Mark: 1:29

Good morning, mark. Hey Francis, how are you this morning? Feeling great. Feeling great. Well,

Francis: 1:34

I'm feeling great too. I'll tell you today, one of the things that I wanna talk about is vinegar. Vinegar. Mm-hmm. You get more flies with honey, you know? So, so, but I don't want flies, eh? Just the king of the cliche this morning.

Mark: 1:49

I had a little bit for you there. Super duper. You. I was ready for you, wasn't I? You did.

Francis: 1:52

That was good. Uh, you know, I was reading Food and Wine Magazine, which is a great magazine Absolutely. That we both enjoy. Um. And there was an article by Paula Wolfert on vinegar. Mm-hmm. And it really struck, uh, a note, I know a number of people who make their own vinegars. Well, I don't, I don't

Mark: 2:09

know if you know this, but way back when, when my great grandmother as a young. Girl with her mother came over mm-hmm. To the United States. Mm-hmm. From Italy. One of the things that they carried with them was what's called the mother, the mother vinegar. And they brought their big vinegar pots with them. And my, actually my aunt still has'em, they're still in, tip top condition. And they're the vinegar pots because that was. Important part of their culture was your own vinegar and, your own house style of vinegar. My

Francis: 2:40

great-grandmother came over with a potato and we keep the potato on the mantle piece still. Excellent. Well, its' sprouted now. We actually

Mark: 2:49

had vinegar and, and, uh, but seriously, your house style of vinegar, I mean, it was. It was as integral to your cooking and your style of cooking, as was any other ingredient that you would use. And I mean, they cared enough to bring this on the boat with them when they came over in a, I mean, it's a Francis, when I tell you it is a giant pot. It's gotta be. the equivalent of 30 quartz, 40 quart pot. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. To carry the vinegar in the, the mother and, and 40 quart vinegar. 10 gallons, maybe It's big. About 10 gallons. Well, I was thinking 30 T, 40 t actually, actually Mark 40 quartz is exactly 10 gallons. Hold on, I gotta do some math. Yeah. Okay. 40 quartz is 10 gallons. How many gallons is 30 Quartz? Smart guy.

Francis: 3:32

Less than, less than 10. Um, that'd be 9, 8, 7 and a half gallons. Um, okay. It's nice to see that your math skills are the same as ever. Um, vinegar is amazing. Now we have a situation whether it's 30

Mark: 3:48

quarts or 40 quarts. Exactly. It's still

Francis: 3:49

amazing. Well, you bring up a good point though. We have available to us in the United States some great balsamic vinegars. These are the fine artisanal expensive vinegars that are, are not the stuff you, A lot of the stuff you find is your market shelf isn't very good. But, but really great vinegar is available.

Mark: 4:07

What's, and those balsamic vinegars are aged over a long, long period. The good ones one, not the good ones. Right. Not the stuff on the supermarket.

Francis: 4:13

A lot of the stuff on the supermarket shelf that's marked balsamic vinegar is a real ripoff. Um, but if it says balsamic vinegar of modina, and it also is from Italy mm-hmm. Um, you're, you're more likely to get a better vinegar.

Mark: 4:24

You need to check both of those things. Look for the word modina, and then also look for the word Italy

Francis: 4:29

and, you have a good shot of getting it, a decent vinegar, but there are all ranges of Quality, but what most people would use in, in vinegar, not just for the acid. And, and we're taught. And if you take basic cooking, you'll, you'll understand that people use vinegar to provide an acidic component to a dish that needs acid. But that's not all it's for, um, you know, great red wine vinegar in particular. And wine vinegar in particular has complexities. Similar to wine. Mm-hmm. I mean, you don't drink it because we don't wanna drink that much acidic acid, which is the acid and vinegar. Um, but it can add a tremendous amount of complexity and richness to dishes, not just dressings, to marinades, to all sorts of things to de glazing a pan. And you can make vinegar at home. And that's what this article by Paula Wolfert was all about. It talked about, um, making vinegar at home and it's not that difficult. I think you may be able to find this article if you go to food and wine.com, uh, maybe food and wine.com/wolfert. We'll

Mark: 5:25

try, we'll try and link you to it if, if it's still available to us.

