For years, we've all known that our taste buds can detect four independent tastes: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Well, we were wrong; there are five tastes. The research has finally progressed to a point that I'm happy to add umami to my vocabulary. MSG tastes good, not because it is sweet, sour, bitter or salty, but because our taste buds can detect the glutamates directly.

This is going to affect the way I think about food considerably. I've always adjusted the flavours of my cooking to account for four detectable tastes, and now I have to consider umami.