What we've learned after 7 years of using MSG

We've been using MSG in our recipes for seven years (give or take), so we thought it was high time for a retrospective - as well as a redo of our old Yunnan smashed cucumber salad.

0:00 - fine lets talk about the health thing i guess
5:05 - 7 year msg anniversary cucumber
8:11 - The real origin of MSG hate

FULL, WRITTEN RECIPE

Is over on Substack! Free as always, if it had to be said. We cover some of the same ground we covered in the video, so definitely do click the 'jump to recipe' bit:

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Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ

[ChineseCookingDemystified]

Hey guys, a couple notes:

1. So there’re a couple popular ways to make the Yunnan Dai style smashed cucumber. The one we made seven years ago was a specific version from a Dai restaurant in Kunming, which is now unfortunately closed. The owner was from Mengliang county in Pu’er city, so it’s a bit heavy on the herbs just like many local dishes there.
While this version is a bit closer to what’s around Dehong in southwest Yunnan, where people like to add toasted chili flakes (煳辣子) and toasted peanuts and sesame seeds. And there’s some other version that’d add chili oil to it, which we think has Sichuan influence. But they’re all very good of course.
With this base, you can also mix it with other things, we did a fridge clear out with this mix but with meat balls, mushrooms, and tofu, it’s great. Just remember to up the seasonings accordingly if you’re adding more ingredients to the mix.

2. In Yunnan, this kind of Dai flavored liangban cold dishes are not always pounded in a mortar, sometimes it’s just a simple mix, so feel free to go either route.

3. From our experience, MSG from different brands may taste slightly different. We like to use a couple Chinese brands, and abroad we always like to stick to Ajinomoto. When using MSG, don’t go too crazy, start with 1/8 tsp for about 300g-500g of ingredients, and find the level that you like the most. Sometime we see certain meme food recipes going for 1 tsp or even more, which in our opinion can be overpowering. But just any other seasonings, MSG should be used in moderation, it's all about balancing and adjusting flavors.

4. About my “MSG diet”, it’s a joke, kind of. So I (Steph) did lost some weight over the years (as you can see in the old clip, I was rounder before).
Since doing the channel, we started to learn, explore, and apply different ways to season our food. And over the years, using the proper seasoning has helped us made our food tastier. And when our food tastes good, magically my craving for junk food and high calories baked goods (one of my biggest weakness) become lower and lower overtime. I started to be able to appreciate food more and feel very satisfied after an appropriate amount of eating.
We still eat junk food of course because they have their special appeal. But when your “healthy food” is also tasty, eating junk food from time to time is not a problem at all, and you don’t even have to bear that mental burden of thinking “I’m a shitty person for putting junk in my body”. You can actually enjoy it.
Anyway, all I’m saying here is that, eat more vegetables, use proper seasoning to make your food tasty, enjoy a healthy MSG life😊

5. In the talk in the final bit, the Cantonese term for “non-Cantonese” is 外江 (ngoi gong), meaning “outside rivers or other rivers”. It’s generally used to describe people that’s not from the Pearl River Delta, or sometimes being used to describe anyone that’s non-local.

6. Chen Mong Yen (陈梦因) is considered to be the first ever food critic in Hong Kong media. He had a column in Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily, which had been a very influential column about Cantonese food. What we showed in the video is a reprint of a collection first published in 1951 of his daily talks from the column.
In the video, we only cited the kind of discriminatory comments on MSG from his writing, he was indeed a great food critic nonetheless. There’s so much valuable and first-hand information about food from not only Guangdong but also other parts of China. And you can find many lost or obscure dishes mentioned in his articles.
So please don’t judge him just by these couple quotes, he was bonded by his time, like we all do. He’s still one of my all-time-favorite food writers though our opinions may differ on certain topics.

7. And the hate against MSG in the Cantonese world (and in some other parts in China) in fact still has more nuance and other aspects that we didn’t cover in this video, but that’s an whole other topic, which we hope to talk about more in the future.