Francis: 5:28

But what you need to make vinegar at home is, is you need a warm place where you can put vinegar.'cause it It takes months actually to make vinegar. It takes about two and a half months to make something decent and, and can be even longer. And the way that it works is you take red wine, people use cider and stuff, but red wine mm-hmm. Or wine makes the best vinegar and, and you have a mother, Sherry

Mark: 5:50

actually also makes some, right. Well that's

Francis: 5:52

a type CL wine. Absolutely. you take what's called a mother. The mother is what converts the wine into vinegar. you keep coming back to the mother and it goes through the mother and you can, the mother will, well, it

Mark: 6:04

does, it takes it and it makes it a more controlled, changing to, to acid. Yeah. And in that way you can, while the vinegar will indeed be different, every single time you make it, you'll have, you'll develop kind of a house style of vinegar

Francis: 6:16

and mother, like a particular mother in. Imparts this particular kind of flavor. So it has to do with what kind of wine you put in it and what kind of mother you have. And then depending on what you, what kind of wine you put in, it will change. The mother will

Mark: 6:30

change the mother over time. Exactly. These

Francis: 6:31

mothers can last 40, 50, 60, 80, 90 years, theoretically forever, like a starter, you know? And so what you, when your great-grandmother came over from Italy, the mother was fairly dry, but she, she. That mother was then used again when they got over here. Absolutely. I,

Mark: 6:46

I'm certain that, that, you know, would be seized by customs today. You would not be able to bring the, the mother over. Yeah. You probably can't do that, can you?

Francis: 6:54

But what happens is also the thing about making a vinegar in your house, um, it uses the ambient. Uh, the, the microorganisms, the spores, the microorganisms that are in the air, the micro flo are in the air. So if, if I make vinegar in my house and Mark makes the mo vinegar with the same mother and the same wine in his house, it's gonna taste slightly different. Yeah. Mostly.'cause my house is cleaner than yours. Yeah. Could be. But mine may be better for vinegar than yours. Um, and so the idea of, you know, it's funny'cause I have a, uh, if you're, if you're a wine lover. Making your own vinegar is tremendous. Now it takes about two and a half months and you leave it in a cheesecloth covered, open, top container, someplace between 70 and 80 degrees for two and a half months because you can't close the top. It's an aerobic reaction. Mm-hmm. It's not an anaerobic reaction, but if you're a wine lover. This is very often a way to take wine on the second day or the third day or the day after. You don't want, like, it wasn't good enough. You had a half a bottle left, you had a quarter bottle left, you had a little bit left in the glass. You put this into your, your vinegar, and as long as you. My friend Peter Schleimer, is a big, is a Austrian, restaurant critic, wine writer, food writer, and he has an amazing, amazing 20-year-old vinegar collection. Various mothers kept in various places because he gets these wine samples sent to his house all the time. Mm-hmm. And so he has a million half full bottles of wine.

Mark: 8:15

Something I'll tell you about making vinegar is that, you know, if you use some really interesting, really good wines in it, you have, you have a higher chance of getting really interesting, really good vinegar.

Francis: 8:26

And what Peter always says though, he says, you have to take care of your mother. Because, you know, and it's a joke, right? Mm-hmm. You have to take care of your mother, but you need to take care of the mother and keep it alive. And you, if you have, he has several mothers going there, it has to keep in several places.'cause they'll cross contaminate each other if they're in the same room. But he makes vinegars. And what I, what I, when he comes from Austria, what I love when he brings me as a present, can you do me a favor? Not use the word contaminate anymore when you're talking about my CROs, uh, whatever. But he brings, he brings me different vinegars. And his vinegars are because he gets these great wines. Delivered to his home that he needs to professionally rate and review. But he is like, I can't, you know, drink them all. We're not

Mark: 8:58

gonna drink 30 bottles of wine in one night. He has

Francis: 9:00

iced wine vinegar. I mean, he has vinegars made from$75 bottles of wine or the remnants of$75 bottles of wine. These things are incredible. Mm-hmm. And you know, the, I use them all the time and frankly, these incredible vinegars, sometimes I'll just put some on top of a roast beef sandwich. Yeah. Amazing. Right. And sometimes I'll use them in my cooking and. Just, just amazing. My guess is about

Mark: 9:21

two and a half months you might wanna come to one of our restaurants and

Francis: 9:25

see what kind of vinegar we're using. Mark's gonna call up his aunt and try and get that vinegar, uh, the vinegar pot over. Absolutely. And I'm gonna call Peter and see if I can bring some mother in my pocket from, would the law. Yeah, you would never do that. Well, if I got my fingers dirty and just didn't wash them until I got back here, would that still be a good law? I don't think that works. Alright, we're gonna talk about sweet. I don't want your fingers because nevermind. We're gonna talk about sweeter things in vinegar in just a moment. You're listening to the restaurant guys, Our guest today is Rowan Jacobson. Rowan is the former managing editor of Heat, the Healing Arts Press, and a longtime health writer. He's the author of Chocolate Unwrapped, the Surprising Health Benefits of America's Favorite Passion, and he joins us today to discuss well, food in general, but specifically a great article that Mark and I found, um. Uh, in the Art of Eating on Umami. Rowan, welcome to the show.

