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Impurities. Presumably desirable ones. Kind of like using maple syrup or molasses to replace sugar.

Chefs have been bumping up the umami content of dishes pretty much forever with 'natural' ingredients; the only thing that has really changed is the deliberateness of it and in some cases recognizing there are alternative sources which can make the dish go in other directions.

Wino,

So that article would support my hypothesis that there's no such thing as an all-around "supertaster", just people who are sensitive to specific compounds (and people who can't taste them at all).

Mind you, with 6 billion people in the world, odds are there's at least *one* person who is sensitive to everything. Sucks to be them.

I don't mind umani ingredients where they makes sense to me, i.e. tomato paste in meditteranean dishes, fish oil in Asian, parmesan rind in soup, etc. That's my style of cooking. I think tapenade without anchovy paste (I don't use the real stuff, personal preference) and in beef pizzaola make the dish, they taste flat without the anchovies. Hmmm, same with burgers, so there blows my first sentence.
I'd probably never make the soup from Kenji, but then again we are not vegan/vegetarian so there'd be no need.

I don't mind them either....when they make sense. I like fish sauce in Thai food, soy, blank bean, brown bean and sesame oil in Asian applications, mushrooms in my stroganoff and beef burgundy, and tomato paste in tomato based dishes. Heck, I even don't mind anchovies in moderation when they make sense (like many Italian dishes)....although they're not my favorite thing in the world. It's just that CI is sticking these same ingredients in virtually everything lately (even DH who tends not to notice these things remarked that they seem to be on a kick). Yesterday's episode was turkey burgers, made with mushrooms, soy sauce, anchovies, baking powder, AND gelatin (they were on a roll) all to make them taste "meaty". I'm going to stick with their previous version that used ricotta and herbs. They were pretty darned juicy and good without all that extra stuff.

I thought about this post when I made CI's Daube Provencal yesterday - it's one of my top 5 CI recipes. I hadn't realized what an umami bomb it was - tomato paste, dried mushrooms, anchovies, tomatoes, almost everything by fish sauce. But it does work well - and I've never had anyone not love it (assuming, of course, they love beef).

I made it, like, two days before this post went up. I think Daube Provençal was an U-bomb way before anyone started dropping them.

CC has a recipe for it in the slow-cooker this month, but no anchovies!?!

I just made a Jamie Oliver stew that was awesome, but shouldn't have been. Not a single obvious umami bomb in sight, and you don't even brown the meat. You sauté onion, carrots and celery in oil, toss in a heaping tbsp of flour and the raw beef, put in a tin of diced tomatoes and a can of Guinness, and simmer covered for 2 1/2 hours and uncovered for 1/2 hour. Super easy and DH said it was his favorite stew yet. I topped it cottage pie style with mashed potatoes. It was from his food revolution cookbook. I was super impressed at the flavour it offered with such minimal work. It was as dark and flavourful as any stew I have ever made. I will definitely make it again.

Maybe Guinness is an umami bomb?

Guiness may not be an umami bomb, but it is a flavor building ingredient that utilizes alcohol and bitter compounds to achieve much the same result as tomato paste, anchovy paste, soy sauce, red wine, and stock.

It seemed to be the combination of the Guinness and the tomatoes which gave it such good flavour. Which is funny, because I was not a fan of CI's beef and Guinness stew (which I thought was bitter from the beer).

I had the same opinion of the stew.