Toys for [email protected]: Taste in a Tube!

Photo: JANE MINGAY

Apparently, the folks across the pond have resorted to packing all the hopes and dreams of savory taste into squirty tubes.

With the advent of Taste No. 5 Umami Paste, you too can come to rely on a single product to add flavor to...well, everything, for the low-low price of £2.99 a tube at Waitrose!  

A few days ago I added a new ingredient to the children's supper, only to witness them falling upon the dish like labradors – to the point of licking their plates and the pan clean. The ingredient was fermented red bean curd, a vile-looking, liver-coloured paste that oozed a thin liquid with an obnoxious, ripe aroma...

There is something rather terrifying about this latest culinary aid, created by London restaurateur Laura Santini, author of Easy Tasty Italian, a title with courageous double entendre. Her brownish paste does not have just the one umami-rich ingredient, like the anchovy in Thai fish sauce or Gentleman's relish, but the whole smorgasbord. A simple squeeze from the tube will give you a dose of parmesan, anchovies, black olives, porcini and balsamic vinegar all in one go. Santini calls her paste a flavour bomb. 

...But unlike Miss Santini, I come from the land of bland, and I am not sure I want my Dover sole rubbed with half an Italian deli. "Slap, Wrap, and Splash," goes the encouragement on the pack. "U-mamma Mia!" recommends Laura. "The possibilities are endless…" Indeed, on hearing that battle cry I shall lock my fridge to protect its delicately flavoured contents from an imminent dropping of palate carpeting bomblets. Much better to go the Japanese route and attempt the impossible: use it to liven up tofu.
 - The Telegraph

Did the woman intimate that she was afraid of her precious food being sh*t on?

For those unwilling to shell out for the pasty-taste miracle, we're just doing to have to continue eating bacon cheeseburgers, spaghetti carbonara, Marmite toast, prosciutto, Parmesan, mushrooms, sushi, aged cheddar, tomatoes, anchovies and I DON'T KNOW, all of the other naturally savory things that HAVE PHUCKING UMAMI IN THEM ALREADY.

Sorry folks, I don't mean to spew hate: The Telegraph does go on to list umami foods (albeit with a high-brow bent), and I'm sure it'd actually be pretty fun to play with this stuff. 

But stupid women bad-mouthing tofu put me in a mood.  Don't try to be a high-brow culinary writer while belittling a staple of an entire continent; why not just pooh-pooh pasta, while you're at it?  It just shows you've never dragged your lazy, Dover-sole forking arse to a real Korean or Chinese restaurant. 

Shut yer hole and continue making extruded flavor junkies out of your bland-blinded rugrats.

Comments

[from b e h i n d]

f i r s t

nodnod, EF. The Blitz is so deeply ingrained into the UK collective consciousness, they can now taste it in their condiments. That's evolution, man!

[The Devils Advocate]

This...this right here, this is what the people want. Internet snark!

When a fool foodie posts some crap on the net, or writes some inane article in some newsrag, cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.