Kikunae Ikeda

Kikunae Ikeda was a man who was really curious about food. He was interested in why some foods tasted really good and others didn't. He was especially interested in a special flavor that he noticed in some foods that he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was a flavor that was really tasty, but also kind of mysterious.

So Kikunae started to do some experiments. He looked at different foods and tried to figure out what made them taste so good. Eventually, he found out that the special flavor he had been noticing was caused by a certain type of chemical.

Now, this chemical has a really long and hard-to-pronounce name, so Kikunae decided to give it a special name that was much easier to say: he called it "umami". Umami is a Japanese word that means something like "deliciousness", and it's a word that Kikunae thought really described this special flavor.

Thanks to Kikunae's work, we now know a lot more about umami, and why it makes food taste so good. We can even make our own umami using certain ingredients, like soy sauce or tomatoes. So, next time you eat something that tastes really yummy, you can thank Kikunae Ikeda for helping us understand why it's so delicious!