MSG

Supplies the glutamate a January tomato never grew. Not subtle, still true.

Every bouillon cube on earth already does this. You are just cutting out a step.

Sweet, salt, glutamate. That triangle is the entire snack aisle.

Pushes a cultivated mushroom into tasting like something foraged.

Cabbage is mostly water. Glutamate gives the stir-fry a floor to stand on.

Fried starch has no savouriness of its own. Every crisp packet knows it.

Piperine gives the lingering glutamate coat an edge to break against.

Fat and glutamate travel together; the meat tastes longer-cooked than it is.

Overlapping jobs. Use one for salt and depth, the other for colour.

Glutamate plus ribonucleotide: the synergy Kuninaka published in 1960. Same physics.

Savoury melon: glutamate flips it from dessert to cold Sichuan starter.

The berry already has free glutamate. Adding more turns it almost tomato.

Salt-and-savoury against pure lactone. The bar stops being a sugar cube.

Sour plus glutamate is the entire snack aisle. On its own it tastes like crisps.