Rowan: 10:13

Thanks for having me.

Francis: 10:14

So, Rowan, um, first of all, we love the Art of Eating. That's really a cool publication that you're involved with. We had, uh, ed Bear on the show recently talking about it just last week. And uh, you can go to our website out there and listen to land if you want, subscribe. It's a, it's a food quarterly. They do in-depth articles on, on various things about food. It's great. Uh, the art of eating.com. Now, Why don't you tell us? Why don't you tell our audience actually what umami is?

Rowan: 10:38

Umami is the a fifth taste that we all have. We, we all grew up learning that we had, uh, four different types of taste buds that could detect.

Mark: 10:47

I'm pretty much, I'm pretty sure that's what Mrs. Story said in second grade. There you go. Four tastes

Rowan: 10:52

on that, that el, that segment on, uh, taste in second grade when we learned about salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. But it turns out that we have a fifth. Taste Bud. That detects what's called umami. And the reason I have a name like Umami is because it was first identified in Japan, uh, by a, a researcher there about a hundred years ago. And, uh, what it basically is, is a,

Mark: 11:18

so, hold on, Rowan. If it was identified a hundred years ago, why were my textbooks in the seventies? was it not included?

Rowan: 11:24

Well, we in the west were a little slow to, uh, to catch on again. It's a, um, yeah, again, it, it's, it's basically a, um, what's been described as a brothy or a savory taste.

Speaker 4: 11:34

Mm-hmm.

Rowan: 11:35

Like if you, um, if you picture the, uh, the flavor of, of chicken stock mm-hmm. Or a beef stock mm-hmm. And take away the saltiness of it, what's left is, is pretty much the essence of umami. But, uh, this, this food researcher in Japan, in, I think it was 1907, he, um, he was drinking a bowl of Doshi, which is. The, the stock that they usually use in Japan

Speaker 4: 12:01

mm-hmm. Which

Rowan: 12:01

is just has two ingredients, kelp and, um, dried tuna flakes.

Speaker 4: 12:05

Mm-hmm.

Rowan: 12:06

And it had a flavor that, that he felt was not salt, sour, sweet, or bitter. It was something distinctly different. And he, uh, he ana analyze, he decided that the kelp was what was really responsible for that. So he analyzed the kelp and discovered an amino acid in the kelp called glutamate. Which was what was providing that fifth taste. He called it umami, which is in Japan, pretty much means delicious, the essence of deliciousness. And he actually then founded a company that began manufacturing a, a powdered version of glutamate called Monosodium glutamate, or as we call it, MSG.

Francis: 12:46

Oh, that's mss. G'S got a bad rap. Yeah.

Rowan: 12:49

MSG is pure umami.

Mark: 12:51

connotations of MSG is that it's bad. It's bad for you, gives you headaches. Every bad Chinese restaurant uses way too much of it. What's the skinny,

Rowan: 12:59

all right. Here's the skinny people. A few people decided that they had had headaches or dizziness after eating in Chinese restaurants way back in I the thirties or the forties. And they said, what's up with this? And. Somebody decided maybe it was the MSG that was already at that time, traditionally added to a lot of Chinese foods, simply because Chinese chefs were familiar with MSG and it hadn't really come west yet.

Mark: 13:26

And just as far as those, the Westerners who might, uh, places you would find MSG, there's a product on the market called accent that'll, that, used to be on, in every kitchen, just about, I think. And accent is, is MSG.

Rowan: 13:40

Right. It's about four-fifths, m mssg, and one-fifth salt. So how

Francis: 13:44

so, so how did we get, A couple of people decided they got dizzy and they blamed it on the MSG just'cause that was the thing that was unfamiliar to them in the kitchen. Is that what that was?

Rowan: 13:51

Right. And well, they thought maybe MSG was responsible. So this German researcher took a bunch of rats and injected them with huge syringes of, of monosodium glutamate. And sure enough, the rats got sick.

Francis: 14:03

Well, I guess if you inject a little rat with a huge syringe of just about anything, it's not gonna be too, too, uh, helpful.

Rowan: 14:08

Right? If he had, if he had injected them with that much sugar or salt, the rats probably would've just flat out died,

Francis: 14:13

Uhhuh.

Speaker 4: 14:13

Um,

Rowan: 14:14

so, so anyway, people decided that MSG was responsible for this and, and, uh, despite a lot of evidence since then, it hasn't really been possible to turn the public around. But all the research that's been done seems to show that MSG. It's completely safe unless, you know, you inject yourself with a huge syringe of it and no one's advocating that right now.

