Seasoning protein hydrolysate

In traditional cooking of proteinaceous foods, the fundamental difference between Western and Oriental cultures is that the former cooks proteins with unseasoned fats and the latter cooks with many kinds of traditional seasonings that have tastes of amino acids. Western cultures have some traditional foods with amino acid taste such as cheese. Protein hydrolysates are popular as seasonings (225). 

These include the nutritional products and seasonings derived from fish protein hydrolysates insulin from shark pancreas proteins recovered from saltwater fish fillet cutting fish meal used... 

Keratins have limited uses in the food industry. In combination with vegetable protein-rich materials, keratin is sometimes used for the production of acid protein hydrolysates (hydrolysed vegetable proteins used as food seasonings). Outside the food industry, alkaline hydrolysis of keratin is used for the production of glues. 

Amino acids are not only the building blocks of proteins but also occur in the free form. Amino acids commonly found in proteins have the L-conflguration. Of these amino acids (Table 1), Asn was first discovered in asparagus in 1806, and Thr, the most recently discovered, was Isolated from the hydrolysates of fibrin in 1935. Most of them were Isolated from hydrolysates of various proteins. Glu, first obtained from wheat gluten hydrolysate in 1886, was found to be the most important taste component in sea tangle by Ikeda in 1908. Later, industrial production of MSG was undertaken to utilize it as a seasoner. 

Both acids are used in starch and sucrose hydrolyses. Hydrochloric acid is also used in protein hydrolysis in industrial production of seasonings. 

Free amino acids are only found in small amounts in most foods. Therefore, they only influence the flavour of foods when production is based on proteolysis (some cheeses, but also meat and fish). Enzymatic hydrolysates of proteins (such as soy sauces) or hydrolysed vegetable proteins (add hydrolysates), which contain only amino acids, are used extensively as seasonings. 

---