[00:00.00]In todayĄ¯s lecture, IĄ¯m going to talk about Monosodium Glutamate, 
[00:05.14]or MSG, as itĄ¯s more commonly known. 
[00:09.49]Now, MSG as you probably know, is a flavour enhancer 
[00:13.39]which is used particularly in Chinese and Japanese cooking. 
[00:16.88]Today I am going to explore why it is so popular in these cuisines and, more importantly, 
[00:22.55]how does it enhance the flavour of food? 
[00:25.33]The main reason why MSG is more commonly used in Japanese meals is tradition. 
[00:30.31]For many thousands of years the Japanese have incorporated a type of seaweed known as kombu in their cooking, 
[00:37.65]as they discovered it had the ability to make food taste better. 
[00:42.06]But it wasnĄ¯t until 1908 that the ingredient in kombu 
[00:47.17]which was responsible for the improvement in flavour was actually discovered to be glutamate by scientists working there. 
[00:54.06]From 1908 until 1956, glutamate was produced commercially in Japan by a very slow and expensive means of extraction. 
[01:03.63]It was in 1956 that the speed of the process was improved, 
[01:08.03]and industrial production increased dramatically and still continues to increase to this day. 
[01:13.40]In fact, hundreds of thousands of tones of MSG are produced all over the world today.