Salty. Bitter. Sweet. Sour.

These are the tastes traditionally understood to describe the flavor receptors of the tongue and, consequently, the available range of culinary experience. However, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, there is one more. The fifth taste.

Umami.

Even if the name is strange, the savory character of the flavor is not. Parmesan cheese. Soy sauce. Roasted meat. Sautéed mushrooms. Dry wine. All of these are characterized by umami, a taste identified a century ago by Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese scientist who named it with the term in his language for “deliciousness.” Nevertheless, it was only in 2000 that scientists at the University of Miami identified tongue receptors having no other function than to recognize that flavor.

In contrast to the instant but fleeting pleasure of sweet or salty, umami provides a taste sensation that yields lingering satisfaction. The discovery that foods with umami possess high levels of glutamate, an amino acid that is a building block of protein, led Mr. Ikeda to develop and patent his method of producing monosodium glutamate, or MSG.

Perhaps it was MSG’s reputation for contributing to a variety of health ailments that caused umami to go overlooked for so long. However, new studies indicate that a moderate intake of MSG poses no concern for most consumers, according to Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The food industry has responded with gusto. Gourmet chefs and manufacturers of mass-produced, packaged foods are searching for ways to incorporate umami into their products. However, not for the first time, Jewish tradition is way ahead of the curve.

The sages teach that, because each seasonal festival is a time of joy, the menu of every holiday meal should include meat and wine in order to contribute to the festive atmosphere. Says the Talmud: there is no joy without meat and wine — both of which are among the classic sources of umami, which is produced by drying, aging, curing, and slow cooking.

Apparently, the sages recognized that the joy of the festivals could be enhanced not only with good food, but with the right kind of good food. Cake and pie may be delectable and filling, but meat and wine satisfy a physiological need and produce a feeling of contentment that helps foster the proper mood for helping us appreciate the spiritual distinctiveness of the holidays.

Just as our craving for sweets is hardwired, so is our attraction to umami. According to one study, babies are more likely to finish foods that contain glutamate. Paradoxically, the difficulty we have defining umami suggests a subtlety associated with acquired taste. Where children respond naturally and immediately to sugar and salt, only a sophisticated palate will appreciated the savory quality of slow-cooked meat or well-aged wine.

Perhaps this offers a clue to why the sages referred to the Torah itself as the “spice of life.” For the pleasure-seeker who thrives upon instant gratification, the notion of acquired taste must be as incomprehensible as smothering his French fries with chocolate syrup. Indeed, an approach to life defined by mere moments of sensory buzz is the equivalent of a dietary menu comprising little more than fries and sundaes. The pleasure fades instantly away and leaves one perpetually hungry for more.

The reward for training one’s palate to enjoy the finer things is an enjoyment of the finer things. This applies equally to the palate of one’s tongue and to the palate of one’s character. Perhaps Jewish culture’s seeming obsession with food reflects a deeper appreciation that true happiness derives not from momentary physical stimulation but from true inner satisfaction. Good taste extends beyond what tastes good. And it extends beyond fashion as well. The cultivated ethical palate appreciates that the finest things in life come from a commitment to doing what is right and developing oneself into the best person one can become.

Aside from the insights of the sages revealed through the maturation of science and cooking, there is an even more obvious connection between umami and the divinity of Jewish wisdom. Of all the dishes that contain glutamate, there is one that appears on every list that attempts to describe umami’s savory and satisfying character: Chicken soup.

What could be more Jewish?

A few weeks after moving to the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Jerusalem, a neighbor invited me to his home, and showing me his recently re-furbished dining room with its the long oak wood table, declared ‘the shabbos table is the center-piece of family education.’ Funny, I remember thinking to myself, our shabbos table is often the center-piece of family food-fighting. So if I’ve given an overly idealized impression of my family, I’m coming clean. Though I think it’s important to weave rich and positive stories for and about the family, it’s obviously not the whole picture.

In the Torah portion of from last week, those who had been excluded from the experience of Pesach come to Moses and ask: ‘why should we be diminished? we may have been ritually impure, but why shouldn’t we also get the chance to participate in the Passover ritual?’ They felt ‘diminished’ for not having had the opportunity to do a mitzvah–an amazing notion! So they ask Moses for a second chance. Though Moses is the greatest of all prophets, these laws were concealed to him. But upon relaying the question to G-d, the laws of Pesach Sheni–the ‘second Pesach’ for those who missed it the first time around–are revealed. The laws had been withheld from Moses so that, in the divine plan, those whom Rashi describes as ‘meritorious’ ask the question leading to further divine revelation. A question, as R. Yerucham from the Mir Yeshiva explains, already shows chachma or wisdom, because through it, one cultivates the possibility of a response. A good question–any teacher or parents knows this–allows for the bringing to light of something which otherwise would have remained unsaid. This sort of question is to be distinguished from those questions which are just dressed up answers; refusals to engage seriously; or ways of ending conversations before they start. But an engaged question is the means through which the concealed becomes revealed: the whole Torah, says R. Yerucham, is actually a response to Moses’s questions!

I thought this would be a great entry point to a discussion at our shabbos table. Notwithstanding a recent NY Times piece advocating the contrary, my wife and I divide our labors (confession: I don’t know how to use the washing machine!). At the shabbos table, even though my wife studies regularly, and arranges a weekly lecture (often in our house), I’m the one who usually initiates the words of Torah. With the same theatricality that I display when tasting the challos which my wife bakes, she introduces my divrei Torah. True, there was a time when both my divrei Torah and her challos (she started, years ago, with home ground organic wheat flour–which was like making motzie on compressed hockey pucks) needed work, but we’ve both become more proficient in our respective roles. I thought the ‘Questions’ topic would make a great discussion for the kids: ‘Have any of you had any questions this week?’ My son returned that a question occured to him, but he didn’t ask because his rebbe wouldn’t have known the answer (unlikely); one of my daughters said הכל מובן לי–or ‘I already understand everything!’ (extremely unlikely). One of my other daughters was already on the couch reading a book; and my youngest was still at the shabbos table, but singing a song (though not even a shabbos song). I paused, surveyed the situation, sighed, and gave up: ‘will someone pass the cholent please?’

After lunch, I was hoping my wife might offer some consolation. She reminded me that R. Yitzchock Hutner wrote in a letter to a distressed student that the verse in Psalms–‘A tzaddik falls seven times’–doesn’t mean that even though he falls many times, the true tzaddik will eventually emerge. Rather when a true tzaddik finally does come into being, it’s because he’s fallen. Acknowledging personal failure and integrating those failures allows–in the end–for a person to reveal the tzaddik within. We become great because of our challenges, not in spite of them. It’s almost as if, in the endless interplay between concealment and revelation, challenges are the questions which help us to reveal who we are. R. Hutner refers to internal battles, but sometimes, as my wife pointed out, the world doesn’t accomodate the idealism of our plans, and one has to learn to live with those kinds of failures as well. Things sometimes don’t go the way you want.

This article was originally posted here.