This Podcast Contains MSG (Reheat)

Fifty years after the panic about "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" began, we explore how faulty science and perceptions of race and class contributed to the making of a food myth that persists today. And we tell you how to make the best Bloody Mary ever.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  My whole extended family and I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this past spring. And I gotta say, I came away feeling like, number one, this is a great family destination. Number two, this is a great place to come all year round. The mini golf alone is probably worth, it's like the mini golf capital of the country. They have the most incredible elaborate mini golf courses. They also have more than 80 championship, full-size golf courses, plus 60 miles of beautiful coastline, all-season sunshine. Of course, you can relax by the beach or the pool. There's also jet skiing, fishing charters, paddle boarding, and of course, food. Oh, man, did we eat well in Myrtle Beach. From fresh local seafood to craft burgers and craft beers to kebabs on the boardwalk. With more than 2,000 restaurants to choose from, from legendary no-frill seafood shacks

• 0:43Dan Pashman?

  to chef-driven dining, Myrtle Beach has it all. Plus, live entertainment at the beach, there's always something epic going on. So, summer may be winding down, but in Myrtle Beach, you're gonna find the coastal vacation of your dreams all year long. Start planning your ultimate beach vacation at visitmyrtlebeach.com.

• 1:00Speaker 01

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• 1:26Speaker 02

  Call 800-333-4KIA for details. Drive safely, see retailer for warranty details.

• 1:32Dan Pashman?

  It's Dan here, and so we've been doing these reheats for a while. And I always say, hey, do you have a request for a reheat? And more and more of you are responding. And I love these responses, because as you remind me of an episode that I haven't even thought about in a long time, and then I remember how much I liked that one. This one we're gonna reheat for you today was requested by a longtime listener.

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Hi, Sporkful team. This is Ayushi from Memphis, Tennessee, and I would love to re-listen to the episode, "This Podcast Contains MSG." I love how it looked at cultural bias through the lens of food and science, and I'd love to hear it again.

• 2:04Dan Pashman?

  Ayushi tells us she first heard this episode with her mom and sister when she was in eighth grade. Now she's going into her senior year of college, which makes me feel a little bit old, although I kind of love, I'm hearing this more and more about like, young people, young adults who have grown up listening to this Sporkful. I actually really love it. So Ayushi, we send this one out to you. We're happy to dust off this episode from 2018 for you. And as I said, be like Ayushi. Request a reheat. Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]. Tell me your name, location, and what episode you want to hear, and why. Thanks so much, and enjoy.

• 2:40Speaker 04

  Well, if you've been listening to this program for the last few years and have been listening to very much about nutrition, you realize that you've been hearing about a silent killer. It's a killer that's worse than alcohol, worse than nicotine, worse than drugs. It's called monosodium glutamate.

• 3:01Speaker 05

  Last year, Sam Kastig got so sick he had to be rushed to the hospital. Diagnosis? Reaction to MSG? The range of reactions is amazing to me as a physician. Asthma, heart palpitations, headache, dizziness.

• 3:16Speaker 06

  Now, how many people out there would think that this has hidden MSG in it? It does.

• 3:23Dan Pashman?

  In 1968, a doctor named Robert Kwak wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. He said, after he ate Chinese food, he often got a headache, felt feverish. He suggested maybe it was the MSG in the food. After that, tons of people came forward with similar complaints. The letter coined the term Chinese restaurant syndrome, and the thing just snowballed. There were studies done, but they were problematic.

• 3:48Speaker 07

  They took enormous amounts of MSG and then injected it under the skin of mice to see if problems occurred. And it did. But no one is suggesting that human beings should inject huge amounts of MSG under their skin.

• 4:03Dan Pashman?

  Now, I don't want to alarm you, but there is glutamate in your body right now. Don't worry, it's supposed to be there. It's also in everything from tomatoes to breast milk.

• 4:14Speaker 08

  People go to a pho shop and they, they write to me and they go, Andrea, that pho at my local pho shop is so good. What do you think it is? And I'm like, well, maybe it's a little MSG.

• 4:27Speaker 09

  Let me get a little bit edgy here. Chinese people never have a problem with MSG.

• 4:33Dan Pashman?

  Today on The Sporkful, as we approach the 50th anniversary of Dr. Kwak's fateful letter, we're talking about monosodium glutamate, better known as MSG.

