NONVOLATILE TASTE COMPONENTS OF EAR MUSHROOMS

Five kinds of ear mushrooms are commercially available in Taiwan, incl uding black, red, jin, snow, and silver ears. Ash contents ranged from 2.05 to 6.14% of dry weight. Carbohydrate contents ranged from 68.88 to 88.14%. The jin and snow ears contained high amounts of crude fat ( 4.48 and 4.54%, respectively). The jin and snow ears also contained hi gh amounts of crude fiber (11.69 and 8.51%, respectively). Crude prote in contents were high in the black and snow ears (15.46 and 12.53%, re spectively). Ear mushrooms contained very low amounts of soluble sugar s but high amounts of other reducing sugars. Total free amino acid con tents ranged from 0.53 to 1.24 mg/g. Monosodium glutamate-like compone nt contents ranged from 0.05 to 0.34 mg/g. Sweet component contents ra nged from 0.17 to 0.50 mg/g. Bitter component content was high in the silver ear. Total 5'-nucleotides contents ranged from 0.69 to 5.39 mg/ g. Flavor 5'-nucleotide contents were high in the snow and jin ears. I n this study, the five kinds were considerably different in both their proximate compositions and taste components.