Francis: 14:36

Now, now let, can it be overdone though? Can, can, can a, a restaurant that has powdered MSG just use too much of it? And, and what happens if they do? Or is it totally benign?

Rowan: 14:47

Um, it's, it is benign in terms of health. But for flavor. Flavor, no, it's as with salt. It, it's useful to think of, of umami. As, as we would salt a little of it makes everything else taste better. It heightens the flavor of all the other tastes and aromas that are in a dish, too much of it, and it starts to kill the flavor and take over and, and really flatten out the dish.

Mark: 15:12

But at the same time, you could, if you have too much salt, you don't feel good.

Rowan: 15:16

Right, right. Salt's actually a lot more dangerous. Mm-hmm.

Francis: 15:19

Well, this again, we're talking about umami, which is the fifth taste and, umami is, is something that we've identified in the West only recently, and chefs have an inherent. knowledge of umami and how to use it and, and, and making dishes and putting things together. We're gonna be talking more about that.

Mark: 15:34

I, I have a very funny story about chefs who overuse MSG. So, Rowan, we recently took over an establishment that was formerly a Chinese restaurant. We put, built an Italian restaurant in it instead. And, uh, one of the things that we found, and now this, this restaurant was, had all over its paperwork. No, MSG. No MSG. We don't use MSG well, we walked up into the kitchen of this particular establishment and what we found were three 100 pound barrels of MSG. So I, I think they might not have been telling the truth. It could have made the whole r and river taste better for three days.

Rowan: 16:07

That's true. It would've been pretty brothy, isn't

Mark: 16:09

it? Three 100 pound barrels of what I thought was, isn't one 100 pound barrel enough? That's, that's a little heavy hand with the MSG,

Rowan: 16:16

but you know, actually western western chefs may not real. They're, they're doing the same, they're using umami, um, the same way, just in maybe, you know, slightly more natural, sophisticated forms such as anchovies, Parmesan cheese.

Francis: 16:29

Well, that's what I want to talk about, right? So umami doesn't just come from the powdered form of umami. when we wanna infuse our, our dishes with the flavor of umami. Where else does it come from? What na what, what things do we put in our food? And whether we know it or not, we're trying to impart that umami flavor.

Rowan: 16:44

the classic places that you get a lot of umami is in the condiments. Parmesan cheese, Romano cheese that you grate on, on dishes and cho's soy sauce.

Mark: 16:55

Mm-hmm. It seems that every culture though, has their own umami. That that is ubiquitous.

Rowan: 17:01

Right. And the ubiquitous source of umami in the United States is ketchup.

Francis: 17:06

Ah, sauce. America can, yes. Well, well, is that from the tomatoes? Is that where the umami comes from?

Rowan: 17:12

Yeah. Uh, vegetables don't tend to have as much umami as some other products, but. Tomatoes are the highest of any vegetables. So you take, in fact, ketchup is kind of a, a, an ideal combination of all the, the flavors you've got, the umami and sweetness from the tomato. Mm-hmm. You've got salt, you've got some sour in there.

Francis: 19:16

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I have to, I was, I was, uh, I spent a little time in the south of Portugal and I went to, to go to this Canadian bar, and I would go get a, um, something to eat in there every once in a while. My friend Kurt and I were there many, many years ago, and the bartender would say they, they'd see us come in and they had these stupid little bottles of ketchup and we'd use like two bottles every time we had dinner there. And like, more Salsa American, they back Um, talking with Rowan Jacobson about. Umami the fifth flavor, and, and there are all sorts of ways that we need to know about how we use umami or glutamate. That's not necessarily modest sodium glutamate, our own cuisine and how we, how we can use it to enhance our food and how important it is. And you're using it, whether you know it or not, so you better know how to use it, right? You're listening to the restaurant guys, today. Our guest is Rowan Jacobson. He's the former managing editor of The Healing Arts Press and a longtime health writer. He's the author of Chocolate Unwrapped, the Surprising Health Benefits of America's Favorite Passion, and he joins us today to discuss an article he wrote on Umami the Fifth Taste that he recently published in The Art of Eating. We were talking. Before the news about how umami is imparted, sometimes the, the simplest way to do it is to use monosodium glutamate, but umami that meaty flavor, that that fifth flavor, um, comes to your food through a number of different sources. We talked about tomatoes being un unusual in that it's a vegetable with a lot of umami flavor. Are there meats? Are all meats. They have umami or they have different parts of umami.