8. And who’s the little guy in the back? Well, it’s a sassy little Anarchist Penguin that sneers at the presumption of human hierarchy.

And that’s it for now, enjoy MSG!

[FortunateJuice]

Your channel is the perfect mixture of cooking lesson, food history, cuisine philosophy, and gastronomy in popular culture.

[bobdeng]

This was so informative. I didn’t even know that the person who wrote the original letter was Cantonese. It’s crazy how far one person put Asian food behind because of their own classism

[Kiryu]

Love the anarchist penguin in the background ♥️

[lucas]

Capitalist profit logic, complex societal topics AND a recipe for delicious chinese food in one video? You guys are my favourite youtube channel! ❤

[pyerfyre]

i love adding msg to italian food, poor man's parmesan

[tigerli]

The only cooking channel with a dialectical materialist critique of crunchy epistemology with chinese characteristics

[ellenspn]

Hehehe “chicken powder” is the replacement for directly saying MSG added.

[tootietatum]

Love you guys, as always. Thank you for bringing some logic to this whole MSG situation and reminding people that you don't get bonus points for making vegetables cause suffering to your taste buds.

[YuanLiuTheDoc]

Great talk! I don't know about "northern" cuisines, but Sichuan (which is a subbranch of the Northern tradition even though the province is often categorized as "South" West geographically) cuisine surely used MSG well into 90s and beyond. A cooking school textbook published in 1987 discusses Gaotang (高汤, akin to soup stock I suppose) in the context of MSG usage. (It encourages flavoring more with Gaotang and less MSG, but never shies away from it.) Meanwhile, Sichuan has the same widespread folklore that restaurants add MSG to make customers feel thirsty so they can sell more drinks, which bear higher margin. There may be a kernel of truth in this lore. MSG does tame the sting of salt, thus allowing more salt content in the food before it tastes excessive.

[TurnOntheBrightLights.]

In the words of Anthony Bourdain: "You know what causes Chinese Restaurant Syndrome? Racism."

I use msg in all my cooking :)

[LuckyDragon]

Another fantastic video; I especially really enjoy the historical deep dives and frank, unfiltered takes from both Chris and Steph. Awesome to hear these different perspectives with informed backgrounds.

[zalibecquerel]

A personal opinion on using MSG "at the right time":
Disclaimer: White guy from Sydney here, who learned Chinese cooking from my mother, a white lady who lived in Darwin for a few years, amongst Chinese neighbours (likely Cantonese, some Nonya). She took lessons from her Cantonese neighbour (back in the 1970s). Me, I'm in my late 40s. Been driving a wok, and using MSG, since I was maybe 10 years old.
I have heard, and I don't remember where, (I think it was a source I trusted, could have been Malaysian?), that MSG should be used *sparingly*, and only in particular dishes. The reason is that MSG is a flavour *enhancer*. As such, it can "over-season" some very subtle dishes. I sometimes do shojin ryori/Japanese "monastic" cooking myself, and the idea is you use very subtle flavours. Say you go on a fast, or go "raw vegan" for a few days, or are ill and can only eat bland foods for a few days. Your palate will "reset", and your sense of taste will be stronger. My favourite dish during such a period (say, a long weekend meditation/monastic food), is simple zucchini slices. Take one zucchini, and cut lengthwise into (~quarter inch) strips. It tastes like this:
- Simple steamed - "quite nice, it tastes like zucchini".
- Grilled in a grill pan, a few char marks, no oil, "Ooooh, this is very nice. I like that".
- Grilled in a grill pan... sprinkled with a little salt, "WOW! This is delicious! Where have you been all my life!"
Then I go back to my regular ways. And my palate adjusts back to "normal everyday eating". I might grill the zucchini, add some salt, pepper, MSG, a little extra virgin olive oil, maybe a little garlic, or a tiny amount of sugar, and think "Meh, this is a pretty good side dish. Not bad. Bring on the chilli pork!"
My point is that as a flavour "enhancer" you get "used to it". MSG stops making food taste "better", but, (to yourself), it makes food tastes "normal". In fact, food without MSG tastes "blander", like there's something missing. So, you have to put MSG in "everything" you cook. (Not to slander the more highly educated American friends in your audience, but it's a similar perception by foreigners that "Americans put sugar in EVERYTHING! Even bread, and french fries!")
So the advice was "save MSG (and chicken powder) for dishes where it really enhances things. Omit it when it doesn't." The example that I remember was:
- Char Kway Teow - LOAD IT UP FULL OF MSG! It should taste like a punch to the face!
- Simple green vegetables - don't use MSG or chicken powder. Maybe use a little garlic if you want. "The vegetables should taste like vegetables".
Anyway, that's my two cents. For the record, even though I live alone, I go through quite a lot of MSG. I buy it in half-kilo bags (~one pound), and go through a couple of bags per year. And I use it in most savoury "western" dishes as well. Casseroles, Mexican beans, Italian foods etc. About the only thing I don't put it in are Japanese dishes, where I boil up kombu/kelp to extract the MSG.
I do admit that I store my MSG in a container labelled "Organic Crystalline Kelp Extract", so that I don't need to have "the debate" with guests :)
Outstanding video as always. Would love to see some Yunnan dishes!

