December 4, 2025 • 37 mins
The Banter
The Guys talk about making vinegar and why you have to take care of your mother.
The Conversation
The Restaurant Guys welcome writer Rowan Jacobsen to discuss the fifth taste: umami. What is umami? Where does it come from? What pairs well with it? And what does breastmilk have to do with it? Get the skinny from Rowan.
The Inside Track
The Guys happily get the inside track on the health benefits of chocolate. Rowan has made quite an impression on chocolate lovers in his book Chocolate Unwrapped.
“Women who I've never seen before walk up to me and say, ‘I think of you every time I eat a piece of chocolate. It's changed my life.’
People love that book because it gives them license to do exactly what they want to do anyway,” Rowan Jacobsen on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2006
Bio
Rowan Jacobsen is a journalist and author who writes about food, nature and the environment for Harper’s, Scientific American, Smithsonian, The New York Times, and others. He has received awards from the James Beard Foundation and the Society of American Travel Writers. He is the author of nine books, including A Geography of Oysters, Fruitless Fall, and Truffle Hound, which have been named to Best Book of the Year lists by the Washington Post.
He is a Nova Media Fellow, researching the science of sun exposure. His new book, In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure, will be published on the Summer Solstice, 2026.
Info
Rowan’s site
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Has an article in
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Chocolate Unwrapped
Paul Wolfert’s vinegar recipe
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark (01:29):
Good morning, mark.
Hey Francis, how are you thismorning?
Feeling great.
Feeling great.
Well,
Francis (01:34):
I'm feeling great too.
I'll tell you today, one of thethings 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 thismorning.
Mark (01:49):
I had a little bit for you there.
Super duper.
You.
I was ready for you, wasn't I?
You did.
Francis (01:52):
That was good.
Uh, you know, I was reading Foodand Wine Magazine, which is a
great magazine Absolutely.
That we both enjoy.
Um.
And there was an article byPaula Wolfert on vinegar.
Mm-hmm.
And it really struck, uh, anote, I know a number of people
who make their own vinegars.
Well, I don't, I don't
Mark (02:09):
know if you know this, but way back when, when my great
grandmother as a young.
Girl with her mother came overmm-hmm.
To the United States.
Mm-hmm.
From Italy.
One of the things that theycarried with them was what's
called the mother, the mothervinegar.
And they brought their bigvinegar pots with them.
And my, actually my aunt stillhas'em, they're still in, tip
(02:31):
top condition.
And they're the vinegar potsbecause that was.
Important part of their culturewas your own vinegar and, your
own house style of vinegar.
My
Francis (02:40):
great-grandmother came over with a potato and we keep
the potato on the mantle piecestill.
Excellent.
Well, its' sprouted now.
We actually
Mark (02:49):
had vinegar and, and, uh, but seriously, your house style
of vinegar, I mean, it was.
It was as integral to yourcooking and your style of
cooking, as was any otheringredient that you would use.
And I mean, they cared enough tobring this on the boat with them
when they came over in a, Imean, it's a Francis, when I
tell you it is a giant pot.
(03:09):
It's gotta be.
the equivalent of 30 quartz, 40quart pot.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
To carry the vinegar in the, themother and, and 40 quart
vinegar.
10 gallons, maybe It's big.
About 10 gallons.
Well, I was thinking 30 T, 40 tactually, 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?
(03:30):
Smart guy.
Francis (03:32):
Less than, less than 10.
Um, that'd be 9, 8, 7 and a halfgallons.
Um, okay.
It's nice to see that your mathskills are the same as ever.
Um, vinegar is amazing.
Now we have a situation whetherit's 30
Mark (03:48):
quarts or 40 quarts.
Exactly.
It's still
Francis (03:49):
amazing.
Well, you bring up a good pointthough.
We have available to us in theUnited States some great
balsamic vinegars.
These are the fine artisanalexpensive vinegars that are, are
not the stuff you, A lot of thestuff you find is your market
shelf isn't very good.
But, but really great vinegar isavailable.
Mark (04:07):
What's, and those balsamic vinegars are aged over a long,
long period.
The good ones one, not the goodones.
Right.
Not the stuff on thesupermarket.
Francis (04:13):
A lot of the stuff on the supermarket shelf that's
marked balsamic vinegar is areal ripoff.
Um, but if it says balsamicvinegar of modina, and it also
is from Italy mm-hmm.
Um, you're, you're more likelyto get a better vinegar.
Mark (04:24):
You need to check both of those things.
Look for the word modina, andthen also look for the word
Italy
Francis (04:29):
and, you have a good shot of getting it, a decent
vinegar, but there are allranges 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 anacidic component to a dish that
needs acid.
But that's not all it's for, um,you know, great red wine vinegar
in particular.
(04:49):
And wine vinegar in particularhas complexities.
Similar to wine.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you don't drink itbecause we don't wanna drink
that much acidic acid, which isthe acid and vinegar.
Um, but it can add a tremendousamount of complexity and
richness to dishes, not justdressings, to marinades, to all
sorts of things to de glazing apan.
(05:09):
And you can make vinegar athome.
And that's what this article byPaula Wolfert was all about.
It talked about, um, makingvinegar at home and it's not
that difficult.
I think you may be able to findthis article if you go to food
and wine.com, uh, maybe food andwine.com/wolfert.
We'll
Mark (05:25):
try, we'll try and link you to it if, if it's still
available to us.
Francis (05:28):
But what you need to make vinegar at home is, is you
need a warm place where you canput vinegar.
'cause it It takes monthsactually to make vinegar.
It takes about two and a halfmonths to make something decent
and, and can be even longer.
And the way that it works is youtake red wine, people use cider
and stuff, but red wine mm-hmm.
Or wine makes the best vinegarand, and you have a mother,
(05:49):
Sherry
Mark (05:50):
actually also makes some, right.
Well that's
Francis (05:52):
a type CL wine.
Absolutely.
you take what's called a mother.
The mother is what converts thewine into vinegar.
you keep coming back to themother and it goes through the
mother and you can, the motherwill, well, it
Mark (06:04):
does, it takes it and it makes it a more controlled,
changing to, to acid.
Yeah.
And in that way you can, whilethe vinegar will indeed be
different, every single time youmake it, you'll have, you'll
develop kind of a house style ofvinegar
Francis (06:16):
and mother, like a particular mother in.
Imparts this particular kind offlavor.
So it has to do with what kindof 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 (06:30):
change the mother over time.
Exactly.
These
Francis (06:31):
mothers can last 40, 50, 60, 80, 90 years,
theoretically forever, like astarter, you know?
And so what you, when yourgreat-grandmother came over from
Italy, the mother was fairlydry, but she, she.
That mother was then used againwhen they got over here.
Absolutely.
I,
Mark (06:46):
I'm certain that, that, you know, would be seized by
customs today.
You would not be able to bringthe, the mother over.
Yeah.
You probably can't do that, canyou?
Francis (06:54):
But what happens is also the thing about making a
vinegar in your house, um, ituses the ambient.
Uh, the, the microorganisms, thespores, the microorganisms that
are in the air, the micro floare in the air.
So if, if I make vinegar in myhouse and Mark makes the mo
vinegar with the same mother andthe same wine in his house, it's
gonna taste slightly different.
Yeah.
Mostly.
'cause my house is cleaner thanyours.
Yeah.
