“Monosodium glutamate has a poor reputation in the US, which is both unfortunate and based on misinformation. A spate of new cookbooks highlighting its powers is here to awaken our senses.”
– WIRED Contributor Joe Ray, May 11, 2025
Excerpts from this article:
“[I]t wasn’t a surprise that the salad was good, but the monosodium glutamate gave it an extra savory deliciousness that made me wonder if Elisabeth intentionally set the salad bowl out of my reach.”
“In my decades living in North America and Europe, MSG was an unfortunately infrequently used ingredient, yet here it was making our tongues happy. Being drawn to it now was inspired by a trend I picked up on while reading some of the best new and recent cookbooks.”
Putting MSG on the Table (and in Your Cooking)
“Calvin Eng uses it on just about everything. ‘I keep salt, sugar, MSG on my counter all the time,’ says Eng who’s such a fan that he has a little MSG heart tattoo on the back of his left arm.”
“There’s a ways to go before MSG is anywhere near as mainstream as salt, but until then, I invite you to join me on the Normalization Team and, like Eng suggests, keep a container of it on the counter, right next to the salt.”
Read the full article on WIRED here.
Learn more about MSG’s history and safety here.
