I have seen mushroom and wakame as ingredients in fish sauce substitutes but does pineapple just take the cake?
A number of recipes are simmering fresh chopped pineapple along with salty ingredients before straining: does that add umami or in any way help extract umami?
Best Answer
Umami is the result of glutamic acid (ions) getting in touch with the tongue. Glutamic acid in fish sauce is the result of a fermentation process, which involves bacteria doing the work of breaking down fish components. Glutamic acid easily dissolves in water though. This is after all, how it was detected millennia ago and centuries ago verified by creating glutamic acid salts: Cooking seaweed in water and boiling the result down.
The wakame is added due to its natural content of glutamic acid. There isn't anything special the pineapple can/has do to it that regular water can't do.
Therefore the answer is: No, the purpose of the pineapple is not to increase the glutamic acid of the substitute.