Could be.
But mine may be better forvinegar than yours.
(07:16):
Um, and so the idea of, youknow, it's funny'cause I have a,
uh, if you're, if you're a winelover.
Making your own vinegar istremendous.
Now it takes about two and ahalf months and you leave it in
a cheesecloth covered, open, topcontainer, someplace between 70
and 80 degrees for two and ahalf months because you can't
close the top.
It's an aerobic reaction.
Mm-hmm.
(07:36):
It's not an anaerobic reaction,but if you're a wine lover.
This is very often a way to takewine on the second day or the
third day or the day after.
You don't want, like, it wasn'tgood enough.
You had a half a bottle left,you had a quarter bottle left,
you had a little bit left in theglass.
You put this into your, yourvinegar, and as long as you.
My friend Peter Schleimer, is abig, is a Austrian, restaurant
(07:59):
critic, wine writer, foodwriter, and he has an amazing,
amazing 20-year-old vinegarcollection.
Various mothers kept in variousplaces because he gets these
wine samples sent to his houseall the time.
Mm-hmm.
And so he has a million halffull bottles of wine.
Mark (08:15):
Something I'll tell you about making vinegar is that,
you know, if you use some reallyinteresting, really good wines
in it, you have, you have ahigher chance of getting really
interesting, really goodvinegar.
Francis (08:26):
And what Peter always says though, he says, you have
to take care of your mother.
Because, you know, and it's ajoke, right?
Mm-hmm.
You have to take care of yourmother, but you need to take
care of the mother and keep italive.
And you, if you have, he hasseveral mothers going there, it
has to keep in several places.
'cause they'll cross contaminateeach other if they're in the
same room.
But he makes vinegars.
And what I, what I, when hecomes from Austria, what I love
when he brings me as a present,can you do me a favor?
Not use the word contaminateanymore when you're talking
(08:47):
about my CROs, uh, whatever.
But he brings, he brings medifferent vinegars.
And his vinegars are because hegets these great wines.
Delivered to his home that heneeds to professionally rate and
review.
But he is like, I can't, youknow, drink them all.
We're not
Mark (08:58):
gonna drink 30 bottles of wine in one night.
He has
Francis (09:00):
iced wine vinegar.
I mean, he has vinegars madefrom$75 bottles of wine or the
remnants of$75 bottles of wine.
These things are incredible.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, the, I use themall the time and frankly, these
incredible vinegars, sometimesI'll just put some on top of a
roast beef sandwich.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Right.
And sometimes I'll use them inmy cooking and.
Just, just amazing.
(09:20):
My guess is about
Mark (09:21):
two and a half months you might wanna come to one of our
restaurants and
Francis (09:25):
see what kind of vinegar we're using.
Mark's gonna call up his auntand try and get that vinegar,
uh, the vinegar pot over.
Absolutely.
And I'm gonna call Peter and seeif I can bring some mother in my
pocket from, would the law.
Yeah, you would never do that.
Well, if I got my fingers dirtyand just didn't wash them until
I got back here, would thatstill be a good law?
I don't think that works.
Alright, we're gonna talk aboutsweet.
I don't want your fingersbecause nevermind.
We're gonna talk about sweeterthings in vinegar in just a
(09:47):
moment.
You're listening to therestaurant guys, Our guest today
is Rowan Jacobson.
Rowan is the former managingeditor of Heat, the Healing Arts
Press, and a longtime healthwriter.
He's the author of ChocolateUnwrapped, the Surprising Health
Benefits of America's FavoritePassion, and he joins us today
to discuss well, food ingeneral, but specifically a
great article that Mark and Ifound, um.
(10:08):
Uh, in the Art of Eating onUmami.
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 publicationthat you're involved with.
We had, uh, ed Bear on the showrecently talking about it just
last week.
And uh, you can go to ourwebsite out there and listen to
land if you want, subscribe.
It's a, it's a food quarterly.
They do in-depth articles on, onvarious things about food.
It's great.
Uh, the art of eating.com.
Now, Why don't you tell us?
(10:34):
Why don't you tell our audienceactually what umami is?
Rowan (10:38):
Umami is the a fifth taste that we all have.
We, we all grew up learning thatwe 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 aboutsalty, sweet, bitter, and sour.
But it turns out that we have afifth.
Taste Bud.
That detects what's calledumami.
And the reason I have a namelike Umami is because it was
first identified in Japan, uh,by a, a researcher there about a
(11:13):
hundred years ago.
And, uh, what it basically is,is a,
Mark (11:18):
so, hold on, Rowan.
If it was identified a hundredyears 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 abrothy 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 ofit, what's left is, is pretty
much the essence of umami.
But, uh, this, this foodresearcher in Japan, in, I think
it was 1907, he, um, he wasdrinking a bowl of Doshi, which
(11:57):
is.
The, the stock that they usuallyuse 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 distinctlydifferent.
And he, uh, he ana analyze, hedecided that the kelp was what
was really responsible for that.
So he analyzed the kelp anddiscovered an amino acid in the
kelp called glutamate.
(12:27):
Which was what was providingthat fifth taste.
He called it umami, which is inJapan, pretty much means
delicious, the essence ofdeliciousness.
And he actually then founded acompany that began manufacturing
a, a powdered version ofglutamate 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 youheadaches.
Every bad Chinese restaurantuses way too much of it.
What's the skinny,
Rowan (12:59):
all right.
Here's the skinny people.
A few people decided that theyhad had headaches or dizziness
after eating in Chineserestaurants way back in I the
thirties or the forties.
And they said, what's up withthis?
And.
Somebody decided maybe it wasthe MSG that was already at that
time, traditionally added to alot of Chinese foods, simply
(13:23):
because Chinese chefs werefamiliar 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 onthe MSG just'cause that was the
thing that was unfamiliar tothem in the kitchen.
Is that what that was?
Rowan (13:51):
Right.
And well, they thought maybe MSGwas responsible.
So this German researcher took abunch of rats and injected them
with huge syringes of, ofmonosodium glutamate.
And sure enough, the rats gotsick.
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 injectedthem with that much sugar or
salt, the rats probably would'vejust 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 alot of evidence since then, it
hasn't really been possible toturn the public around.
But all the research that's beendone seems to show that MSG.
It's completely safe unless, youknow, you inject yourself with a
huge syringe of it and no one'sadvocating that right now.
Francis (14:36):
Now, now let, can it be overdone though?
Can, can, can a, a restaurantthat has powdered MSG just use
too much of it?
And, and what happens if theydo?
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, ofumami.
As, as we would salt a little ofit makes everything else taste
better.
It heightens the flavor of allthe other tastes and aromas that
are in a dish, too much of it,and it starts to kill the flavor
(15:10):
and take over and, and reallyflatten 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 moredangerous.
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 onlyrecently, and chefs have an
inherent.
knowledge of umami and how touse it and, and, and making
dishes and putting thingstogether.
We're gonna be talking moreabout that.
Mark (15:34):
I, I have a very funny story about chefs who overuse
MSG.
So, Rowan, we recently took overan establishment that was
formerly a Chinese restaurant.
We put, built an Italianrestaurant in it instead.
And, uh, one of the things thatwe found, and now this, this
restaurant was, had all over itspaperwork.
No, MSG.
No MSG.
We don't use MSG well, we walkedup into the kitchen of this
(15:56):
particular establishment andwhat we found were three 100
pound barrels of MSG.