Rowan: 20:31

All meats have some umami. What, what? Umami is really a taste for protein in a way. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4: 20:36

It's,

Rowan: 20:36

but it's rather than protein and it's, and it's healthy. Live form it. It's a taste for protein that has been broken down in one way or another. Mm-hmm. Either by through long cooking or through fermentation or through drying it and, and aging it. Anything that, that really beats up that protein starts to break it down into the amino acids that's made of,

Mark: 20:58

so mom is not present in a raw piece of chicken.

Rowan: 21:01

Right. Raw chicken. Raw beef isn't gonna have. Uh, umami, but once you, once you age it, or if you, if you cook it for a long time, do it. Or even as, as the animal gets older, it starts to develop a little as its own body starts to break down. But then you start to get that savoriness that we all like.

Francis: 21:19

So basically you're talking about on a molecular level, when the protein breaks down, you get, you know, incomplete molecules that are, you're, that you know, light up your taste. So for instance, when you're, when

Mark: 21:30

you're aging beef for 14 days, you're, you're creating umami,

Rowan: 21:33

right? It's pro some of the proteins that is the muscle of the beef. Starts to break apart into its constituent amino acids. And that tastes really good to us for some reason.

Francis: 21:43

Uh, I, you know, it, it, it is that sort of taste of protein. You, you mentioned a couple of of other things, uh, that different, different cultures have different ubiquitous sources of umami, you know, that may not be seaweed, but you talk about prosciutto and you talk about parmesano, ano and anchovies. Um, one of the things that you mentioned in your article, which I thought was. Uh, is it is, it is a great part of food history. It's kind of agro. A gross part of food history is, um, is we love those gross parts of food, food history, ancient Romans. You reference, um, uh, the garum that was the sauce that ancient Romans used as we use ketchup in America today. Can you tell us about Garum

Rowan: 22:18

Garum? Um, yeah. The Romans and the Greeks before them had a sauce, which is pretty, is is similar to the fish sauce that's used in Asian cultures today. Basically they would take a lot of, of little fish, anchovies, sardines, that type of fish. And keep them in the sun and let them just ferment in the sun for quite a while.

Francis: 22:37

Yeah. Ferment and rot are very close when you're talking about fish, aren't they? Yeah. You know, and, and they would just make a sauce out of the. Bloody remains

Rowan: 22:47

eventually. Yeah. All, all the, the guts, uh, it would just break down into this black liquid and they drain the black liquid off and, and they put it on absolutely everything. Those ancient Roman cookbooks call for it in, in pretty much every dish.

Francis: 22:59

Have you ever had anything like it?

Rowan: 23:00

Well, I've had a fish sauce. In fact, since I started researching umami, I've been using a lot more fish sauce, which is made the same way. I think it's, it's got a little bit less guts in it and a little bit more. Just fish. Mm-hmm. But yeah, it's, it's fish sauce is ubiquitous in, in Vietnam, Thailand, and, uh, the rest of Southeast Asia. You can get a bottle for three bucks at any decent supermarket and use it pretty much like you would use soy sauce. Yeah.

Mark: 23:26

In this area we have a lot of Asian, uh, supermarkets too. And you, and you can, it's very easy to find. Yeah. But

Rowan: 23:30

I find that anytime if you're making any kind of a, a sauce or, or a stew or anything and it tastes, you feel like it needs something. and you've already put salt in it so you know it's not salt. A little shot of fish sauce, even in something that you wouldn't wanna taste fishy. It, it just perks the flavor right

Francis: 23:48

up. You know, I just, I remember reading, um, I like reading about food history and I, I've read a couple of accounts of how the garum was made or the old Roman fish sauce was made, and it just, I, I, I, I hope and pray that the, the Asian fish sauces are made a little more, uh, uh, sanitary and, uh, not with as many. Guts laying out on the dock to ferment into black sludge.

Rowan: 24:09

I, I make you no

Francis: 24:10

promises. Well just allow me to continue in my mis in my misconception. If, if that's the case now, um, worst, your sauce also is a umami, uh, imparter, isn't it? Yes.

Rowan: 24:21

It actually has the anchovies in it. Some people, um. I don't realize that vegetarians, there's certain vegetarians will, are well aware of that fact because they have to steer clear of which,

Francis: 24:31

and certain vegetarians aren't. And, uh, and now are really mad at you for telling them or their boyfriends who are carnivores or have one more thing off the list of things that they can have. you talk in your article about how, umami interacts with beverages, with wine, for example. how does it react with wine? Do we have certain things we need to look for?

