Chinese restaurants are my family’s thing. It’s a very common immigrant story; it was the starter kit for Ronald Reagan’s American dream. Though it’s long gone, I can remember my family’s second restaurant near perfectly: two guardian lion statues with obvious signs of weathering flanked the door, there was a green makeshift cabinet for the valet’s car keys propped against the one on the right, and a small patch of flowers adorned their feet. The flowers could have used more love.
Modern MSG production uses a far more efficient process of harnessing bacteria that produce glutamic acid from digesting the glucose in fast-growing crops such as corn, sugar cane or cassava. The glutamic acid is then neutralized to create water and monosodium glutamate. It’s the same idea of utilizing bacteria to our benefit to make yogurt, and the same principle by which Noma Project’s mushroom garum is made.