So I, I think they might nothave been telling the truth.
It could have made the whole rand 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 whatI thought was, isn't one 100
pound barrel enough?
That's, that's a little heavyhand 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, youknow, slightly more natural,
sophisticated forms such asanchovies, Parmesan cheese.
Francis (16:29):
Well, that's what I want to talk about, right?
So umami doesn't just come fromthe powdered form of umami.
when we wanna infuse our, ourdishes with the flavor of umami.
Where else does it come from?
What na what, what things do weput 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 cheesethat you grate on, on dishes and
cho's soy sauce.
Mark (16:55):
Mm-hmm.
It seems that every culturethough, has their own umami.
That that is ubiquitous.
Rowan (17:01):
Right.
And the ubiquitous source ofumami in the United States is
ketchup.
Francis (17:06):
Ah, sauce.
America can, yes.
Well, well, is that from thetomatoes?
Is that where the umami comesfrom?
Rowan (17:12):
Yeah.
Uh, vegetables don't tend tohave as much umami as some other
products, but.
Tomatoes are the highest of anyvegetables.
(19:05):
So you take, in fact, ketchup iskind of a, a, an ideal
combination of all the, theflavors you've got, the umami
and sweetness from the tomato.
Mm-hmm.
You've got salt, you've got somesour 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 Iwent 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 theremany, many years ago, and the
bartender would say they, they'dsee us come in and they had
these stupid little bottles ofketchup and we'd use like two
bottles every time we had dinnerthere.
And like, more Salsa American,they back Um, talking with Rowan
(19:36):
Jacobson about.
Umami the fifth flavor, and, andthere are all sorts of ways that
we need to know about how we useumami or glutamate.
That's not necessarily modestsodium glutamate, our own
cuisine and how we, how we canuse it to enhance our food and
how important it is.
And you're using it, whether youknow it or not, so you better
know how to use it, right?
You're listening to therestaurant guys, today.
Our guest is Rowan Jacobson.
He's the former managing editorof The Healing Arts Press and a
(19:57):
longtime health writer.
He's the author of ChocolateUnwrapped, the Surprising Health
Benefits of America's FavoritePassion, and he joins us today
to discuss an article he wroteon Umami the Fifth Taste that he
recently published in The Art ofEating.
We were talking.
Before the news about how umamiis imparted, sometimes the, the
simplest way to do it is to usemonosodium glutamate, but umami
that meaty flavor, that thatfifth flavor, um, comes to your
(20:20):
food through a number ofdifferent sources.
We talked about tomatoes beingun unusual in that it's a
vegetable with a lot of umamiflavor.
Are there meats?
Are all meats.
They have umami or they havedifferent parts of umami.
Rowan (20:31):
All meats have some umami.
What, what?
Umami is really a taste forprotein 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 thathas been broken down in one way
or another.
Mm-hmm.
Either by through long cookingor through fermentation or
through drying it and, and agingit.
Anything that, that really beatsup that protein starts to break
it down into the amino acidsthat'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, onceyou age it, or if you, if you
cook it for a long time, do it.
Or even as, as the animal getsolder, it starts to develop a
little as its own body starts tobreak down.
But then you start to get thatsavoriness that we all like.
Francis (21:19):
So basically you're talking about on a molecular
level, when the protein breaksdown, 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 proteinsthat is the muscle of the beef.
Starts to break apart into itsconstituent amino acids.
And that tastes really good tous 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 ofof other things, uh, that
different, different cultureshave different ubiquitous
sources of umami, you know, thatmay not be seaweed, but you talk
about prosciutto and you talkabout parmesano, ano and
anchovies.
Um, one of the things that youmentioned in your article, which
I thought was.
Uh, is it is, it is a great partof food history.
(22:04):
It's kind of agro.
A gross part of food history is,um, is we love those gross parts
of food, food history, ancientRomans.
You reference, um, uh, the garumthat was the sauce that ancient
Romans used as we use ketchup inAmerica today.
Can you tell us about Garum
Rowan (22:18):
Garum?
Um, yeah.
The Romans and the Greeks beforethem had a sauce, which is
pretty, is is similar to thefish sauce that's used in Asian
cultures today.
Basically they would take a lotof, of little fish, anchovies,
sardines, that type of fish.
And keep them in the sun and letthem just ferment in the sun for
quite a while.
Francis (22:37):
Yeah.
Ferment and rot are very closewhen you're talking about fish,
aren't they?
Yeah.
You know, and, and they wouldjust make a sauce out of the.
Bloody remains
Rowan (22:47):
eventually.
Yeah.
All, all the, the guts, uh, itwould just break down into this
black liquid and they drain theblack liquid off and, and they
put it on absolutely everything.
Those ancient Roman cookbookscall 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 startedresearching umami, I've been
using a lot more fish sauce,which is made the same way.
I think it's, it's got a littlebit less guts in it and a little
bit more.
Just fish.
Mm-hmm.
But yeah, it's, it's fish sauceis ubiquitous in, in Vietnam,
Thailand, and, uh, the rest ofSoutheast Asia.
You can get a bottle for threebucks at any decent supermarket
(23:22):
and use it pretty much like youwould 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 veryeasy 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 anythingand it tastes, you feel like it
needs something.
and you've already put salt init 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 flavorright
Francis (23:48):
up.
You know, I just, I rememberreading, um, I like reading
about food history and I, I'veread a couple of accounts of how
the garum was made or the oldRoman fish sauce was made, and
it just, I, I, I, I hope andpray 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 toferment into black sludge.
Rowan (24:09):
I, I make you no
Francis (24:10):
promises.
Well just allow me to continuein 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 thatvegetarians, there's certain
vegetarians will, are well awareof that fact because they have
to steer clear of which,
Francis (24:31):
and certain vegetarians aren't.
And, uh, and now are really madat you for telling them or their
boyfriends who are carnivores orhave one more thing off the list
of things that they can have.
you talk in your article abouthow, umami interacts with
beverages, with wine, forexample.
how does it react with wine?
Do we have certain things weneed to look for?
Rowan (24:51):
Well, there's a lot of controversy, in, in that area.
A lot of people are, are talkingabout that and there doesn't
seem to be agreement yet, but acouple things seem to be coming
Clear Wine has a lot of, of adifferent kind of umami called
synergizing umami, which, andanything that's, that's made
with yeast.
It develops this other kind ofumami, but wine also red wine
(25:14):
anyway, has, has bitterness init.
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 withwine.
Something about the umami.
And the bitterness and the wineclash 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 starttalking about bacon or ham or
things like that, they can gomiraculously with the right
wine.
Rowan (25:40):
Exactly.
often wines that don't have thatbitterness to them.
Francis (25:44):
Mm-hmm.
it's funny when you put food andwine together, um, it's.
Especially when you have a verystrong mame flavor, a very
strong salty flavor.
It's, um, it, it makes for itsown challenges.
And one of the things that Ialways suggest to people who,
who are having dinner parties athome is if you're having a bunch
of courses, especially if you'rehaving like anchovies in a
(26:04):
course or, or open.
And you're gonna open four orfive bottles of wine for you and
your friends over the course ofthe evening.
I recommend opening all of thebottles of wine and you and your
friends can mess around and seewhat 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 comein and you're going to drink one
bottle with each course.
