Now I'm by no means an expert in this....

Having grown up in a house where a period drama (more on this in a second) was as common as watching facts of life I was a bit surprised by a recent commercial on food network, it was a commercial for shoyuu or as it's more commonly known in the states, Soy sauce... Okay technically it was a commercial for Kikkoman a brand of Shoyu... errr soy sauce, but as far as I'm concerned if I ever refer to Shoy...soy sauce I'm talking about Kikkoman (In a similar fashion Hellman and mayonnaise the two are synonymous with each other as far as I'm concerned).

Sorry going off on a tangent there, the point of this blog post was in my (admittedly limited, but still more common to me than the average person watching the commercial) opinion was the words used.

Umami, it's Japanese for Delicious was the wording used.

Now when I was a kid I watched period dramas... (In this case, it was Samurai/Shogun era, the Japanese equivalent to watching a western TV series) as a young teen I was more immersed in Japanese culture than I should care to admit to... (point in fact to Lifepoint staff, JAPANESE NOT KOREAN!) (Point to Korean friends, not that there's anything wrong with Korea (err at least the southern half,) it's just not my heritage).

I have a couple friends in Japan, we've discussed food before.

my issue? never ONCE have I EVER seen, heard, or used the word Umami to describe something as being delicious (for that matter never before have I seen the word period).

No the terms I know Umai (pronounced oo (as in you) mai (as in my)) or in more informal (and more commonly in my experience) was Oishi! (pronounced Oy (as in Oy-vey) Shi (as in she)).

I listened to the commercial (it was long enough it was repeated Several times) to make sure I didn't mis-heard (I hadn't) after not finding it in the normal translating dictionary I use, I looked it up online and sure enough, it does mean what the commercial claims it does...

of course with a commercial like this:

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised...

Side note regarding just mentioned commercial you will hear them use Oishi in the background song about 21 seconds into it... Umami nowhere to be found.

Oh and speaking of commercials... I don't know about the video itself, but I know that the song was a diddy for the company, because I remember the show me, shoyou line... and I'm not going to link it here, it's too disturbing and that way you can't blame me for getting it in your head.