Subreddit: r/FoodScience
User: u/Practical_Use2384
Original Post:
Bay leaves imparting "kokumi"
I recently saw a reddit post about how people can't really define the flavor from bay leaves, but still notice it when excluded in dishes.
Since bay leaves are commonly used in soups, stews, braises and other dishes that are cooked for extended periods of time...I wonder if the "flavor" that bay leaves are imparting could actually be the kokumi flavor enhancement. I (briefly) read Aji-no-moto's explanation of kokumi and how it imparts a "mouthfulness" to dishes. This seems similar to how chilis and other dishes seem to be missing something without bay leaves.
Are bay leaves rich in glutathione described in Aji-no-moto's article? Are there at-home experiments to correlate bay leaves & the kokumi sensation (am unemployed so I have my family as my little test hamsters)? What are your thoughts on it?
My Response:
There are few plant-based sources of glutathione. Largely our sources of glutathione in food are yeast (fermented-based foods) and animal products. The closest is garlic and onion, which contain cysteine sulfoxides - they were only found to impart kokumi back in the mid 90's by Japanese researchers, and partially why I suspect they’re so often found in nearly all cuisine.
There are some high-protein fermented products that have been cleaved to give kokumi enhancing taste, but they would have to be cleaved at the glutamate-cysteine or glutamate-valine peptide and analogs to give that flavor-enhancing effect. Most plant-based proteins lack high concentrations of cysteine, except beans, soy, and other proteinaceous ingredients.
You can play around with this umami/kokumi calculator that I created a while back. From my understanding, bay leaves have very limited glutathione, if it registers at all.
If you unlock the spreadsheet tabs in the Excel version, you’ll see a table where I tabulated the known concentrations of kokumi-imparting compounds in various food ingredients.
In fact, there’s more glutathione in peaches and apples (but strangely, only varietals from Japan) than a large swath of vegetables. You’d come close with cabbage and other brassica, where there’d be some registered concentration. It’s been a while since I looked at the tables.
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