• 4:43Speaker 08

  There are people who are like, "I don't want any MSG in my food." And then there are people who say, "Fo is not fo without MSG."

• 4:52Dan Pashman?

  We'll dig into the science, and we'll ask, how did so many people become convinced that MSG is so bad?

• 4:59Speaker 09

  I remember there being some sort of stigma when I started hanging around white people.

• 5:06Dan Pashman?

  That's all coming up. Stick around.

• 5:15Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. All right, let's do this. So, my name is Dan, and I cook with MSG. All the time. I have a big bag of it in my spice rack. I add it to my Thanksgiving turkey gravy, my tomato sauce, the braised chicken thighs I made the other night. If you come to my house for dinner, I'm probably gonna feed you something with MSG in it, and I'm probably not gonna tell you about it, because people freak out. But it's umami, that savory flavor that takes any food to another level. MSG is essentially crystallized deliciousness. Later on, we'll talk about how it's used

• 5:57Dan Pashman?

  in a variety of classic dishes and foods you find in the supermarket. But first, I want to lay out the science. Dr. Aaron Carroll is a professor of pediatrics and associate dean at Indiana University School of Medicine. He's the author of several books that debunk myths about food and health. His new one is The Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully. And I should say, full disclosure, Aaron's publisher did buy an ad for his book on this podcast a few weeks back, but that has nothing to do with today's show. Right now, Aaron is joining me because he's the perfect guy to start this discussion. Hey, Aaron.

• 6:31Speaker 07

  How are you?

• 6:32Dan Pashman?

  Doing well. So, let's begin at the beginning. What is MSG?

• 6:39Speaker 07

  It's monosodium glutamate. It's basically taking a molecule of glutamic acid and popping a single sodium atom onto it.

• 6:47Dan Pashman?

  And what is glutamic acid?

• 6:50Speaker 07

  That is actually an amino acid that you must have to survive. It is one of the 26 amino acids that comprise basically all proteins that exist in human life. Besides that, glutamate, free glutamate itself exists in various parts of your body and is necessary for a number of functions, including some of your brain functions, some of the ways that your kidney functions and other things as well. So glutamate, glutamic acid, these are things your body absolutely needs to survive.

• 7:17Dan Pashman?

  And where in nature do we find glutamate and glutamic acid outside of our bodies?

• 7:23Speaker 07

  Glutamic acid or free glutamate also exist in a number of different foods. Things like tomatoes happen to be pretty high in it. And of course seaweed, which is where it was originally, you know, derived for the first time by a Japanese scientist who was able to purify it from seaweed. And it's also why it seems to be so popular in certain cultures that use seaweed quite a bit in their cooking.

• 7:45Dan Pashman?

  And am I right? It's also like the flavor that we know as umami is strongly correlated with glutamic acid.

• 7:53Speaker 07

  Yes, so many foods that we would associate with umami are. And if you have ever have pure MSG and it is available to buy, it is pretty much pure umami flavor, just basically pure earthy savory flavor.

• 8:08Dan Pashman?

  And am I right? Glutamic acid is in breast milk as well.

• 8:11Speaker 07

  Yes, in fact, it's well, not only is it in breast milk, it's actually in, it used to be in a lot of baby food as well, uh, which is one of the reasons that scientists got, or not such, I shouldn't say scientists, but advocates got so angry about it because they thought we were conditioning babies to want something with the chemical. But of course it is in breast milk and other things, which is one of the reasons why, you know, babies like breast milk. Human beings like umami flavor and we like a lot of the things that are flavored with that taste as well as MSG.

• 8:40Dan Pashman?

  And so what happens when you take glutamate or glutamic acid and then form MSG? Why is that necessary? What are you doing to it?

• 8:47Speaker 07

  It's that sodium molecule. I mean, this, it's, it, you know, purists or people who really don't like it will argue that there's a huge difference, that one is a unnatural chemical, which is something that we create in a lab. But the difference is, is a sodium molecule. I mean, it, a sodium atom, I should say, onto the molecule. It's really the only difference. It's a way to make it into a salt, because if you isolate glutamate or glutamic acid from food, then it's, it's not easily stored or transported. It's not solid and it's, it's a liquid and it's very hard. But if you pop that sodium mol- atom onto it, it becomes a salt and it becomes something we can crystallize. And that, of course, makes it much easier to make, produce and also sell.