Rowan: 24:51

Well, there's a lot of controversy, in, in that area. A lot of people are, are talking about that and there doesn't seem to be agreement yet, but a couple things seem to be coming Clear Wine has a lot of, of a different kind of umami called synergizing umami, which, and anything that's, that's made with yeast. It develops this other kind of umami, but wine also red wine anyway, has, has bitterness in it.

Speaker 4: 25:16

Mm-hmm. And

Rowan: 25:17

foods that are high in, in umami such as caviar is a good example. Don't always play well with wine. Something about the umami. And the bitterness and the wine clash and what you're left with is a metallic taste.

Mark: 25:30

But there, but there are some high umami foods that are, that are great. I mean, uh, when you start talking about bacon or ham or things like that, they can go miraculously with the right wine.

Rowan: 25:40

Exactly. often wines that don't have that bitterness to them.

Francis: 25:44

Mm-hmm. it's funny when you put food and wine together, um, it's. Especially when you have a very strong mame flavor, a very strong salty flavor. It's, um, it, it makes for its own challenges. And one of the things that I always suggest to people who, who are having dinner parties at home is if you're having a bunch of courses, especially if you're having like anchovies in a course or, or open. And you're gonna open four or five bottles of wine for you and your friends over the course of the evening. I recommend opening all of the bottles of wine and you and your friends can mess around and see what goes best with each course. Mm-hmm. I think people in, you know, it's our job in restaurants, you know, you have a, a people come in and you're going to drink one bottle with each course. And it's our job to know what's in our cellar and it's our job to know our food. And this, a good sommelier will sort of be able to take you through and help you pick. Bottles that work with each course. But at home, I mean, half the fun is figuring out what works and what doesn't. And, and, uh, and with wine, when you open up all the bottles and put them all on the table for people to pick what they like, I think that's a ton of fun.

Mark: 26:42

You know, there's a, there's another alternative here as well. And, we, we talk about wine all the time, but certain of these umami foods are just gonna go better with cocktails or they're gonna go better with beer, or they're gonna go better with sake as opposed to traditional. You know, Western European wine is, is

Francis: 26:57

it your impression that beer and sake work better with hi Umami Foods?

Rowan: 26:59

It is. I, I would definitely say so. and so Sake is actually higher in umami than, than wine. Rice has, has more protein in it than grapes have no protein in them, basically. Mm-hmm. Rice does have some protein and, and Saki is also fermented for about twice as long as wine typically is. Mm-hmm. And so that extra long fermentation really cranks up the umami level. So Saki plays and Saki doesn't have any bitterness in it, so it plays very well with, with hi umami foods usually.

Francis: 27:27

Well, I find that with hi umami, with hi Umami Foods sake. Works extremely well and you are seeing in, in Western restaurants, more and more of them have a sake listed with at least a few selections of, of high quality sake. And when you look at it sake and beer sake is a beer, it's not a wine because, you know, beer comes from grain and they work differently. And frankly, they're, they're, it's, it's harder to have a miss. I don't think that you get the magical heights that you get with, you know, when you have a fantastic wine expertly paired with a great piece of food. To me that's still the ultimate, in flavor combinations. But it's, it's much harder to miss with, with beer and food and with sake and food, especially when you're talking about hi umami foods. What, what are, what's your take on that? Uh, Rowan,

Rowan: 28:07

I, I, I agree for sure you don't, a, a, a great red wine with just the right. You know, beef organ, your own or, or just the right dish it, you've got all those aromas going on.

Speaker 4: 28:19

Yeah. But, so it's not

Rowan: 28:19

just merely the umami, it, it takes off a, to a whole different level. But yeah, Saki has, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's really just the flavor of fermentation that you're left with.

Speaker 4: 28:29

Mm-hmm.

Rowan: 28:30

Saki. Because after that rice is polished down to just the pure starch, it's not contributing much except the, you know, what the yeast needs to create. The alcohol. So what you're left with is just is, is a perfect match for oysters or a lot of these other foods that are high in umami. It can be difficult.

Francis: 28:48

Our guest today is Rowan Jacobson. He's the author of, uh, many articles and several books. We were talking with him in the last couple of segments about umami or the meaty flavor that sometimes is associated with MSG, but is much more, um, much more important than that and much more broadly understood. And you should check out him through our website and the art of eating.com through our website. He's also the author of a book. Chocolate unwrapped, the surprising health benefits of, uh, America's favorite passion. You, you gotta tell

Mark: 29:14

us a little bit about the surprising health benefits of, of chocolate, because

Francis: 29:18

I should be really healthy, by the way, if it's good for you. Right.

Rowan: 29:21

Well, the surprise is that we should all be eating more chocolate. Oh yeah.

