[cubefox]

> So a little MSG to get your taste buds extra sensitive to other flavors is a net good.

Salt and MSG are sometimes said to strengthen existing flavors, but I'm pretty sure they mainly just contribute their own unique taste: salty and umami.

(There could of course theoretically be some interactions with other taste receptors, similar to how sweet things make things taste much less bitter, e.g. cocoa, but that is a relatively specific effect and not one that acts as a general flavor enhancer.)

[kdheiwns]

If you lick plain MSG, it tastes bitter. Add it to something very sweet and it just tastes bizarre. Sprinkle it on fried chicken and it tastes like you just dumped chicken gravy on it and pumped up the taste. It really does mainly amplify flavors.

And while MSG tastes very wrong in sweets, sweets generally always taste better with a bit of salt. Salt is its own flavor and a flavor amplifier.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Plain MSG absolutely does not taste bitter. I just tried some (again) to confirm, it's not salty & not bitter. Just a strong flavor of its own.

[BobaFloutist]

Yeah it just tastes like straight up "savory."

Almost tastes like fat more than anything.

[Kirby64]

> Almost tastes like fat more than anything.

Probably because a lot of fat sources have high levels of glutamates in them. You're not tasting the fat, per-say, but the other stuff that isn't fat. It's why beef tallow is so much tastier than neutral oil. Same level of fat.

[cubefox]

Yeah, I also just tried it, it doesn't taste bitter at all. It tastes like clear soup broth, which usually contains a lot of MSG.