• 9:27Dan Pashman?

  So how did it come to be that so many people think MSG is so bad for us?

• 9:33Speaker 07

  As MSG gained popularity in the United States is around the same time that a lot of the backlash to artificial sweeteners and other chemicals were occurring in the United States. And it got sort of swept up in the, we are afraid that these additives to our food are causing terrible disease. Another theory, and one which is unfortunately not as nice, is that it might actually be bound up in a bit of racism or a bit of, of problems with immigration that was occurring in America. That it was associated with both Chinese culture and Chinese food. That may be one of also the reasons that this took off.

• 10:12Dan Pashman?

  But, but correct me if I'm wrong, there were some studies that, that confirmed that there was a problem with MSG. Was there something wrong with those studies?

• 10:21Speaker 07

  Well, okay, some of them were studies where they took enormous amounts of MSG and then injected it under the skin of mice to see if problems occurred, and it did. But no one is suggesting that human beings should inject huge amounts of MSG under their skin.

• 10:39Dan Pashman?

  Another problem with a lot of the early research, they told people, we are about to give you food with MSG in it. So of course, people who were already convinced they had a problem with MSG, felt like they had a bad reaction in those studies. Dr. Carol says even many doctors underestimate the power of the placebo effect. Or in this case, the nocebo effect, which is what you call it when you think you're getting something bad. So there's no good science that confirms a widespread problem with MSG?

• 11:09Speaker 07

  No.

• 11:10Dan Pashman?

  And yet, I'm sure, Aaron, that you have heard from people, as I have, who insist that they have this issue with MSG.

• 11:19Speaker 07

  Absolutely, including my wife. In fact, I've almost convinced her, I think, to eat MSG at this point, having gone through this for so many years. But people swear by this. They are sure of it. But they've done really, really good studies, and those studies fail to detect a consistent and real pattern where people even who claim that they are susceptible to MSG problems will actually experience it when they're given it and they don't know.

• 11:46Dan Pashman?

  And what does your wife say when you explain that to her?

• 11:48Speaker 07

  She still doesn't believe it. I've lost these kinds of battles. Please.

• 11:53Dan Pashman?

  But Aaron, have you tried doing your own study at home? Why don't you slip some MSG in your wife's food without telling her, and then two hours later, when she doesn't have a reaction, then you say, "Ah-ha!"

• 12:03Speaker 07

  So there's one, I enjoy being married, so I'm not going to do that. But more importantly, you'd be surprised how hard it is to do these kinds of studies, because MSG, of course, has a very distinctive taste. And so designing the placebo is not as easy as you might think.

• 12:16Dan Pashman?

  Is it possible that there are some people out there, maybe a much smaller handful than think, who have a sensitivity to MSG? Like, some people are sensitive to onions, or grapefruits, or anything. I mean, is that possible?

• 12:30Speaker 07

  Can I absolutely say with 100% certainty that there are no people in the world that would react to MSG? Of course not. There could be some. But their numbers are very, very small, and I'd be suspect about it, because, again, given the fact that we've done these well-designed studies, even with the people who say that they are sort of the most affected by MSG, it can't be detected.

• 12:53Dan Pashman?

  Is there something else about American-style Chinese takeout food, which is where people most associate MSG? Is there something else about that food where eating a lot of it could make you feel like you have a headache or a pain in your neck or feel unpleasant in some other way? Is there another explanation?

• 13:11Speaker 07

  That's a great question. There have been some people that have hypothesized that it might have to do with histamine. Histamine, of course, is something that actually shows up in the pathways of allergies and allergic attacks. That's why you often take an antihistamine like Benadryl if you're having hives or an allergic attack. And there are some people that have shown that, or some researchers, I should say, who have shown that different types of Chinese food can actually have different levels of histamine, which, of course, is well-known to be part of a pathway where people might have an allergic reaction. That could be part of it, but I don't think it's been well-studied to the point where I could declare it one way or the other.

• 13:46Dan Pashman?

  Well, I can tell you that I have served a number of people MSG unbeknownst to them in my home, people who insist that they have a reaction, and yet, when they don't know, they don't have a reaction. When I try to serve someone something with MSG in it, and I tell them in advance that it is MSG, and they say, "Oh, oh, sorry. No, I'm sensitive to MSG." I'll be like, "No, no, that's not true. It's been a million studies. It's been disproven. There's no connection." People don't like when you say that to them. People don't like when you tell them that what they feel is wrong.