Francis: 29:24

You're my favorite author right now. Tell us why

Mark: 29:26

we know chocolate makes us feel better. Okay. There's, there you can ask any woman on the face of the planet and they will tell you that chocolate actually makes them feel better. Woman. And I was, what I was about to say is, and you can ask Francis and me and we will tell you the same thing.

Francis: 29:39

So what's the scoop man? Give me every rationalization I can eat as much chocolate as possible.

Rowan: 29:44

Alright. You like chocolate is, is the food that is perhaps the highest in, in flavonoids?

Speaker 4: 29:50

Mm-hmm. Which antioxidants Exactly.

Rowan: 29:53

On antioxidants that improve our cardiovascular function quite a bit. And there's, there's a good bit of research now that shows that consumption of, of. Maybe a third of a bar of chocolate a day can lengthen your life and, and. Significantly reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke. Well, it

Mark: 30:14

reduces my stress. So that's, that's, that's one of the ways it could do that. Well, and I guess even without the flavonoids,

Francis: 30:19

I guess my question is to you, what about three chocolate Barss a day?

Rowan: 30:23

Well, you know, there's that catch there actually, which is that it has to be dark chocolate.

Mark: 30:26

Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. I love dark chocolate. One of the, one of the problems that we have when we, when we eat our chocolate is, the other things that we put into it, it's not actually the chocolate. Is that correct?

Rowan: 30:35

Right. If you're, if you're getting a typical bar of Hershey's milk chocolate, it's got. A little chocolate in there and a lot of sugar and and some milk

Francis: 30:42

now. But is there a downside? Because I like really dark chocolate from really good producers. Now is too much bad for you

Rowan: 30:50

if you really went, went to town, I suppose. You'd be consuming a fair number of calories. Yeah. You're

Mark: 30:55

talking to those guys in case you want town. Where we go, we're, we're big town guys. We're gonna loot, we're gonna pillage, we're gonna do all sorts of bad things while we're there.

Rowan: 31:03

Well, alright. If you, you can loot and pillage the chocolate as long as you then choose not to loot and pillage, you know, the something else. Uh,

Francis: 31:08

but the chocolate itself doesn't do any, doesn't do you any more harm to have a little more than you.

Rowan: 31:13

No. Chocolate is good food if you're getting, you know, 60 or 70%. Cocoa content in your chocolate.

Francis: 31:19

Yeah, that's what we do.

Rowan: 31:20

You're getting an incredible hit of antioxidants.

Francis: 31:22

That's why I do it. I just have to suffer through it. For antioxidants,

Rowan: 31:24

it's all about anti. Uh,

Francis: 31:26

let's go back to the book on chocolate. So you wrote this book talking about how chocolate is, is, is really good for people. How, how has it been received by both, you know, the, the, the dietary, nutritional community? And by people, I mean, I would think it'd be a lot as a hero from nine year olds across America.

Rowan: 31:41

Well, you know, what happens is that here in my, in my hometown. Uh, women come up to me who I, I've never seen before. They walk up to me and say, I think of you every time I eat a piece of chocolate.

Mark: 31:51

Oh, Lord. Well, that's not so, it's changed my life. That doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me. Well,

Rowan: 31:55

that's pretty good. Yeah. People, people love that book because it, it gives them license to do exactly what they wanna do anyway.

Francis: 32:01

So what's the premise of the book? What, what, other than the obvious, what, what have I not stated about the book? About why chocolate is good for you and how chocolate is good for you?

Rowan: 32:09

Well, there's. We just have it ingrained deeply in us. The chocolate. Is bad. There's something about chocolate. It's just bad.

Mark: 32:16

Well, there's some there. There is something in our culture that makes us say, if something tastes good, it's probably bad for us.

Rowan: 32:23

Right. It's a pleasure thing. You know, when we were kids, we were told somehow conditioned to believe that. We were being naughty if we ate chocolate. Right.

Francis: 32:31

You can only have so much. Mm-hmm.

Rowan: 32:32

Because it was just too good

Francis: 32:33

uhhuh.

Mark: 32:34

So now how, where, that's a whole Catholic thing though too, in my, in my background. You know, the better it feels, the worse it is. Yeah, yeah. The bigger the sin.

Rowan: 32:42

Yeah. Right. And it feels pretty good.

Mark: 32:43

And it does,

Francis: 32:44

and, and it does feel pretty good now, now, but now where is the research come about that says that chocolate is good for us? how do you cover that in your book?

Rowan: 32:52

The, uh, well, one of. Researchers initial clues is that there's, there's a, an indigenous culture that lives off the coast of Panama the Maya Indians were the,

Mark: 33:03

mm-hmm. The

Rowan: 33:03

first culture to really perfect

Mark: 33:07

coco. Right?

