MSG

IN 1968 a Chinese-American physician wrote a rather lighthearted letter to The New England Journal of Medicine. He had experienced numbness, palpitations and weakness after eating in Chinese restaurants in the United States, and wondered whether the monosodium glutamate used by cooks here (and then rarely used by cooks in China) might be to blame.

The consequences for the restaurant business, the food industry and American consumers were immediate and enormous 龐大的. MSG, a common flavor enhancer and preservative used since the 1950s, was tagged 標籤 as a toxin, removed from commercial baby food and generally driven underground by a new movement toward natural, whole foods.

Tag = A strip of paper attached to something to identify, e.g. sale tags. A small, loose fragment, e.g. tags and snippets剪掉碎片.

“It was a nightmare for my family,” said Jennifer Hsu, a graphic designer whose parents owned several Chinese restaurants in New York City in the 1970s. “Not because we used that much MSG — although of course we used some — but because it meant that Americans came into the restaurant with these suspicious 猜疑的, hostile feelings.”

Even now, after “Chinese restaurant syndrome” has been thoroughly debunked 揭穿 (virtually all studies since then confirm that monosodium glutamate in normal concentrations has no effect on the overwhelming 摧垮 majority of people), the ingredient has a stigma 污名that will not go away.

Overwhelm = To surge over and submerge; affect deeply in mind or emotion; present with an excessive amount; upset. Examples: Despair overwhelmed Tim. Our team overwhelmed the other team in the game by 40 points.

But then, neither will MSG.

Cooks around the world have remained dedicated 供奉 to MSG, even though they may not know it by that name. As hydrolyzed soy protein or autolyzed yeast, it adds flavor to the canned chicken broth and to the packs of onion soup mix used by American home cooks, and to the cheese Goldfish crackers and the low-fat yogurts in many lunchboxes.

It is the taste of Marmite in the United Kingdom, of Golden Mountain sauce in Thailand, of Goya Sazón on the Latin islands of the Caribbean, of Salsa Lizano in Costa Rica and of Kewpie mayonnaise 蛋黃醬,美乃滋 in Japan. .....

Yes, MSG, the Secret Behind the Savor New York Times March 5, 2008