• 14:16Speaker 07

  Correct. So, there's only so much you can do. I completely agree. They really don't get how much of what we perceive can be driven by what we believe.

• 14:26Dan Pashman?

  Do you ever just get frustrated, Aaron?

• 14:28Speaker 07

  Every day.

• 14:32Dan Pashman?

  So, if I'm a regular person out there who just wants to try to eat healthy as best I can, and to a reasonable degree, without any kind of super-extreme diet, and yet I see these headlines every other day, "This is bad for you. That's bad for you. This is going to give you cancer. That's going to give you cancer." In addition to reading your pieces in the New York Times and buying your book, like, what else can I do to just to process these headlines and know what the hell I should be eating?

• 14:59Speaker 07

  So, first of all, any story that doesn't place any new study...

• 15:05Speaker 07

  In context with every study that's come before, I'd completely ignore. Because to sort of decide that, oh, my gosh, they just found out that this is associated with cancer and it's a common food ingredient, we would know already. Believe me, there have been other studies done. There are very few left. So, you know, finding a new association doesn't mean that all of the research that came before is null and void. And unless it says, look, there's a huge amount of evidence and this study is the latest piece in the puzzle, I'd ignore it. Secondly, if it's a study of mice, if it's a study in the lab, if it's a study of like six people for two days, I wouldn't put much stock in it.

• 15:42Dan Pashman?

  Final question, Aaron. What's your favorite food to have with MSG in it?

• 15:48Speaker 07

  So there are these like chips called Takis, and I can't even, that's the name of the the brand. I don't, I think they're made in Mexico, but I could be wrong. I cannot describe for you the burst of flavor when you eat these things. And MSG is one of the middle ingredients. It's not like a small amount and you know, but my God, like your mouth explodes with flavor when you eat these things. They're amazing. And I wouldn't say I eat them all the time, but they are so good.

• 16:20Dan Pashman?

  That's Dr. Aaron Carroll. His latest book is The Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully. By the way, Takis, that's spelled T-A-K-I-S. It's a play on taquitos because the shape is sort of like a hollow rolled cylinder, like a mini taquito. Takis are not the only snack food with MSG. Doritos have it, as do a lot of canned soups, sauces, and other foods you find in the supermarket. Although it's fewer today, thanks to those anti-MSG crusaders. Coming up, we'll tell you how to use MSG to make the best Bloody Mary you've ever tasted. And we'll talk about how it's used in a variety of other dishes.

• 16:55Speaker 09

  There's this scallion ginger sauce that like a lot of Cantonese folks love on their noodles, and the secret of that is just MSG.

• 17:02Dan Pashman?

  Plus, we'll delve more into the role that race and class have played in spreading misconceptions about MSG.

• 17:08Speaker 08

  There's a part of me that goes back to this idea of people seeing Asian people as the yellow peril.

• 17:16Dan Pashman?

  Stick around.

• 17:27Speaker 10

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• 17:33Dan Pashman?

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• 18:15Dan Pashman?

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• 18:58Dan Pashman?

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• 19:37Dan Pashman?

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• 20:20Dan Pashman?

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• 20:48Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. Want to watch me walking my dog while ranting about some food-related issue that's on my mind? Want to see what I'm cooking? Want to see what I'm eating? The best way to do that is to follow me on Instagram. My kids make occasional appearances. There's a lot of fun to be had, so please follow me on Instagram @thesporful. Again, that's @thesporful. Thanks. Now, back to this week's reheat.

• 21:14Dan Pashman?

  One of my favorite ways to consume MSG is in something called Maggie Sauce. My kids love it, too. They call it Magic Sauce. Maggie was invented in Switzerland in the 1880s. Julius Maggie was one of the first people to sell bouillon cubes. And Maggie seasoning sauce, it was originally a concentrated liquid bouillon. The Maggie Company was bought by Nestle in 1947. Now the sauce is all over the world in various forms. It's made by a process similar to soy sauce, except with fermented wheat protein, so it's rich and full-bodied. The guy who introduced me to Maggie Sauce is my friend Kevin Pang. You've heard him here on the show before, back when he was a food writer for the Chicago Tribune. He also came on to talk about his award-winning documentary, For Grace, about the Chicago chef Curtis Duffy.

