The tongue has a set of receptors that fire for cooked meat. So yes, it is in fact the protein. I grew up and we learned about the 4 tastes and then stumbled ac

The tongue has a set of receptors that fire for cooked meat. So yes, it is in fact the protein. I grew up and we learned about the 4 tastes and then stumbled across this a whole back and was fascinated. It probably explains why cooking meat first caught on. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami