Article from WeChat public account:Interface Culture (ID:BooksAndFun), author: woods, editor: Zhu Jie tree, cover: Oriental IC
Now, if you go to Chinatown in the United States, you may find that many Chinese restaurants have the “NO-MSG” logo on the doorstep. The full name of “MSG” is monosodium glutamate (Monosodium Glutamate), which is known as MSG.
MSG is one of the most famous and widely used food additives in the world, and it is also one of the most questionable food additives for safety. More specifically, this condiment, invented by Japanese scientists in the early part of the last century, is closely associated with Chinese food and Chinese restaurants in North American society. Check out the American food review site Yelp, and you will see from time to time that under the Chinese restaurant’s comments, there are various stories of heartbeat, insomnia or tingling in the limbs due to eating “meat-sweetened” dishes.
Although scientific research to date does not confirm that MSG is really harmful to the human body, MSG has been labeled as “unhealthy”. Even in the eyes of Westerners, “using MSG and unscrupulous China”, the use of MSG is declining year by year. However, looking back at the history of MSG, we will find that the public anxiety surrounding MSG is far more than just food safety issues.
A few days ago, Canadian food historian Ian Mosby gave a lecture on “The Production of MSG, Racism and Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” at NYU Shanghai, and shared his research in a paper published in 2009. Find.
Mosby pointed out that “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”(Chinese RestauThe term “rant Syndrome) appeared in 1968 and has caused widespread discussion and serious anxiety in the North American medical, public health, media, and public for over the next 20 years. MSG has produced a lot of negative associations between Chinese and Chinese restaurants in the American society, but this is essentially an anti-China racism in American society. What hides behind it is that Americans are “exotic”, “eccentric” and “dangerous” about Chinese cooking. bias. Even in the present, Chinese food and Chinese restaurants have not completely washed away this stigma.
In the 21st century, the “MSG harmful” narrative that has been published in the United States has been reversed to China, and the trend of “healthy eating” has been set in an era when the whole society is paying more and more attention to food safety. People are increasingly reluctant to use MSG, although few people know that the original reason for opposing the use of MSG is based more on racial prejudice than on rigorous investigation. After the lecture, Mosby also talked with the interface culture (ID:Booksandfun) about the modern anxiety problem surrounding the MSG in the healthy eating trend.
The birth of MSG: from Japanese invention to popular seasonings in North America after the war
In the early 20th century when MSG was born, it was synonymous with deliciousness. In 1907, Japanese scientist Ikeda Yumiao noticed that the seaweed soup made by his wife was particularly delicious. He was inspired by it. He purified the amino acids in the kelp in the laboratory and called his unique taste “the taste”, that is, in Chinese. “Fresh flavor.”
British food writer Fu Xia Dunlop (Fushia Dunlop) introduced the operation mechanism of MSG in the book “Shark’s fin and pepper”. Scientists initially thought that MSG was just a “flavoring agent” and it had no taste in itself, but it could react with the taste of many dishes to produce a sense of pleasure.