ChineseCookingDemystified
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On Using MSG
🕑 Added 2018-04-25 07:29:30 +0000 UTC So there's something that I kinda wanted to get off my chest about MSG.And no, it's not about the so-called 'health concerns' - I think the controversy surrounding those are well documented. Depending on your media diet, you either believe (1) MSG is dangerous but those dangers are hidden due to an FDA conspiracy to allow more junk food or (2) 'sensitivity to MSG' is a nocebo with a sordid past rooted in pseudoscience and thinly veiled racism.
It's worth noting that there's an undercurrent of people in China that also believe that MSG is harmful. That said, we strongly subscribe to that latter interpretation of reality - i.e. that MSG is as harmless as salt. I think Chef David Chang explains why pretty well in this lecture:
https://youtu.be/ji74pUeMayg?t=31s
But health concerns aside, there's something that stands out about that lecture: even though Chang (rightfully, in our opinion) implores the audience that MSG isn't harmful, he still doesn't use the ingredient himself.
I've seen this sort of thing in the writings of Kian Lam Kho and Fuschia Dunlop as well - they'll have a little blurb about how MSG sensitivity is a myth, talk a little bit about how it's overused by some chefs, and then proceed to say how they therefore never use it in their recipes.
How weird is that? I think Bacon's overused by some chefs in the USA. Would the next logical thing be to say, "therefore, we should never use bacon ever?" Of course not!
On the same token, we get a lot of people on the channel that say things like "no real chef uses MSG, the goal of the chef is to bring out the natural flavors of the ingredient". But taking that line of thinking to its logical conclusion... maybe when seasoning we should be reaching for seawater instead of salt, and when thickening using cubes of potatoes instead of potato starch!
See, there's this line of thinking out there that "MSG = magical yummy crystals" that I think leads to some strange misconceptions even among people that have no problem with it. On reddit, I'll sometimes see people saying how you should 'use it in anything and everything, like salt' which... isn't exactly the best way to use it either. I mean, MSG's rather strong and has a pretty distinctive taste.
There's three primary ways that we use MSG. These aren't hard and fast rules or anything, but I think they're decent guidelines:
To balance spicy food. Umami (along with sweetness) balances the heat from spicy food really, really well. And while sure, you could also use naturally umami rich ingredients, sometimes you don't want any confounding flavors. MSG is to umami what white vinegar is to sourness. Of these three uses of MSG, this's the one that you can go a little more liberal in your use of the ingredient.
To bring out the natural umami of umami rich ingredients. If you know what you're looking for, the umami of, say, a good soy sauce or fish sauce is pretty obvious. What's less obvious is the umami in stuff like napa cabbage and broccoli. Try this next summer when you get your hands on a really ripe tomato: eat a slice of tomato normally, and eat a slice of tomato with 1-2 crystals of MSG on it. The tomato will actually taste more 'tomato-y'!
To replace the missing umami of soy sauce if you wanna preserve the color of a dish. Take something like the 'Singapore' Fried Rice noodles we made - we really wanted to preserve that yellow color from the curry powder/tumeric, but soy sauce'd have the potential to muff that up. A touch of MSG helps make up for the 'missing' soy sauce without darking things up.
So right, that's just a few thoughts. What're your thoughts on MSG? Use it deliberately, liberally, or abstain?
Comments
Cool---your extension of my analogy is indeed more precise. And totally: the singling out of MSG is totally irrational.
Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas
I really like your photoshop analogy. But to extend the analogy if I can, I think it would be more if a photographer insisted that one specific function within photoshop was beyond pale - e.g. they already photoshopped extensively, but refused to touch saturation. I suppose what gets me is that most Western chefs wouldn't bat an eye using, say... baking soda. Further, we live in a world where people are doing all sorts of insane things with molecular gastronomy and getting celebrated for it - why is it MSG that gets singled out as the thing that's 'cheating'?
Damit....there is something strange in the way this comment function works: when I try to make a paragraph break I hit the normal key for that, but it doesnt start a new paragraph but posts whatever I had typed in so far. I also dont see any button to actually finish and post a moment...strange. What I actually wanted to add, is: The reason why even such chefs who know that MSG is not bad per se would say they never use it may me professional pride, like a top photographer might say they never photoshop their works, despite the fact that some photoshopping can of course add quality.
Way too late, but just these comments: I can see how and why MSG got its bad rep, and most is originally rascism and then turning into nocebo effect. I have been eating at many chinese restaurants and surely ate a lot of MSG without ever getting any bad effects, so the stuff surely is not problematic in itself. Then I like peanuts and never got any bad effects, but other people die of it through anaphylactic shock. I think the rational estimation would be: individuals can react badly to *everything*, including MSG, so one should neither demonise it, nor exlude the possibility that some people react badly to it.
