How does MSG enhance the flavor of whatever it is added to?
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You were probably taught in school that you can taste four things: sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. And that all other components of flavor are really just smell.
This turns out not to be true.
You do have receptors on your tongue for those four things, but it turns out you have more. The first one conclusively discovered was a fifth taste called *umami* (from Japanese *uma(i)* “delicious, tasty” + *mi* “flavor”), discovered by a Japanese researcher in the early 1900s. Umami is a “meaty” or “savory” taste generated by a particular class of chemicals called glutamates; it’s responsible for the savory rich taste of meat, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheeses, soy sauce, fish sauce, etc (and by extension, things like soup whose flavor comes from those things).
MSG is both a sodium salt (so it tastes salty) and a source of glutamate (so it tastes “umami-y”). Both salty and umami flavors are pleasant to most people, so it makes most things taste better.
Since then, it’s been discovered that you have some other receptors, like one for fat content, but there’s not a common word for that flavor yet.
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