Rowan: 33:08

And then, uh, this group off the coast of Panama, still a, a big portion of their diet is cocoa. They drink. Five or six cups a day of this intense chocolate mixture. Mm-hmm. So they're getting, and it can

Mark: 33:21

be spicy and, and you know, it's not, it's not sweet. Like what we're drinking, what we're doing Right. What they're drinking is

Rowan: 33:25

not sweet. Exactly. Which is the key, like the worst thing you're doing when you're eating chocolate is you're getting some sugar. Although not as much as people think, but, so this, this group off of Panama had incredibly healthy. cardiovascular systems.

Francis: 33:37

Oh, and they lived a long time. Mm-hmm.

Rowan: 33:38

Yeah, and they, the heart attacks were almost unknown to them, so, um, researchers were trying to figure out what it was, and they finally decided maybe it was the, the chocolate. And since then they've been testing it on Volunteers and

Mark: 33:51

I'm volunteers. Nice. How do I sign up for that? Where, where, you know, it could also have been that they didn't eat their chocolate sitting behind their desk though. You know, Ron did any, has

Francis: 33:57

anyone

Mark: 33:57

considered that?

Francis: 33:59

But where do I sign up for the chocolate study? So the, the, the, the test on, on Western News is that, is that when you, when you modify someone's diet to increase the cocoa intake, you get the same kind of benefits.

Rowan: 34:08

Yeah. Yeah. Increase life expectancy, lower cholesterol, uh. 50% reduced risk of stroke or heart attack

Francis: 34:13

and chocolate. These are a few of my favorite things. Okay, everybody here's permission to eat chocolate and, and the bittersweet stuff and not too much sugar. Rowan Jacobson is the author of Chocolate Unwrapped, the Surprising Health Benefits of America's Favorite Passion, and you can find out more about that at our web, at our website, restaurant guys radio.com. Hey Rowan, thanks for being on the show. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thanks very much, Rowan. Our guest was Rowan Jacobson. We talked about chocolate, which everybody loves. You should check out his book on our website. We also talked about Umami the fifth Taste, that meaty, sexy taste.

Mark: 35:11

you know, that one of the most, highly intense, uh, umami flavors, do you, do you know what food it comes in? Yeah. I read the book. I read the article.

Francis: 35:21

One of the great sources of Umami Jacobson tells us in his article in the Art of Eating is breast milk. So, and he writes, rather whimsically, add a little breast milk to your bechamel for a qua that will have your guests clamoring for more. There, there's

Mark: 35:35

a whole new market for human cheese out there coming soon. Se

Francis: 35:39

quo, se quo. I, uh, I'm looking for volunteers, mark and I want to try this. I do not wish to try it. Thank you very much and invite Rowan

Mark: 35:49

Jacobson over for dinner. That is clearly the grossest thing that I've ever heard.

Francis: 35:53

It's sort of gross and sort of twisted. Sexy.

Mark: 35:56

Oh, you are twisted. Shame on you. Well,

Francis: 35:58

but it does talk about early, um, food associations and that's why we, like, I'm not sitting next to you in the studio anymore. That's why we like, that's it. What we like when we're young. When you're introduced to stuff as a, as a child and that's normal mm-hmm. That becomes comfort food for you. And so parents who, you know, you have kids. If you have a kid where you can introduce them to a wide variety of foods at a young age, do. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, we get a lot of teenagers who eat butter and pasta and they don't want anything else because they weren't introduced to foods when they were younger. And they've also shown that pregnant women who eat a wide variety of foods when they're pregnant. Their children wind up with a broader, uh, with a more taste spectrum of taste. Right.

Mark: 36:36

They, they like, they like a lot of different flavors and a lot of different tastes. Uh, especially things like vegetables and things like that, that traditionally kids won't eat. It's, it's, it is a way that to, to, and it's not a fail proof way. I mean, I'll tell you, I have four kids and some kids, some of my kids eat a spectacular array of foods and some of my kids a less spectacular array.

Francis: 36:55

And so we found out that it's not just MSG, it all, it exists in the real food. We have to be careful of umami. You can find more about from growing from a website, and we've also found out that the best source of umami is your mommy. Hope you've enjoyed the hour listening to the restaurant. Guys. I stopped enjoying

Mark: 37:10

it about two minutes ago.

Francis: 37:12

I am Francis Shop. I'm

Mark: 37:13

Mark Pascal.

Francis: 37:14

We are the restaurant guys, central Jersey 1450. The time is 12 noon.