In a food feature story, CNN.com reports in its May 10, 2023 issue that a number of celebrated chefs in New York’s leading restaurants have now embraced the once famous but subsequently stigmatized monosodium glutamate (MSG) as food seasoning.
One of them—the owner of a New York-based Cantonese-American restaurant—candidly says in a CNN.com interview: “Things just taste better with MSG, whether it’s Western food or Cantonese food.”
IMAGE CREDIT: ADAM FRIEDLANDER/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX CNN.COM Almost all of the dishes served at New York City restaurant Bonnie's contain MSG, says owner/chef Calvin Eng
But Calvin Eng recalls that when he was growing up, it was taboo to use MSG: “My mom would never use it, but she’d use chicken powder in her cooking. As a kid, I didn’t know they were like the same thing until I was old enough to care to know about it.”
Invented in 1907 by a Japanese chemist, the century-old seasoning gives certain foods a long-lasting savory flavor. It became a prized condiment among middle-class housewives in Japan, but it quickly lost its reputation in 1968 when a US doctor wrote a letter to a medical journal with the suspicion that the condiment caused symptoms like “numbness in the back of the neck,” “general weakness” and “palpitations.”
Not long after that, diners experiencing discomfort after a meal would blame it on MSG, and many restaurants eventually swore off the condiment from their menu.
Read “MSG is the most misunderstood ingredient of the century. That’s finally changing” in CNN.com now!