• 21:57Dan Pashman?

  And he's back now, wearing a new hat. He's the man behind The Takeout, which is a new food and pop culture site from The Onion. Kevin joins me now from Chicago. Hey, Kevin.

• 22:05Speaker 09

  Hey, Dan. What's up?

• 22:07Dan Pashman?

  So Kevin, the first time that you introduced me to Maggie Sauce was when you took me for pierogies in Chicago.

• 22:13Speaker 09

  That's right.

• 22:14Dan Pashman?

  We went to Potlanka.

• 22:16Speaker 09

  That's right, yeah, in the Noble Square neighborhood. And I told you, hey, man, you gotta dip us in this like magical sauce. And when Maggie seasoning hits your palate, there's something just immensely beefy and rich and savory with all the greatness of soy sauce and all the great traits of that sauce, but multiplied in much more satisfying, rich, complex ways. And you had it, and it was like, I remember your eyes just like started glowing and it was, it was as of like, the first time Paul McCartney picked up the guitar and realized it's like infinite potentials. But it was for you. It was about umami and MSG and like savory.

• 23:01Speaker 09

  And I think from that day on, I remember you went back to New York and you texted me and you said, hey, you know, I went and bought a bottle of this and now I can't stop putting this on anything and everything. I think I'm your north star for MSG, right? Like I'm your guiding light.

• 23:17Dan Pashman?

  And yeah, so I went back home and there's a, like an old-school German butcher shop. All these old guys behind the counter all wear those old-school white paper hats.

• 23:25Speaker 09

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:26Dan Pashman?

  And they had this huge bottle of Maggie Sauce. And then I got more. That was the one that was made in Germany. And then I also got the one that was made in China, which is very different. I mean, there's a real noticeable difference.

• 23:36Speaker 09

  That was a bit of a mind blower for me because, growing up in Hong Kong, I always associated Maggie seasoning as something that was Cantonese. I didn't realize until, I think, the last five, 10 years, that there are many variants of Maggie seasoning all around the world. There's one from Mexico, there's one from Germany, like there's one in the Philippines. It's all around the world. The one from Mexico is actually a lot thicker. You know, when I was at the Chicago Tribune, I actually taste-tested a number of different Maggie seasonings. And I found that the German one... was probably the best tasting, the most sophisticated, if you will, of the Maggie seasonings. The one that I grew up with is obviously the one that you can find in any Chinatown supermarket.

• 24:19Speaker 09

  When my parents were using soy sauce, they actually did not use soy sauce, they used Maggie seasoning instead. So my perception of what soy sauce was growing up was Maggie seasoning. And as I became a more sophisticated cook and sophisticated eater, I found myself putting Maggie in tamales. I put it on scrambled eggs. I put it on noodles. Uh, I put it in spaghetti sauce. I put it in Bloody Marys. It's absolutely fantastic in a Bloody Mary.

• 24:48Dan Pashman?

  Yes, that I do the same thing. When I, when I put my Maggie sauce in a Bloody Mary, I call it a Maggie Mary.

• 24:55Speaker 09

  Ah.

• 24:56Dan Pashman?

  But sometimes I, I feel like I want to call it the MSG Mary, but I'm afraid that I'll scare people away.

• 25:01Speaker 09

  Oh, yeah. Let me get a little bit edgy here. Chinese people never have a problem with MSG. I don't know if you ever buy that ajinomoto, that's the powdered white stuff that you can buy at like

• 25:13Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 25:14Speaker 09

  At Japanese grocery stores. I put that on everything. There's this scallion ginger sauce that like a lot of Cantonese folks love on their noodles. And what you do is you take scallions, you take minced ginger, and you take hot oil and you pour it over it. I put MSG powder, I put some fish sauce, and I put some like dried mushroom powder into it. It's the most like savory umami sauce and I put it on poached chicken, I put it on noodles. Uh, it's like my new favorite all purpose sauce and uh, and the secret of that is just MSG.

• 25:47Dan Pashman?

  And do you remember when you first became aware that there was this stigma around MSG?

• 25:54Speaker 09

  I remember there being some sort of stigma when I started hanging around white people. Can I say that?

