They have something called um Oh, what is it called sombara? I think it's kind of like a miso in west africa That sounds kind of delicious. Yeah sombala

That sounds good. I just like the sounds of it. Exactly So it's it's interesting that like people have been cooking with umami stuff long before we ever knew the word umami Um, and it's been around the world too Uh Caramelizing onions we mentioned in like butter right nothing better Um, what else? Um, you can put parmesan cheese rinds into a super stew and it'll umami that thing up Oh, that's a good one. Um, if you're making a stock Use bones of an animal

And supposedly you're not against that kind of thing the guy who invented veal stock Is reputed to have believed that there was a fifth taste that had yet been unidentified Back in the 19th century. He's like, I've just boiled this calf He's like there's something there's something going on here besides the the the big four Wow, nobody believed him Uh, if you're cooking with mushrooms and I recommend this with all vegetables roast those things a little bit first It brings out all kinds of flavors and it makes your brain bigger like if you if you go to make an omelet Don't just throw raw

Peppers and stuff in there Cook that stuff up a little bit on the side Then add that to the egg mixture It makes the world of difference. Yeah, you know, yeah I'm big on my omelets everybody should watch internet roundup Just just to get an idea of what like our little justiculations are Like when you're talking about like cooking peppers on the side and throw them in there like just the you're making very cute Little hand gestures over there. Well, I always joke with Emily. I'm gonna open an omelet stand on the beach one day

It's my retirement job. She's like why an omelet stand on the beach. I was like because no one's ever done it No, they really haven't you ever go to the beach you're laying there in the hot sun. You know, like I could use an omelet Every time I think I just want my retirement job to be very slow-paced and not busy Right, that's what I think and you'll get to eat omelets. You got anything else Um No, cooking with wine is a good one too. Yeah, that's umami city Um, no, just go forth and try Umamiing up your dishes and you will be happy

You will be happy. Say us. It's it'll be an indefinable quality But you'll know it's umami. Yes There should be something about it I can't put my finger on it. You'll say this stuff is umai Which again means delicious roughly in Japanese. Oh my if you want to know more about umami You can type that word in the search bar at howstuffworks.com Uh, and since I said umami, it's time again for a listener mail I'm just gonna call this a nice simple. Thank you

For the listener. Those are nice. Uh, sometimes it is nice, you know, yeah This is from Meredith from Granite Falls, Minnesota And she's just thanking us because she has a boring summer job She said I work at a hospital and I scan a bunch of old files into an external hard drive That's what I do is I remove a lot of staples stare at the scanner and I wait for it to be done Over and over You imagine there. It's like, oh, we need to digitize all these records Let's hire someone to do that

Uh, so job creators. Yeah, so god bless you Meredith for doing that Uh, I found listening to eight hours of music just wasn't doing the trick anymore Then I discovered the wonderful world of podcast and you guys are my all time babes Now you guys are so funny and I love all the dumb jokes you make. I don't know if they're dumb I think like groundbreaking is a better way. Yeah Uh, they really make my day guys and even if I don't understand all the tangents you go off on because I'm only 21 And don't understand most of these references you make the movies or pop culture things from decades gone by Uh, I still enjoy that the podcast is more of a conversation between you guys than just strictly reading from a script

Oh, yeah, we don't even have a script Clearly that would be the worst script ever One of these days I'll have a real story to share directly related to a recent show But for now, I just want to say thank you so much and keep up the amazing work That is uh, best wishes from Meredith Meredith. Thank you And she's a post script that says I absolutely love it when josh, uh, josh calls chuck chuckers Don't even know why just makes me smile Nice

Just has a ring chuckers. It's a fun word. It is. It's like umami Well, we said umami a lot. I wonder how many times I don't know. We should have an umami counter on the website You know Yeah, that'd be cool. I don't know if we are familiar with the technology that could do that though And at the end it just turns into a big pile of uh, salty dried fish guts I seriously am making some top notch miso soup. I've been inspired to oh you're gonna make it from your own stock and everything

Yeah, yeah, I've gotten pretty good at um Hot and sour soup. Yeah, but I make it from a mix and just add some stuff to it. This I'm going to make from like dashi and miso from scratch Well, I'm not gonna like ferment the soybeans or anything like that. Are you gonna make your own dashi? No, I'm gonna buy dashi. You should make your own dashi. I'm not gonna make my own dashi Do you know how bad my apartment smell if I like fermented and then boil down fish? Just to make the stock you need a crazy you need a spice kitchen

I do need a spice kitchen now that you mentioned it. Yeah Um, no, but I will let you know how the miso soup turns out. All right, okay If you want to get in touch with us you can tweet to us at syskpodcast You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff. You should know You can send us an email to stuff podcast at howstuffworks.com and as always join us at our home on the web Stuff you should know.com For more on this and thousands of other topics visit howstuffworks.com I'm munga shatigler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe

You can find it in major league baseball international banks k-pop groups even the white house But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject Something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too Listen to skyline drive on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, I'm lance bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with lance bass Do you ever think to yourself what advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush

boy bander each week to guide you through life tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye. Bye Listen to frosted tips with the lance bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts