Enriching the vegetarian soup

I’ll admit that making a delicious vegetarian soup is somewhat more challenging than making a soup containing animal protein.

Many soup recipes call for a chicken or beef stock or broth. The broth gives the soup its “hearty” flavor, so you’re starting with an advantage.

I have not yet found an all natural/organic vegetable broth to my liking.

There are vegetarian soup mixes and bouillons out there that do the trick, but I don’t like the ingredient list. They are too processed. I have a feeling that what makes them work is the monosodium glutamate.

Is monosodium glutamate as evil as people think? Is there another way to get its flavor enhancing merits without using a highly processed soup mix? I promise to get to that.

Making a delicious soup

I have two tricks I use in soup, and I’m going to share them.

The first one, you might have guessed, is herbs.

The bouquet garni is the French term for a bundle of herbs, tied with a string, or filed in a sachet, tea ball or coffee filter. The herb bundle is cooked in the soup, and removed before serving.

The most commonly used herbs are parsley, thyme and bay leaf. I also really like chervil, tarragon, marjoram, basil and savory. I find that sage and rosemary generally don’t work for me, and overpower the other delicate flavors. It’s worth trying different combinations, and if using fresh herbs, there’s little risk of over-flavoring.

Besides the flavor and aroma you’ll be adding to the nutritional value of the soup. Herbs are the pleasurable way to add antioxidants to the dish.

The second trick is the parmesan rind. It is useful for hearty soups, such as minestrone, lentil or bean.

What you need is the trimmings or ends of a quality Italian parmesan. These are the rock hard pieces that don’t grate. If you don’t have them as leftover, they are sold at a low price at Whole Foods and cheese shops.

I love making something good from what would otherwise be thrown away.

If there is wax on the rind peel it. Add the rind to the bouquet garni, or just let it float and simmer with the soup. It should also be removed before serving.

Parmesan adds a definite natural rich umami taste to the soup.

Umami, MSG and health

Until recently textbook wisdom was that humans could detect four primary tastes: sweet, bitter, salty and sour. Yet as early as 1908, Kikunae Ikeda at the Tokyo Imperial University found that there is another taste. He was studying the nature of the ‘deliciousness’ of konbu (kelp) stock, an important part of Japanese cuisine, and found that the taste is typical of foods that have a high level of glutamate (an amino acid and building block of protein), and identified l-glutamate as the principal source of a fifth taste. Ikeda named this taste umami, Japanese for savory or delicious. Ikeda developed and patented a method of making monosodium glutamate, (MSG), a processed additive that adds umami taste to food, just like sugar makes things taste sweet.

It took almost a century for scientists to prove him right. We now know there are receptors on the tongue with no other purpose than to recognize the presence of glutamate.

Glutamate is a common amino acid, comprising most proteins, and it is presumably for this reason that some animals have evolved the ability to taste it. Glutamate in meat and milk is normally bound up in proteins. Bound glutamate doesn’t enhance the flavor of foods, as only the free glutamate binds to the receptors and gives off the umami perception. That is part of the secret of slow cooked meat stocks and broths typical of French cuisine. The cooking breaks down the protein, and releases free glutamate. Only a fraction of the glutamate in foods is in its "free" form. Free glutamate is particularly concentrated in aged cheese. It is also part of the flavor profile of tomato products, mushrooms, seaweed, yeast extract (is that why British and Australians kids like Marmite?) and soy sauce.

MSG though is almost 100% free glutamate. It has developed a bad reputation as a suspicious additive that many consumers believe causes symptoms including allergies, headaches, shortness of breath, dry mouth and flushing. Since the first report of the Chinese restaurant syndrome in 1968 caused a global health scare, clinical trials have failed to identify a consistent relationship between the consumption of MSG and the constellation of symptoms that comprise the syndrome. Although there have been reports of an MSG-sensitive subset of the population, this has not been demonstrated in placebo-controlled trials.

In a consensus meeting on monosodium glutamate, experts from around the world concluded that: “The general use of glutamate salts (monosodium-L-glutamate and others) as food additive can, thus, be regarded as harmless for the whole population.”

For me though, MSG is the hallmark of highly processed food. MSG isn’t the only umami additive available today. Many Packaged-food companies now use different flavorings that are lab-created umami. They create the illusion of a protein rich nutritious food, while using an additive on cheap ingredients. Just like sweetness and saltiness will increase the acceptance of a product, added free glutamate will give the perception of savoriness, and increase its likeability.

Cooks knew that certain ingredients and cooking methods enhance flavor well before the science came in. Their old fashioned ways appeal to me much more, as they are achieving the goal with real nutritious food and not with flavorings and additives.

Dr. Ayala