The Magic Cube

You could call it the Swiss Army knife of the kitchen: bouillon is
a handy ingredient, whether it comes as bottled brown gloop, or a
cube wrapped up in shiny foil like a tiny present. Today, cooks
around the world rely on this secret ingredient to add depth,
flavor, and umami to their cooking. It wasn’t always so; like many
of today’s packaged shortcuts, condensed bouillon got its start in
the 1800s, when nutrition science was just taking off. How did the
(mistaken) discoveries of a German chemist pave the way for these
umami bombs—and what is umami anyway? How did bouillon brands like
Maggi and Knorr become part of national dishes as far afield as
Nigeria, India, and Mexico? And how did the invention of these
early "essences of meat" lead to the creation of the
love-it-or-hate-it spreads Marmite and Vegemite? Listen in now for
all that, plus a matriarchal subterranean master race with
electrical superpowers! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
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