On Food and Cooking

each other and with MSG: a very small
amount of each strengthens the other’s
taste. Sensory scientists are still working to
understand the nature of these effects.
A year after Ikeda’s discovery, the
Japanese company Ajinomoto began
selling pure MSG as a seasoning,
extracting it from the wheat gluten proteins
that are a rich source of glutamate and in
fact gave it its name. It caught on quickly,
first with cooks in Japan and China and
then with food manufacturers throughout
the world. Ajinomoto is now a large
multinational corporation; it and other
companies produce MSG by the ton using
bacteria that synthesize large amounts and
excrete it into the liquid they grow in.
Beginning in the late 1960s, MSG was
blamed for the “Chinese restaurant
syndrome,” in which distressing sensations
of burning, pressure, and chest pain
suddenly strike susceptible people who