Put The Science Of Umami To Work For You
In 1800, Dunand, chef to Napoleon Bonaparte, celebrated the French army's victory at the Ligurian village of Marengo by inventing a new dish: a stew of chicken sauteed with tomatoes and garlic and served with crayfish and eggs. The dish so pleased Napoleon, the story goes, that he commanded it be served after every battle he fought. Setting aside its probably fictitious provenance, Chicken Marengo is "a classic study in umami," Ole Mouritsen says. He is a professor of molecular biophysics at the University of Southern Denmark, and he is spending an evening with a group of somewhat tipsy Brooklyn food enthusiasts in the basement of a converted factory in Williamsburg, where umami-centered snacks are served while he explicates them. "Tonight I'm going to unlock the secret of umami," the tall, round-featured Dane murmurs into a microphone, over the sound of a few dozen hands rummaging in little...