In today's lecture, I'm going to talk about Monosodium Glutamate, or MSG, as it's more commonly known.

在今天的讲座里我要来讲一讲谷氨酸钠，也就是我们常说的味精。

Now, MSG as you probably know, is a flavour enhancer which is used particularly in Chinese and Japanese cooking.

你大概知道味精是一种在中国和日本饮食中常用的增味剂。

Today I am going to explore why it is so popular in these cuisines and, more importantly, how does it enhance the flavour of food?

今天我们就来探讨一下它为什么在这些饮食文化中这么盛行，以及更重要的是它如何给食物增味。

The main reason why MSG is more commonly used in Japanese meals is tradition.

味精在日本广泛使用的主要原因是饮食传统。

For many thousands of years the Japanese have incorporated a type of seaweed known as kombu in their cooking, as they discovered it had the ability to make food taste better.

数千年来日本人在烹饪时一直用一种叫昆布的海藻，因为日本人发现昆布会让食物的味道变得更加鲜美。

But it wasn't until 1908 that the ingredient in kombu which was responsible for the improvement in flavour was actually discovered to be glutamate by scientists working there.

但直到1908年在日本工作的科学家才发现昆布中让食物变得更美味的成分是谷氨酸。

From 1908 until 1956, glutamate was produced commercially in Japan by a very slow and expensive means of extraction.

从1908年到1956年，谷氨酸以一种十分低效且昂贵的提取方式被商业生产。

It was in 1956 that the speed of the process was improved, and industrial production increased dramatically and still continues to increase to this day.

在1956年谷氨酸的生产速度有了很大的提高，其工业生产量也飞速上涨，到今天仍增势不减。

In fact, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of MSG are produced all over the world today.

实际上，每一天全世界都有数以万吨的味精被生产出来。