The long way to delicious: fermentation, umami, and time as an ingredient | Canada Voices

The current enthusiasm for fermented foods can make fermentation seem like a particularly elaborate whim of food fashion. Stroll the refrigerated grocery aisle and suddenly all is alive – cultured, aged, soured. But the history of fermentation is anything but recent. It is ancient, one of the oldest technologies of the kitchen, owed to the work of microbes.

Alex Kim, chef and co-owner of Five Sails in Vancouver and Top Chef Canada finalist, learned this lesson at an early age watching his maternal grandmother preserve the abundance of her farm in Jochiwon, South Korea. For her, fermentation was tied to the pragmatic need of extending harvests to feed her family year-round.

“My grandmother used to tell me, ‘With fermentation, time does the work.’ I’ve always remembered that,” says Kim.

Becoming a chef gave Kim a new perspective on what he watched as a child. “I realized how instinctive her cooking was,” he says. He found ways to connect that tradition with local Vancouver ingredients, like gochujang using The Local Farm’s Jimmy Nardello peppers; sea asparagus jangajji (pickles); and fermented kohlrabi.

For him, fermentation is not a flavour category, and it’s done not simply for longevity, but rather as a tool to transform a dish by adding acidity, savouriness, aroma, or to alter texture. “It has to have a purpose,” he says.

The best result might be when an ingredient tastes fully of itself, with the volume turned up.

Garlic scapes preserved as jangajji retain their texture while taking on the flavours of the preservation liquid. Kombucha keeps the tannic structure of black tea even as it gains effervescence. Fermentation adds layers while allowing the original ingredient to remain recognizable. The cook can choose the process according to what the ingredient needs to become, creating a complexity beyond what’s offered in its fresh form.

Arguably, the most striking of such effects is how fermentation can build umami.

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Japanese biochemist Kikunae Ikeda identified this elusive fifth taste in 1908 while investigating the flavour of kombu dashi. The discovery came eight years after studying abroad in Germany, where he ate asparagus, tomatoes, and cheese for the first time and noted something beyond the usual categorizations of salt, sour, bitter, and sweet.

While the word has almost lost its meaning because of overuse, umami, a shorthand for an elusive, almost meaty quality – even when meat is not present – is a sensory reaction to particular compounds. Glutamate is one of the principal substances responsible for umami, while the nucleotides (the building blocks of DNA and RNA) inosinate and guanylate can heighten that sensation.

Kim sees the definition as emotional. “Umami is more than just a flavour to me. In Korean, we call it ‘gamchilmat.’ It describes a flavour that is so delicious and addictive that you almost want to keep it to yourself.”

Perhaps the most distinct marker of umami is that impulse to keep eating. It makes a gravy feel broader and more satisfying. It stays on the palate as a lingering sensation; your mouth waters as you pick up the fork again.

While umami is naturally occurring in some raw ingredients such as tomatoes, mushrooms, corn, and peas, processes like fermentation, drying and cooking can increase the amount of flavour-active, free glutamate available to taste receptors. Fermentation is not creating umami from nothing. Preserved products – think soy sauce, kimchi, jeotgal (salted and preserved seafood), ogiri (fermented oil-seed paste), fish sauce, and aged cheeses – all contribute to a craveable quality in food.

And fermentation needn’t announce itself in a one-note blast of jagged acerbity. “I also think people sometimes misunderstand fermentation and expect everything to be very sour or funky. It doesn’t have to be. Fermentation can be very subtle,” Kim says.

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What is especially compelling is the alchemy that occurs when flavours meet. “I think what’s really interesting is the synergy between different umami ingredients. When you bring two or three sources of umami together, they can become much more powerful than when you use them individually.” That is more than a chef’s intuition. Glutamate works in concert with inosinate or guanylate, producing a stronger perception of umami than either source produces on its own. The canonical example is kombu dashi, a Japanese soup stock made with glutamate-rich seaweed, which can be amplified by dried bonito (also known as katsuobushi), rich in inosinate.

The home cook can begin with a jar, a spoon, and curiosity. Gochujang stirred into a sauce, sauerkraut brine in a vinaigrette, prepped fruit packed in sugar and left on the counter.

In a kitchen increasingly obsessed with speed, it’s almost radical when an ingredient’s best qualities are only revealed when left alone.

“You have to give the ingredients time to change. You can control the salt, temperature, and environment, but you can’t force the fermentation. Time is the most important ingredient.”

Grilled pork chop with endive & arugula salad, ssamjang vinaigrette

Chef Alex Kim suggests those new to fermentation start simple. Making your own takes planning, but a plethora of already fermented products are readily available. Kim suggests buying ingredients and paying attention to how they can change the flavour of a dish.

“Gochujang and doenjang are great examples. They are already fermented and have umami, spice and a little sweetness, so it’s very approachable for a home cook,” he says. “[This] ssamjang recipe is a simple way to experience that. You can use it with vegetables, meat, salad or even just as a dipping sauce.”

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Marinade:

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 large clove garlic, microplaned

Pork:

4 bone-in pork chops (2.5-3cm thick)

2 tbsp canola oil

Kosher salt

Vinaigrette:

1 tbsp gochujang

1 tbsp doenjang

1 tbsp ganjang (soy sauce)

1 tsp grated ginger

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

2 tbsp honey

1 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsp Hellmann’s avocado oil mayo

Salad:

4 Belgian endives, stems removed, leaves separated, washed

4 handfuls baby arugula

1 fennel bulb, shaved very thin on a mandoline slicer, kept in ice cold water

2 oranges, cut into supremes

3 tbsp toasted walnuts, roughly chopped

Instructions

Stir together the marinade ingredients in a rimmed dish large enough to hold the pork chops. Coat the chops on both sides and refrigerate for 2 hours minimum. 12 hours is the maximum marination time for the recipe.

Preheat a grill to medium heat, charcoal preferred.

Pat dry the pork chops, brush canola oil on both sides. Season lightly with kosher salt. Grill the chops for 3 minutes on the first side, bones directing to 1 o’clock position. Turn the chops 45 degrees with the bones now directing to 5 o’clock, creating a crosshatch pattern on the side against the heat. Grill for 3 minutes. Flip the bones and repeat on the second side, 3 minutes in each position, 6 minutes total. Take the chops off of the grill, let rest for 8 minutes.

Whisk ingredients for vinaigrette in a small mixing bowl. Toss the endive, arugula, fennel with 3 tbsp of the vinaigrette in a large mixing bowl. Taste, add more vinaigrette if needed.

Slice the pork chops into 6 strips. Reserve the bones.

Place the salad in a wide serving bowl, add the salad on the left side.

Add the pork chops slices on the right side of the bowl, along with the bones arranged in the centre.

Garnish with orange segments and walnuts.