And it's our job to know what'sin our cellar and it's our job
(26:24):
to know our food.
And this, a good sommelier willsort of be able to take you
through and help you pick.
Bottles that work with eachcourse.
But at home, I mean, half thefun 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 tablefor people to pick what they
like, I think that's a ton offun.
Mark (26:42):
You know, there's a, there's another alternative here
as well.
And, we, we talk about wine allthe time, but certain of these
umami foods are just gonna gobetter with cocktails or they're
gonna go better with beer, orthey're gonna go better with
sake as opposed to traditional.
You know, Western European wineis, 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 higherin umami than, than wine.
Rice has, has more protein in itthan 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 winetypically is.
Mm-hmm.
And so that extra longfermentation really cranks up
(27:20):
the umami level.
So Saki plays and Saki doesn'thave any bitterness in it, so it
plays very well with, with hiumami foods usually.
Francis (27:27):
Well, I find that with hi umami, with hi Umami Foods
sake.
Works extremely well and you areseeing in, in Western
restaurants, more and more ofthem have a sake listed with at
least a few selections of, ofhigh quality sake.
And when you look at it sake andbeer sake is a beer, it's not a
wine because, you know, beercomes from grain and they work
differently.
And frankly, they're, they're,it's, it's harder to have a
(27:48):
miss.
I don't think that you get themagical heights that you get
with, you know, when you have afantastic 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 tomiss 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 takeon 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 ownor, or just the right dish it,
you've got all those aromasgoing 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 thatyou're left with.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Mm-hmm.
Rowan (28:30):
Saki.
Because after that rice ispolished down to just the pure
starch, it's not contributingmuch except the, you know, what
the yeast needs to create.
The alcohol.
So what you're left with is justis, is a perfect match for
oysters or a lot of these otherfoods that are high in umami.
It can be difficult.
Francis (28:48):
Our guest today is Rowan Jacobson.
He's the author of, uh, manyarticles and several books.
We were talking with him in thelast couple of segments about
umami or the meaty flavor thatsometimes is associated with
MSG, but is much more, um, muchmore important than that and
much more broadly understood.
And you should check out himthrough our website and the art
of eating.com through ourwebsite.
He's also the author of a book.
(29:09):
Chocolate unwrapped, thesurprising 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 anywoman on the face of the planet
and they will tell you thatchocolate actually makes them
feel better.
Woman.
And I was, what I was about tosay is, and you can ask Francis
and me and we will tell you thesame thing.
Francis (29:39):
So what's the scoop man?
Give me every rationalization Ican eat as much chocolate as
possible.
Rowan (29:44):
Alright.
You like chocolate is, is thefood 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 bitof research now that shows that
consumption of, of.
Maybe a third of a bar ofchocolate a day can lengthen
your life and, and.
Significantly reduce your riskof heart attack or stroke.
(30:14):
Well, it
Mark (30:14):
reduces my stress.
So that's, that's, that's one ofthe ways it could do that.
Well, and I guess even withoutthe 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 darkchocolate.
Mark (30:26):
Mm-hmm.
Oh yeah.
I love dark chocolate.
One of the, one of the problemsthat we have when we, when we
eat our chocolate is, the otherthings 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 atypical bar of Hershey's milk
chocolate, it's got.
A little chocolate in there anda lot of sugar and and some milk
Francis (30:42):
now.
But is there a downside?
Because I like really darkchocolate 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 numberof calories.
Yeah.
You're
Mark (30:55):
talking to those guys in case you want town.
Where we go, we're, we're bigtown guys.
We're gonna loot, we're gonnapillage, we're gonna do all
sorts of bad things while we'rethere.
Rowan (31:03):
Well, alright.
If you, you can loot and pillagethe chocolate as long as you
then choose not to loot andpillage, 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 alittle more than you.
Rowan (31:13):
No.
Chocolate is good food if you'regetting, 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 throughit.
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 talkingabout how chocolate is, is, is
really good for people.
How, how has it been received byboth, you know, the, the, the
dietary, nutritional community?
And by people, I mean, I wouldthink it'd be a lot as a hero
from nine year olds acrossAmerica.
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, Ithink of you every time I eat a
piece of chocolate.
Mark (31:51):
Oh, Lord.
Well, that's not so, it'schanged my life.
That doesn't seem like such abad thing to me.
Well,
Rowan (31:55):
that's pretty good.
Yeah.
People, people love that bookbecause it, it gives them
license to do exactly what theywanna do anyway.
Francis (32:01):
So what's the premise of the book?
What, what, other than theobvious, what, what have I not
stated about the book?
About why chocolate is good foryou and how chocolate is good
for you?
Rowan (32:09):
Well, there's.
We just have it ingrained deeplyin us.
The chocolate.
Is bad.
There's something aboutchocolate.
It's just bad.
Mark (32:16):
Well, there's some there.
There is something in ourculture that makes us say, if
something tastes good, it'sprobably bad for us.
Rowan (32:23):
Right.
It's a pleasure thing.
You know, when we were kids, wewere told somehow conditioned to
believe that.
We were being naughty if we atechocolate.
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 aboutthat says that chocolate is good
for us?
how do you cover that in yourbook?
Rowan (32:52):
The, uh, well, one of.
Researchers initial clues isthat there's, there's a, an
indigenous culture that livesoff 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 dietis cocoa.
They drink.
Five or six cups a day of thisintense 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, whatwe're doing Right.
What they're drinking is
Rowan (33:25):
not sweet.
Exactly.
Which is the key, like the worstthing you're doing when you're
eating chocolate is you'regetting some sugar.
Although not as much as peoplethink, but, so this, this group
off of Panama had incrediblyhealthy.
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 weretrying to figure out what it
was, and they finally decidedmaybe it was the, the chocolate.
And since then they've beentesting it on Volunteers and
Mark (33:51):
I'm volunteers.
Nice.
How do I sign up for that?
Where, where, you know, it couldalso have been that they didn't
eat their chocolate sittingbehind 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 modifysomeone's diet to increase the
cocoa intake, you get the samekind of benefits.
Rowan (34:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Increase life expectancy, lowercholesterol, uh.
50% reduced risk of stroke orheart attack
Francis (34:13):
and chocolate.
These are a few of my favoritethings.
Okay, everybody here'spermission to eat chocolate and,
and the bittersweet stuff andnot too much sugar.
Rowan Jacobson is the author ofChocolate Unwrapped, the
Surprising Health Benefits ofAmerica's Favorite Passion, and
you can find out more about thatat our web, at our website,
restaurant guys radio.com.
Hey Rowan, thanks for being onthe show.
Thanks for having me.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks very much, Rowan.
(35:01):
Our guest was Rowan Jacobson.
We talked about chocolate, whicheverybody loves.
You should check out his book onour website.
We also talked about Umami thefifth Taste, that meaty, sexy
taste.
Mark (35:11):
you know, that one of the most, highly intense, uh, umami
flavors, do you, do you knowwhat 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 ofEating is breast milk.
So, and he writes, ratherwhimsically, add a little breast
milk to your bechamel for a quathat 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 forvolunteers, mark and I want to
try this.
I do not wish to try it.
Thank you very much and inviteRowan
Mark (35:49):
Jacobson over for dinner.
That is clearly the grossestthing 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 notsitting 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 stuffas a, as a child and that's
normal mm-hmm.
