Reading Comprehension 10th II term

Read the article about umami and choose the best option to answer the questions.

Umami

We’re all familiar with the four basic taste groups: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. But there’s another more unusual fifth flavour – the one known as umami. What is it exactly and how hard is it to explain what it’s like? Umami isn’t actually a new taste, even though we only first heard about it quite recently.

The word itself is a Japanese word, which means pleasant savoury taste, and the first person to describe this taste was Japanese chemist and food lover, Professor Kikunae Ikeda, back in the early 1900s in Tokyo. Ikeda was enjoying a bowl of soup made from seaweed when he noticed that its savoury flavour was very different from the other four basic tastes. According to Ikeda, the umami taste comes from an amino acid that’s produced when certain foods, such as cheese, begin to age and others, like meat, are heated during cooking.

So why are we so fond of umami flavours? Scientific research has shown that we actually start to like this flavour as babies, perhaps because there are high levels of amino acids in milk. Then, as we grow up and start to eat a variety of foods, we see the similarity in flavour when we eat certain dishes.

According to many chefs, meat, when it’s cooked, is one of the foods with the highest level of umami. And of the variety of meats available, beef has the highest umami level and is suitable for all sorts of dishes. Well-known chef Mareya Ibrahim describes burgers as the greatest umami dish. Certain vegetables are also a good source of umami: potatoes and carrots have a small amount of it, but mushrooms have much more, which is why they are often used instead of meat in vegetarian dishes.

Scientists say that umami has three qualities: when you eat something that has umami, the umami taste spreads across the tongue. Experiments on the tongue’s areas of taste have shown that we notice sweet and salty tastes more at the end of the tongue, but umami all across it. The taste stays in the mouth much longer than the other basic tastes and it provides that mouth-watering feeling that makes you want to eat more.

Umami is now such a popular flavour that food producers try to improve the taste of food by creating ‘umami bombs’ – dishes made from several umami ingredients. Umami also helps to reduce the amount of salt used in cooking, which is a good thing as salt is linked to so many health problems.

In the first paragraph, what does the writer say about umami?

Read the article about umami and choose the best option to answer the questions.

Umami

We’re all familiar with the four basic taste groups: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. But there’s another more unusual fifth flavour – the one known as umami. What is it exactly and how hard is it to explain what it’s like? Umami isn’t actually a new taste, even though we only first heard about it quite recently.

The word itself is a Japanese word, which means pleasant savoury taste, and the first person to describe this taste was Japanese chemist and food lover, Professor Kikunae Ikeda, back in the early 1900s in Tokyo. Ikeda was enjoying a bowl of soup made from seaweed when he noticed that its savoury flavour was very different from the other four basic tastes. According to Ikeda, the umami taste comes from an amino acid that’s produced when certain foods, such as cheese, begin to age and others, like meat, are heated during cooking.

So why are we so fond of umami flavours? Scientific research has shown that we actually start to like this flavour as babies, perhaps because there are high levels of amino acids in milk. Then, as we grow up and start to eat a variety of foods, we see the similarity in flavour when we eat certain dishes.

According to many chefs, meat, when it’s cooked, is one of the foods with the highest level of umami. And of the variety of meats available, beef has the highest umami level and is suitable for all sorts of dishes. Well-known chef Mareya Ibrahim describes burgers as the greatest umami dish. Certain vegetables are also a good source of umami: potatoes and carrots have a small amount of it, but mushrooms have much more, which is why they are often used instead of meat in vegetarian dishes.

Scientists say that umami has three qualities: when you eat something that has umami, the umami taste spreads across the tongue. Experiments on the tongue’s areas of taste have shown that we notice sweet and salty tastes more at the end of the tongue, but umami all across it. The taste stays in the mouth much longer than the other basic tastes and it provides that mouth-watering feeling that makes you want to eat more.

Umami is now such a popular flavour that food producers try to improve the taste of food by creating ‘umami bombs’ – dishes made from several umami ingredients. Umami also helps to reduce the amount of salt used in cooking, which is a good thing as salt is linked to so many health problems.

What is the writer’s main purpose in the second paragraph?

Read the article about umami and choose the best option to answer the questions.

Umami

We’re all familiar with the four basic taste groups: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. But there’s another more unusual fifth flavour – the one known as umami. What is it exactly and how hard is it to explain what it’s like? Umami isn’t actually a new taste, even though we only first heard about it quite recently.

The word itself is a Japanese word, which means pleasant savoury taste, and the first person to describe this taste was Japanese chemist and food lover, Professor Kikunae Ikeda, back in the early 1900s in Tokyo. Ikeda was enjoying a bowl of soup made from seaweed when he noticed that its savoury flavour was very different from the other four basic tastes. According to Ikeda, the umami taste comes from an amino acid that’s produced when certain foods, such as cheese, begin to age and others, like meat, are heated during cooking.

So why are we so fond of umami flavours? Scientific research has shown that we actually start to like this flavour as babies, perhaps because there are high levels of amino acids in milk. Then, as we grow up and start to eat a variety of foods, we see the similarity in flavour when we eat certain dishes.

According to many chefs, meat, when it’s cooked, is one of the foods with the highest level of umami. And of the variety of meats available, beef has the highest umami level and is suitable for all sorts of dishes. Well-known chef Mareya Ibrahim describes burgers as the greatest umami dish. Certain vegetables are also a good source of umami: potatoes and carrots have a small amount of it, but mushrooms have much more, which is why they are often used instead of meat in vegetarian dishes.

Scientists say that umami has three qualities: when you eat something that has umami, the umami taste spreads across the tongue. Experiments on the tongue’s areas of taste have shown that we notice sweet and salty tastes more at the end of the tongue, but umami all across it. The taste stays in the mouth much longer than the other basic tastes and it provides that mouth-watering feeling that makes you want to eat more.

Umami is now such a popular flavour that food producers try to improve the taste of food by creating ‘umami bombs’ – dishes made from several umami ingredients. Umami also helps to reduce the amount of salt used in cooking, which is a good thing as salt is linked to so many health problems.

Why does the writer believe we love umami flavours?