• 26:01Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 26:02Speaker 09

  I mean, because like I grew up with obviously all Chinese folks, right? And then when I went to my friend's house, you know, growing up in high school, uh, growing up in a somewhat farming community outside Seattle and uh, you know, a lot of my friends were white and I remember their parents telling me how when they go to Chinese restaurants, they can't have, they request for no MSG. And then I remember going to those restaurants and seeing that one of the things that they advertise themselves, they market themselves is that we are proudly don't serve MSG.

• 26:35Dan Pashman?

  Having grown up with it such an integral part of the food in your home, how did it make you feel to see those signs?

• 26:44Speaker 09

  MSG is not one of those things that we take pride in. It's just in our food. Like, it's wallpaper to us, right? So, there wasn't any undertow of discrimination or xenophobia, nothing at all like that. All I thought was, gee, that's kind of stupid.

• 27:10Dan Pashman?

  That's Kevin Pang. He's the man behind The Takeout, which is a really great new food and pop culture site from The Onion. One quick note to add, there are nine varieties of Maggie's Sauce throughout the world today. The American and Mexican versions are the only ones that don't have MSG in them, because consumers in those countries are more anti-MSG. So you gotta order online or go to a specialty store to get one of the international brands with the good stuff in it.

• 27:41Dan Pashman?

  Andrea Nguyen was born in Vietnam in 1969, in the middle of the Vietnam War. Her family fled the country when she was six, settled in California. For years, food was a hobby for Andrea, but over time, it became her career. Today, she's the author of five cookbooks, and she teaches cooking classes focusing on Vietnamese and Asian cuisine. In her writing, she tries to debunk misconceptions about MSG while still offering people alternatives. But before food became her work, she believed it too.

• 28:08Speaker 08

  There were times when I ate a little bit too much dim sum when I went out. Then I downed a bunch of tea, and I was driving home with my husband, and we got into fights and blamed it all on the Chinese restaurant syndrome. MSG, just like everybody else did. And it wasn't until I really delved deeply into how the flavors of things like Chinese food and dumplings were constructed that I was like, oh. That's just my body being sent into overload.

• 28:38Dan Pashman?

  With sugar and salt and fat and carbs and everything.

• 28:42Speaker 08

  And caffeine.

• 28:42Dan Pashman?

  Right. But when you were having those experiences with your husband, meanwhile, your mom is at the house you grew up in, in Southern California, cooking with MSG.

• 28:52Speaker 08

  Yeah, she still does.

• 28:53Dan Pashman?

  Right. But so in that time where you were convinced that you had a sensitivity to MSG, while your mom was cooking with it, did you guys ever talk about that?

• 29:00Speaker 08

  No, we didn't, to tell you the truth. Because you know what? When I'm in my mother's house, and everyone should remember this, you eat what your mother gives you to eat.

• 29:11Dan Pashman?

  Right. But those times where you would eat your mom's home cooking, back when you thought you had a sensitivity to MSG, did you ever have a reaction or perceived reaction to your mom's food?

• 29:22Speaker 08

  No, I never had a reaction to my mother's food. Because as a home cook, she's really old school, man. You know, even at 82 now, she still hand chops a lot of things. And her use of MSG is very careful and measured. Deliberately use something like MSG is just bad, thoughtless cooking. And my mom always added it to her pho broth. She finished it always with a little fish sauce and MSG, just to get the flavor she wanted.

• 29:56Dan Pashman?

  What role do you, do you think it has played in this mythology that's been built up around MSG, especially in the US, that it is perceived as an ingredient coming from Asia?

• 30:08Speaker 08

  There's a lot of mystery about Asian food. How do they get those flavors? It's so exotic. I don't understand the ingredients and techniques. And yet, at the same time, no one's questioning, say, Italian food that employs Parmesan cheese and tomato, foods that are very high in glutamic acid. You know, what makes pizzas taste so damn good? Doritos, KFC, Pringles, they have MSG in them.

• 30:38Dan Pashman?

  So what do you think it says about people's perceptions of Asian people that this myth around MSG caught on so readily?

• 30:49Speaker 08

  There's a part of me that goes back to this idea of people not understanding Asia, seeing Asian people as the yellow peril.

• 31:01Speaker 08

  There are a lot of first generation immigrants to America who open up Asian restaurants because that's what they know how to do. And they're looking at flavors that they're used to culturally. And if there's MSG in it, there's MSG in it. But there are a lot of other ingredients that are fermented. You know, fermented soy products, kombu, you know, that the Japanese would use. That's hard to explain sometimes. And so when people don't understand something, and also when the people who present that food may not be totally fluent in English and the social mores of Americans. All of a sudden, it becomes exotic, mysterious, and easy to attack.