That becomes comfort food foryou.
And so parents who, you know,you have kids.
If you have a kid where you canintroduce them to a wide variety
(36:18):
of foods at a young age, do.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, we get a lot ofteenagers who eat butter and
pasta and they don't wantanything else because they
weren't introduced to foods whenthey were younger.
And they've also shown thatpregnant women who eat a wide
variety of foods when they'repregnant.
Their children wind up with abroader, 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 likevegetables and things like that,
that traditionally kids won'teat.
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 havefour kids and some kids, some of
my kids eat a spectacular arrayof 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 fromgrowing from a website, and
we've also found out that thebest source of umami is your
mommy.
Hope you've enjoyed the hourlistening 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.
Good morning, mark.
Hey Francis, how are you thismorning?
Feeling great.
Feeling great.
Well,
Francis (01:34):
I'm feeling great too.
I'll tell you today, one of thethings 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 thismorning.
Mark (01:49):
I had a little bit for you there.
Super duper.
You.
I was ready for you, wasn't I?
You did.
Francis (01:52):
That was good.
Uh, you know, I was reading Foodand Wine Magazine, which is a
great magazine Absolutely.
That we both enjoy.
Um.
And there was an article byPaula Wolfert on vinegar.
Mm-hmm.
And it really struck, uh, anote, I know a number of people
who make their own vinegars.
Well, I don't, I don't
Mark (02:09):
know if you know this, but way back when, when my great
grandmother as a young.
Girl with her mother came overmm-hmm.
To the United States.
Mm-hmm.
From Italy.
One of the things that theycarried with them was what's
called the mother, the mothervinegar.
And they brought their bigvinegar pots with them.
And my, actually my aunt stillhas'em, they're still in, tip
(02:31):
top condition.
And they're the vinegar potsbecause that was.
Important part of their culturewas your own vinegar and, your
own house style of vinegar.
My
Francis (02:40):
great-grandmother came over with a potato and we keep
the potato on the mantle piecestill.
Excellent.
Well, its' sprouted now.
We actually
Mark (02:49):
had vinegar and, and, uh, but seriously, your house style
of vinegar, I mean, it was.
It was as integral to yourcooking and your style of
cooking, as was any otheringredient that you would use.
And I mean, they cared enough tobring this on the boat with them
when they came over in a, Imean, it's a Francis, when I
tell you it is a giant pot.
(03:09):
It's gotta be.
the equivalent of 30 quartz, 40quart pot.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
To carry the vinegar in the, themother and, and 40 quart
vinegar.
10 gallons, maybe It's big.
About 10 gallons.
Well, I was thinking 30 T, 40 tactually, 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?
(03:30):
Smart guy.
Francis (03:32):
Less than, less than 10.
Um, that'd be 9, 8, 7 and a halfgallons.
Um, okay.
It's nice to see that your mathskills are the same as ever.
Um, vinegar is amazing.
Now we have a situation whetherit's 30
Mark (03:48):
quarts or 40 quarts.
Exactly.
It's still
Francis (03:49):
amazing.
Well, you bring up a good pointthough.
We have available to us in theUnited States some great
balsamic vinegars.
These are the fine artisanalexpensive vinegars that are, are
not the stuff you, A lot of thestuff you find is your market
shelf isn't very good.
But, but really great vinegar isavailable.
Mark (04:07):
What's, and those balsamic vinegars are aged over a long,
long period.
The good ones one, not the goodones.
Right.
Not the stuff on thesupermarket.
Francis (04:13):
A lot of the stuff on the supermarket shelf that's
marked balsamic vinegar is areal ripoff.
Um, but if it says balsamicvinegar of modina, and it also
is from Italy mm-hmm.
Um, you're, you're more likelyto get a better vinegar.
Mark (04:24):
You need to check both of those things.
Look for the word modina, andthen also look for the word
Italy
Francis (04:29):
and, you have a good shot of getting it, a decent
vinegar, but there are allranges 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 anacidic component to a dish that
needs acid.
But that's not all it's for, um,you know, great red wine vinegar
in particular.
(04:49):
And wine vinegar in particularhas complexities.
Similar to wine.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you don't drink itbecause we don't wanna drink
that much acidic acid, which isthe acid and vinegar.
Um, but it can add a tremendousamount of complexity and
richness to dishes, not justdressings, to marinades, to all
sorts of things to de glazing apan.
(05:09):
And you can make vinegar athome.
And that's what this article byPaula Wolfert was all about.
It talked about, um, makingvinegar at home and it's not
that difficult.
I think you may be able to findthis article if you go to food
and wine.com, uh, maybe food andwine.com/wolfert.
We'll
Mark (05:25):
try, we'll try and link you to it if, if it's still
available to us.
Francis (05:28):
But what you need to make vinegar at home is, is you
need a warm place where you canput vinegar.
'cause it It takes monthsactually to make vinegar.
It takes about two and a halfmonths to make something decent
and, and can be even longer.
And the way that it works is youtake red wine, people use cider
and stuff, but red wine mm-hmm.
Or wine makes the best vinegarand, and you have a mother,
(05:49):
Sherry
Mark (05:50):
actually also makes some, right.
Well that's
Francis (05:52):
a type CL wine.
Absolutely.
you take what's called a mother.
The mother is what converts thewine into vinegar.
you keep coming back to themother and it goes through the
mother and you can, the motherwill, well, it
Mark (06:04):
does, it takes it and it makes it a more controlled,
changing to, to acid.
Yeah.
And in that way you can, whilethe vinegar will indeed be
different, every single time youmake it, you'll have, you'll
develop kind of a house style ofvinegar
Francis (06:16):
and mother, like a particular mother in.
Imparts this particular kind offlavor.
So it has to do with what kindof 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 (06:30):
change the mother over time.
Exactly.
These
Francis (06:31):
mothers can last 40, 50, 60, 80, 90 years,
theoretically forever, like astarter, you know?
And so what you, when yourgreat-grandmother came over from
Italy, the mother was fairlydry, but she, she.
That mother was then used againwhen they got over here.
Absolutely.
I,
Mark (06:46):
I'm certain that, that, you know, would be seized by
customs today.
You would not be able to bringthe, the mother over.
Yeah.
You probably can't do that, canyou?
Francis (06:54):
But what happens is also the thing about making a
vinegar in your house, um, ituses the ambient.
Uh, the, the microorganisms, thespores, the microorganisms that
are in the air, the micro floare in the air.
So if, if I make vinegar in myhouse and Mark makes the mo
vinegar with the same mother andthe same wine in his house, it's
gonna taste slightly different.
Yeah.
Mostly.
'cause my house is cleaner thanyours.
Yeah.
Could be.
But mine may be better forvinegar than yours.
(07:16):
Um, and so the idea of, youknow, it's funny'cause I have a,
uh, if you're, if you're a winelover.
Making your own vinegar istremendous.
Now it takes about two and ahalf months and you leave it in
a cheesecloth covered, open, topcontainer, someplace between 70
and 80 degrees for two and ahalf months because you can't
close the top.
It's an aerobic reaction.
Mm-hmm.
(07:36):
It's not an anaerobic reaction,but if you're a wine lover.
This is very often a way to takewine on the second day or the
third day or the day after.
You don't want, like, it wasn'tgood enough.
You had a half a bottle left,you had a quarter bottle left,
you had a little bit left in theglass.
