I had no idea that MSG was not widely known elsewhere in the world, but yes, Ann, it is a Chinese ingredient. Here in the states, it has a bad reputation. The Chinese restaurants here all advertise that they don't use MSG. I'm not sure the basis for this, though.
I assume it's used quite liberally in Asia, but I'm not sure.
On another note, both free time and internet access have been ridiculously hard to come by this past week and this coming week looks to be even worse (at least in terms of free time - I'm not sure about internet access). I'm online now at an airport terminal, so posting is not an option. I'm going to try to post the next chapter tomorrow eve, but if it needs to wait until I get home next weekend, I'll post two chapters to make up for the long wait.