• 31:44Speaker 08

  So I do think that there is this notion of, you know, there's a slight racist edge to it. Let's just put it that way. And I wish that people would get over it.

• 31:57Dan Pashman?

  So Andrea grew up with MSG. And she says in Vietnam, sometimes if you order that noodle soup, pho, when you get your chilies and limes on the side, you'll also get a side of MSG. Some places offer their own spice blend with salt and sugar and pepper and MSG and more all mixed together. And even in some Asian restaurants in the US, you will find MSG on the table. But that doesn't mean people in Vietnam are immune to misinformation. Back in the 70s, when Andrea was a child there, she remembers people saying MSG will give you brain damage. Many authentic Vietnamese recipes get that umami flavor from other sources of glutamate, like mushroom seasoning. So it would be an oversimplification to say that everyone in Asia eats MSG all the time and loves it, and everyone in America is clueless and/or racist.

• 32:42Dan Pashman?

  As Andrea and I kept talking, it became clear that there's also a class dynamic in both places.

• 32:47Speaker 08

  My cousin, who's my age, when I met her in, like, I don't know, 2010, she's a very sophisticated person who lives in Hanoi, was educated in the Soviet Union and is very well off, very savvy culturally. She said, "I don't use MSG in my food." As the country becomes wealthier, there is this notion of like, "I don't want to have these additives in my food." I think that sometimes we think of people in Other countries, especially a developing country like Vietnam, as being fixed in their traditions, you know, people aren't there squatting in rice paddies and wearing conical

• 33:32Speaker 08

  hats, they're on the internet with their smartphones. And, you know, they're aware of what's going on in the outside world and they're looking out for their, their health.

• 33:41Dan Pashman?

  But isn't it interesting, Andrea, as I think about this, you know, I'm, I'm just kind of thinking out loud now, but, but you're, the connection between education and affluence and the rejection of an ingredient like MSG, forget whether you're in Vietnam or America, in either case, you would think that if you were going to educate yourself about MSG, then you would find out that there's nothing wrong with it. And yet, people almost adopt it as a sign, as a, a status symbol of, of look at how educated and affluent I am, that I can eschew this ingredient.

• 34:14Speaker 08

  Yes. That I can be better than to use MSG as a way to create spectacular flavor. There is, you know, this thing of like, I have evolved to the point where I do not, I, I'm totally living clean and pure.

• 34:31Dan Pashman?

  It, it becomes about status and identity more so than, than food.

• 34:35Speaker 08

  It does. You know, here's the other thing too, is I oftentimes think that when people condemn others for using MSG, a lot of Asian food is considered cheap food. And to get the kind of flavors that you want, sometimes there are little things that are used, condiments with, you know, high glutamic acid, a little MSG. And, you know, that's like affordable food for people. And so I think that there is like this thing of putting down people who may not be as well off as you do, because there may be some MSG in that food. So there are a lot of levels of discrimination that I sense when, you know, someone's going

• 35:20Speaker 08

  to go to a Chinese takeout joint and be hounding them with, with questions about MSG. It's like, you want the cheap Chinese food or not?

• 35:37Dan Pashman?

  That's Andrea Nguyen. Her latest cookbook is The Pha Cookbook. And if you want to take one of her cooking classes, wherever you are, they're available on Craftsy. You buy Andrea's class online, you get the video, you learn to make dumplings, or pha, or whatever, and then you own the class forever. You can use it as a resource. All that info is at Andrea's website, vietworldkitchen.com. If you want to experiment with MSG at home, the easiest way to get it is to look for Accent seasoning in the spice section of your local supermarket. Accent is MSG. You can also find Asian brands in specialty stores or online.

• 36:11Dan Pashman?

  This show is produced by Ann Sanney and me, editing help from Margaret Kelly, music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Chris Bannon and Jenny Radelit. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 36:22Speaker 11

  Hi, this is Mark Pashan from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 36:43Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by Gianna Palmer. The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me, along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is

• 36:53Speaker 07

  Jared O'Connell.

• 36:54Dan Pashman?

  The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app, all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 37:32Speaker 12

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