You put this into your, yourvinegar, and as long as you.
My friend Peter Schleimer, is abig, is a Austrian, restaurant
(07:59):
critic, wine writer, foodwriter, and he has an amazing,
amazing 20-year-old vinegarcollection.
Various mothers kept in variousplaces because he gets these
wine samples sent to his houseall the time.
Mm-hmm.
And so he has a million halffull bottles of wine.
Mark (08:15):
Something I'll tell you about making vinegar is that,
you know, if you use some reallyinteresting, really good wines
in it, you have, you have ahigher chance of getting really
interesting, really goodvinegar.
Francis (08:26):
And what Peter always says though, he says, you have
to take care of your mother.
Because, you know, and it's ajoke, right?
Mm-hmm.
You have to take care of yourmother, but you need to take
care of the mother and keep italive.
And you, if you have, he hasseveral mothers going there, it
has to keep in several places.
'cause they'll cross contaminateeach other if they're in the
same room.
But he makes vinegars.
And what I, what I, when hecomes from Austria, what I love
when he brings me as a present,can you do me a favor?
Not use the word contaminateanymore when you're talking
(08:47):
about my CROs, uh, whatever.
But he brings, he brings medifferent vinegars.
And his vinegars are because hegets these great wines.
Delivered to his home that heneeds to professionally rate and
review.
But he is like, I can't, youknow, drink them all.
We're not
Mark (08:58):
gonna drink 30 bottles of wine in one night.
He has
Francis (09:00):
iced wine vinegar.
I mean, he has vinegars madefrom$75 bottles of wine or the
remnants of$75 bottles of wine.
These things are incredible.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, the, I use themall the time and frankly, these
incredible vinegars, sometimesI'll just put some on top of a
roast beef sandwich.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Right.
And sometimes I'll use them inmy cooking and.
Just, just amazing.
(09:20):
My guess is about
Mark (09:21):
two and a half months you might wanna come to one of our
restaurants and
Francis (09:25):
see what kind of vinegar we're using.
Mark's gonna call up his auntand try and get that vinegar,
uh, the vinegar pot over.
Absolutely.
And I'm gonna call Peter and seeif I can bring some mother in my
pocket from, would the law.
Yeah, you would never do that.
Well, if I got my fingers dirtyand just didn't wash them until
I got back here, would thatstill be a good law?
I don't think that works.
Alright, we're gonna talk aboutsweet.
I don't want your fingersbecause nevermind.
We're gonna talk about sweeterthings in vinegar in just a
(09:47):
moment.
You're listening to therestaurant guys, Our guest today
is Rowan Jacobson.
Rowan is the former managingeditor of Heat, the Healing Arts
Press, and a longtime healthwriter.
He's the author of ChocolateUnwrapped, the Surprising Health
Benefits of America's FavoritePassion, and he joins us today
to discuss well, food ingeneral, but specifically a
great article that Mark and Ifound, um.
(10:08):
Uh, in the Art of Eating onUmami.
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 publicationthat you're involved with.
We had, uh, ed Bear on the showrecently talking about it just
last week.
And uh, you can go to ourwebsite out there and listen to
land if you want, subscribe.
It's a, it's a food quarterly.
They do in-depth articles on, onvarious things about food.
It's great.
Uh, the art of eating.com.
Now, Why don't you tell us?
(10:34):
Why don't you tell our audienceactually what umami is?
Rowan (10:38):
Umami is the a fifth taste that we all have.
We, we all grew up learning thatwe 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 aboutsalty, sweet, bitter, and sour.
But it turns out that we have afifth.
Taste Bud.
That detects what's calledumami.
And the reason I have a namelike Umami is because it was
first identified in Japan, uh,by a, a researcher there about a
(11:13):
hundred years ago.
And, uh, what it basically is,is a,
Mark (11:18):
so, hold on, Rowan.
If it was identified a hundredyears 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 abrothy 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 ofit, what's left is, is pretty
much the essence of umami.
But, uh, this, this foodresearcher in Japan, in, I think
it was 1907, he, um, he wasdrinking a bowl of Doshi, which
(11:57):
is.
The, the stock that they usuallyuse 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 distinctlydifferent.
And he, uh, he ana analyze, hedecided that the kelp was what
was really responsible for that.
So he analyzed the kelp anddiscovered an amino acid in the
kelp called glutamate.
(12:27):
Which was what was providingthat fifth taste.
He called it umami, which is inJapan, pretty much means
delicious, the essence ofdeliciousness.
And he actually then founded acompany that began manufacturing
a, a powdered version ofglutamate 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 youheadaches.
Every bad Chinese restaurantuses way too much of it.
What's the skinny,
Rowan (12:59):
all right.
Here's the skinny people.
A few people decided that theyhad had headaches or dizziness
after eating in Chineserestaurants way back in I the
thirties or the forties.
And they said, what's up withthis?
And.
Somebody decided maybe it wasthe MSG that was already at that
time, traditionally added to alot of Chinese foods, simply
(13:23):
because Chinese chefs werefamiliar 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 onthe MSG just'cause that was the
thing that was unfamiliar tothem in the kitchen.
Is that what that was?
Rowan (13:51):
Right.
And well, they thought maybe MSGwas responsible.
So this German researcher took abunch of rats and injected them
with huge syringes of, ofmonosodium glutamate.
And sure enough, the rats gotsick.
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 injectedthem with that much sugar or
salt, the rats probably would'vejust 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 alot of evidence since then, it
hasn't really been possible toturn the public around.
But all the research that's beendone seems to show that MSG.
It's completely safe unless, youknow, you inject yourself with a
huge syringe of it and no one'sadvocating that right now.
Francis (14:36):
Now, now let, can it be overdone though?
Can, can, can a, a restaurantthat has powdered MSG just use
too much of it?
And, and what happens if theydo?
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, ofumami.
As, as we would salt a little ofit makes everything else taste
better.
It heightens the flavor of allthe other tastes and aromas that
are in a dish, too much of it,and it starts to kill the flavor
(15:10):
and take over and, and reallyflatten 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 moredangerous.
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 onlyrecently, and chefs have an
inherent.
knowledge of umami and how touse it and, and, and making
dishes and putting thingstogether.
We're gonna be talking moreabout that.
Mark (15:34):
I, I have a very funny story about chefs who overuse
MSG.
So, Rowan, we recently took overan establishment that was
formerly a Chinese restaurant.
We put, built an Italianrestaurant in it instead.
And, uh, one of the things thatwe found, and now this, this
restaurant was, had all over itspaperwork.
No, MSG.
No MSG.
We don't use MSG well, we walkedup into the kitchen of this
(15:56):
particular establishment andwhat we found were three 100
pound barrels of MSG.
So I, I think they might nothave been telling the truth.
It could have made the whole rand 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 whatI thought was, isn't one 100
pound barrel enough?
That's, that's a little heavyhand 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, youknow, slightly more natural,
sophisticated forms such asanchovies, Parmesan cheese.
Francis (16:29):
Well, that's what I want to talk about, right?
So umami doesn't just come fromthe powdered form of umami.
when we wanna infuse our, ourdishes with the flavor of umami.
Where else does it come from?
What na what, what things do weput 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 cheesethat you grate on, on dishes and
cho's soy sauce.
Mark (16:55):
Mm-hmm.