[TheWhiteDragon]

4:22 About that, a German research group won an Ig Nobel prize this year for research that shows that placebo effects are more effective when they have a negative side effect. The strongest effect comes when the side effect is painful (looking at you, homeopathy), but you can reasonably say that loonies can actually benefit slightly from their healthy food tasting bad, but who honestly wants to live like that.

[johnpienta]

So proud of you for coming out and saying this. It's definitely a huge myth in the cooking world that at best is misinformed and at worst is flat out prejudice disguised...

That being said, some people may experience headaches with high loads of MSG in foods (but they may also get this from sulfites or from high sodium loads), as all these things have an impact on our vascular system.

Glutamate specifically is an excitatory neurotransmitter and so this is a thought about how it might be implicated. There's also some basic science level lab research that suggests that it might feed already active cancer. (Note that I'm NOT saying it's a carcinogen, or cancer causing substance)

Your videos are awesome. From the cooking to the culture stuff. Your "gutter oil" video helped me kindly correct some friends, multiple times, and it was both well taken by them and mind opening.

Beautiful work.

[kuri]

I've a feeling recently there's been a transition from "Did you know MSG is bad" being fashionable, to now "Did you know 'MSG bad' was a myth and it's actually great?" being more fashionable.

[suzaynnschick]

That was powerful and brave. I had no idea where Ho Man Kwok was coming from and never would have unless someone like you, who can read Cantonese and knows the food history of the area explained it.

[Thee_Sinner]

My favorite use of MSG is in popcorn salt. I put a 1:10 ratio of salt to MSG in a mortar and pestle and grind it into a powder.

[jonathanzhang]

I just wanted to stop by and say thank you for this very informative and enlightening episode. My Asian parents have drilled it in me since childhood the 'MSG IS BAD FOR YOU' mindset. And this mentality probably came from my extended paternal and maternal sides strangely. Nobody ever questioned the rationale/logic of it. It just was something that was passed down from generation to generation. Don't get me wrong, it's not like we as an extended Asian family were actively preaching the whole 'MSG bad' idea. It was one of those strange little things that great grandma said, which eventually grandma said in passing which ultimately was gleaned from mother. Therefore, today's episode is literal food for thought - to always remember (for me, at least) to mentally question why something is rather than just accepting it as fact. 😀

[sleepygraves]

I'm being so for real when I say this is one of the most important channels on YouTube. I say this to my husband every time we watch your videos, y'all are literally doing god's work here.

"there's no financial reason for them to nourish us" IS THE REALEST THING I'VE HEARD IN A MINUTE 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

literally preserving culture and tying that into educating with empathy.... this is praxis 😭💕

shout out comrade penguin 🐧🅰️