In today's lecture,I'm going to talk about Monosodium Glutamate,or MSG,as it's more commonly known.Now,MSG as you probably know,is a flavour enhancer which is used particularly in Chinese and Japanese cooking.Today I am going to explore why it is so popular in these cuisines and,more importantly,how does it enhance the flavour of food?

The main reason why MSG is more commonly used in Japanese meals is tradition.For many thousands of years the Japanese have incorporated a type of seaweed known as kombu in their cooking,as they discovered it had the ability to make food taste better.