It seems that every culturethough, has their own umami.
That that is ubiquitous.
Rowan (17:01):
Right.
And the ubiquitous source ofumami in the United States is
ketchup.
Francis (17:06):
Ah, sauce.
America can, yes.
Well, well, is that from thetomatoes?
Is that where the umami comesfrom?
Rowan (17:12):
Yeah.
Uh, vegetables don't tend tohave as much umami as some other
products, but.
Tomatoes are the highest of anyvegetables.
(19:05):
So you take, in fact, ketchup iskind of a, a, an ideal
combination of all the, theflavors you've got, the umami
and sweetness from the tomato.
Mm-hmm.
You've got salt, you've got somesour 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 Iwent 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 theremany, many years ago, and the
bartender would say they, they'dsee us come in and they had
these stupid little bottles ofketchup and we'd use like two
bottles every time we had dinnerthere.
And like, more Salsa American,they back Um, talking with Rowan
(19:36):
Jacobson about.
Umami the fifth flavor, and, andthere are all sorts of ways that
we need to know about how we useumami or glutamate.
That's not necessarily modestsodium glutamate, our own
cuisine and how we, how we canuse it to enhance our food and
how important it is.
And you're using it, whether youknow it or not, so you better
know how to use it, right?
You're listening to therestaurant guys, today.
Our guest is Rowan Jacobson.
He's the former managing editorof The Healing Arts Press and a
(19:57):
longtime health writer.
He's the author of ChocolateUnwrapped, the Surprising Health
Benefits of America's FavoritePassion, and he joins us today
to discuss an article he wroteon Umami the Fifth Taste that he
recently published in The Art ofEating.
We were talking.
Before the news about how umamiis imparted, sometimes the, the
simplest way to do it is to usemonosodium glutamate, but umami
that meaty flavor, that thatfifth flavor, um, comes to your
(20:20):
food through a number ofdifferent sources.
We talked about tomatoes beingun unusual in that it's a
vegetable with a lot of umamiflavor.
Are there meats?
Are all meats.
They have umami or they havedifferent parts of umami.
Rowan (20:31):
All meats have some umami.
What, what?
Umami is really a taste forprotein 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 thathas been broken down in one way
or another.
Mm-hmm.
Either by through long cookingor through fermentation or
through drying it and, and agingit.
Anything that, that really beatsup that protein starts to break
it down into the amino acidsthat'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, onceyou age it, or if you, if you
cook it for a long time, do it.
Or even as, as the animal getsolder, it starts to develop a
little as its own body starts tobreak down.
But then you start to get thatsavoriness that we all like.
Francis (21:19):
So basically you're talking about on a molecular
level, when the protein breaksdown, 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 proteinsthat is the muscle of the beef.
Starts to break apart into itsconstituent amino acids.
And that tastes really good tous 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 ofof other things, uh, that
different, different cultureshave different ubiquitous
sources of umami, you know, thatmay not be seaweed, but you talk
about prosciutto and you talkabout parmesano, ano and
anchovies.
Um, one of the things that youmentioned in your article, which
I thought was.
Uh, is it is, it is a great partof food history.
(22:04):
It's kind of agro.
A gross part of food history is,um, is we love those gross parts
of food, food history, ancientRomans.
You reference, um, uh, the garumthat was the sauce that ancient
Romans used as we use ketchup inAmerica today.
Can you tell us about Garum
Rowan (22:18):
Garum?
Um, yeah.
The Romans and the Greeks beforethem had a sauce, which is
pretty, is is similar to thefish sauce that's used in Asian
cultures today.
Basically they would take a lotof, of little fish, anchovies,
sardines, that type of fish.
And keep them in the sun and letthem just ferment in the sun for
quite a while.
Francis (22:37):
Yeah.
Ferment and rot are very closewhen you're talking about fish,
aren't they?
Yeah.
You know, and, and they wouldjust make a sauce out of the.
Bloody remains
Rowan (22:47):
eventually.
Yeah.
All, all the, the guts, uh, itwould just break down into this
black liquid and they drain theblack liquid off and, and they
put it on absolutely everything.
Those ancient Roman cookbookscall 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 startedresearching umami, I've been
using a lot more fish sauce,which is made the same way.
I think it's, it's got a littlebit less guts in it and a little
bit more.
Just fish.
Mm-hmm.
But yeah, it's, it's fish sauceis ubiquitous in, in Vietnam,
Thailand, and, uh, the rest ofSoutheast Asia.
You can get a bottle for threebucks at any decent supermarket
(23:22):
and use it pretty much like youwould 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 veryeasy 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 anythingand it tastes, you feel like it
needs something.
and you've already put salt init 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 flavorright
Francis (23:48):
up.
You know, I just, I rememberreading, um, I like reading
about food history and I, I'veread a couple of accounts of how
the garum was made or the oldRoman fish sauce was made, and
it just, I, I, I, I hope andpray 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 toferment into black sludge.
Rowan (24:09):
I, I make you no
Francis (24:10):
promises.
Well just allow me to continuein 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 thatvegetarians, there's certain
vegetarians will, are well awareof that fact because they have
to steer clear of which,
Francis (24:31):
and certain vegetarians aren't.
And, uh, and now are really madat you for telling them or their
boyfriends who are carnivores orhave one more thing off the list
of things that they can have.
you talk in your article abouthow, umami interacts with
beverages, with wine, forexample.
how does it react with wine?
Do we have certain things weneed to look for?
Rowan (24:51):
Well, there's a lot of controversy, in, in that area.
A lot of people are, are talkingabout that and there doesn't
seem to be agreement yet, but acouple things seem to be coming
Clear Wine has a lot of, of adifferent kind of umami called
synergizing umami, which, andanything that's, that's made
with yeast.
It develops this other kind ofumami, but wine also red wine
(25:14):
anyway, has, has bitterness init.
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 withwine.
Something about the umami.
And the bitterness and the wineclash 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 starttalking about bacon or ham or
things like that, they can gomiraculously with the right
wine.
Rowan (25:40):
Exactly.
often wines that don't have thatbitterness to them.
Francis (25:44):
Mm-hmm.
it's funny when you put food andwine together, um, it's.
Especially when you have a verystrong mame flavor, a very
strong salty flavor.
It's, um, it, it makes for itsown challenges.
And one of the things that Ialways suggest to people who,
who are having dinner parties athome is if you're having a bunch
of courses, especially if you'rehaving like anchovies in a
(26:04):
course or, or open.
And you're gonna open four orfive bottles of wine for you and
your friends over the course ofthe evening.
I recommend opening all of thebottles of wine and you and your
friends can mess around and seewhat 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 comein and you're going to drink one
bottle with each course.
And it's our job to know what'sin our cellar and it's our job
(26:24):
to know our food.
And this, a good sommelier willsort of be able to take you
through and help you pick.
Bottles that work with eachcourse.
But at home, I mean, half thefun 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 tablefor people to pick what they
like, I think that's a ton offun.
Mark (26:42):
You know, there's a, there's another alternative here
as well.
And, we, we talk about wine allthe time, but certain of these
umami foods are just gonna gobetter with cocktails or they're
gonna go better with beer, orthey're gonna go better with
sake as opposed to traditional.
You know, Western European wineis, 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 higherin umami than, than wine.
Rice has, has more protein in itthan 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 winetypically is.
Mm-hmm.
