Dashi: Japanese stock bases

In Western cuisines cooks use chicken, veal or beef broth for the base of many dishes. In Buddhist Japan meat consumption was banned so people had to look elsewhere. This is how in Japanese cuisine we now have three basic stocks (dashi):

1. shiitake (mushroom)
   
2. konbu (seaweed)
   
3. katsuobushi (fish)

They give Japanese food that unmistakable flavour, just a refined hint of natural decay, inherently connected to the aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi, transience of all creation.

All these basic stocks naturally contain glutamic acid that is responsible for the taste we associate with savoury foods like meat, cheese or mushrooms. In Oriental cuisines this constitutes the seventh taste (umami, xianwei) in addition to sweet, sour, salty, spicy, tart and bitter.

When isolated, a derivative of glutamic acid, the naturally occurring monosodium glutamate, aka MSG, is used to enhance tastes of food. In the late 80s, it was demonized in the US media as causing the so-called "Chinese restaurant syndrome". In fact, no evidence but anecdotal has ever been found to back that claim. In fact, at the time America found itself in the midst of the Yellow Peril hysteria, searching for a new enemy to replace the Red Peril of the Soviets. Before the extremely convenient myth of War on Terror emerged, Japan and China became the "enemies du jour". In line with this, ubiquitous Chinese takeaways were chosen for a smear campaign. Despite scientific research that disavowed this myth it has persisted in public opinion to this day.

There is one secret however to correct usage of ajinomoto as MSG is commercially known: add it at the very end of cooking and try to avoid rewarming. Actually the same applied to preparing all Japanese dashi from scratch: the broth never reaches the boiling point! Glutamic acid is a natural amino acid and gets destroyed by high heat: this is how overcooking actually kills taste.

These days hardly anyone prepare dashi from scratch though. Imagine having to make broth every time before you start cooking a meal! Katsuobushi stock is sold in granules as in the picture but I make konbu and shiitake stocks myself. I just bring water with a few pieces of konbu to about 90 degrees or soak dried shiitake in water overnight. I use both to cook Western food too as it adds a whole dimension to the taste!