And so that extra longfermentation really cranks up
(27:20):
the umami level.
So Saki plays and Saki doesn'thave any bitterness in it, so it
plays very well with, with hiumami foods usually.
Francis (27:27):
Well, I find that with hi umami, with hi Umami Foods
sake.
Works extremely well and you areseeing in, in Western
restaurants, more and more ofthem have a sake listed with at
least a few selections of, ofhigh quality sake.
And when you look at it sake andbeer sake is a beer, it's not a
wine because, you know, beercomes from grain and they work
differently.
And frankly, they're, they're,it's, it's harder to have a
(27:48):
miss.
I don't think that you get themagical heights that you get
with, you know, when you have afantastic 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 tomiss 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 takeon 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 ownor, or just the right dish it,
you've got all those aromasgoing 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 thatyou're left with.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Mm-hmm.
Rowan (28:30):
Saki.
Because after that rice ispolished down to just the pure
starch, it's not contributingmuch except the, you know, what
the yeast needs to create.
The alcohol.
So what you're left with is justis, is a perfect match for
oysters or a lot of these otherfoods that are high in umami.
It can be difficult.
Francis (28:48):
Our guest today is Rowan Jacobson.
He's the author of, uh, manyarticles and several books.
We were talking with him in thelast couple of segments about
umami or the meaty flavor thatsometimes is associated with
MSG, but is much more, um, muchmore important than that and
much more broadly understood.
And you should check out himthrough our website and the art
of eating.com through ourwebsite.
He's also the author of a book.
(29:09):
Chocolate unwrapped, thesurprising 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 anywoman on the face of the planet
and they will tell you thatchocolate actually makes them
feel better.
Woman.
And I was, what I was about tosay is, and you can ask Francis
and me and we will tell you thesame thing.
Francis (29:39):
So what's the scoop man?
Give me every rationalization Ican eat as much chocolate as
possible.
Rowan (29:44):
Alright.
You like chocolate is, is thefood 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 bitof research now that shows that
consumption of, of.
Maybe a third of a bar ofchocolate a day can lengthen
your life and, and.
Significantly reduce your riskof heart attack or stroke.
(30:14):
Well, it
Mark (30:14):
reduces my stress.
So that's, that's, that's one ofthe ways it could do that.
Well, and I guess even withoutthe 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 darkchocolate.
Mark (30:26):
Mm-hmm.
Oh yeah.
I love dark chocolate.
One of the, one of the problemsthat we have when we, when we
eat our chocolate is, the otherthings 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 atypical bar of Hershey's milk
chocolate, it's got.
A little chocolate in there anda lot of sugar and and some milk
Francis (30:42):
now.
But is there a downside?
Because I like really darkchocolate 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 numberof calories.
Yeah.
You're
Mark (30:55):
talking to those guys in case you want town.
Where we go, we're, we're bigtown guys.
We're gonna loot, we're gonnapillage, we're gonna do all
sorts of bad things while we'rethere.
Rowan (31:03):
Well, alright.
If you, you can loot and pillagethe chocolate as long as you
then choose not to loot andpillage, 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 alittle more than you.
Rowan (31:13):
No.
Chocolate is good food if you'regetting, 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 throughit.
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 talkingabout how chocolate is, is, is
really good for people.
How, how has it been received byboth, you know, the, the, the
dietary, nutritional community?
And by people, I mean, I wouldthink it'd be a lot as a hero
from nine year olds acrossAmerica.
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, Ithink of you every time I eat a
piece of chocolate.
Mark (31:51):
Oh, Lord.
Well, that's not so, it'schanged my life.
That doesn't seem like such abad thing to me.
Well,
Rowan (31:55):
that's pretty good.
Yeah.
People, people love that bookbecause it, it gives them
license to do exactly what theywanna do anyway.
Francis (32:01):
So what's the premise of the book?
What, what, other than theobvious, what, what have I not
stated about the book?
About why chocolate is good foryou and how chocolate is good
for you?
Rowan (32:09):
Well, there's.
We just have it ingrained deeplyin us.
The chocolate.
Is bad.
There's something aboutchocolate.
It's just bad.
Mark (32:16):
Well, there's some there.
There is something in ourculture that makes us say, if
something tastes good, it'sprobably bad for us.
Rowan (32:23):
Right.
It's a pleasure thing.
You know, when we were kids, wewere told somehow conditioned to
believe that.
We were being naughty if we atechocolate.
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 aboutthat says that chocolate is good
for us?
how do you cover that in yourbook?
Rowan (32:52):
The, uh, well, one of.
Researchers initial clues isthat there's, there's a, an
indigenous culture that livesoff 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 dietis cocoa.
They drink.
Five or six cups a day of thisintense 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, whatwe're doing Right.
What they're drinking is
Rowan (33:25):
not sweet.
Exactly.
Which is the key, like the worstthing you're doing when you're
eating chocolate is you'regetting some sugar.
Although not as much as peoplethink, but, so this, this group
off of Panama had incrediblyhealthy.
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 weretrying to figure out what it
was, and they finally decidedmaybe it was the, the chocolate.
And since then they've beentesting it on Volunteers and
Mark (33:51):
I'm volunteers.
Nice.
How do I sign up for that?
Where, where, you know, it couldalso have been that they didn't
eat their chocolate sittingbehind 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 modifysomeone's diet to increase the
cocoa intake, you get the samekind of benefits.
Rowan (34:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Increase life expectancy, lowercholesterol, uh.
50% reduced risk of stroke orheart attack
Francis (34:13):
and chocolate.
These are a few of my favoritethings.
Okay, everybody here'spermission to eat chocolate and,
and the bittersweet stuff andnot too much sugar.
Rowan Jacobson is the author ofChocolate Unwrapped, the
Surprising Health Benefits ofAmerica's Favorite Passion, and
you can find out more about thatat our web, at our website,
restaurant guys radio.com.
Hey Rowan, thanks for being onthe show.
Thanks for having me.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks very much, Rowan.
(35:01):
Our guest was Rowan Jacobson.
We talked about chocolate, whicheverybody loves.
You should check out his book onour website.
We also talked about Umami thefifth Taste, that meaty, sexy
taste.
Mark (35:11):
you know, that one of the most, highly intense, uh, umami
flavors, do you, do you knowwhat 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 ofEating is breast milk.
So, and he writes, ratherwhimsically, add a little breast
milk to your bechamel for a quathat 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 forvolunteers, mark and I want to
try this.
I do not wish to try it.
Thank you very much and inviteRowan
Mark (35:49):
Jacobson over for dinner.
That is clearly the grossestthing 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 notsitting 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 stuffas a, as a child and that's
normal mm-hmm.
That becomes comfort food foryou.
And so parents who, you know,you have kids.
If you have a kid where you canintroduce them to a wide variety
(36:18):
of foods at a young age, do.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, we get a lot ofteenagers who eat butter and
pasta and they don't wantanything else because they
weren't introduced to foods whenthey were younger.
And they've also shown thatpregnant women who eat a wide
variety of foods when they'repregnant.
Their children wind up with abroader, 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 likevegetables and things like that,
that traditionally kids won'teat.
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 havefour kids and some kids, some of
my kids eat a spectacular arrayof 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 fromgrowing from a website, and
we've also found out that thebest source of umami is your
mommy.
Hope you've enjoyed the hourlistening 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.
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