I’m not a Mission Chinese fan (what you consider “creative” I consider drunken dorm hacks) but they are right that MSG deserves a place on our tables as much as Sodium Chloride does. The racist canard known as “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” has been put away by science despite what Barbara Tropp (a Flower Child-era Jewish girl from New Jersey) would have had you think.
“Farmers market style” ingredients? Tropp didn’t bring that to Chinese cooking. She got it FROM Chinese cooking. Chinese cities have (official or unofficial) “farmers’ markets” on nearly every street corner, and home cooks typically shop there twice a day. They ALSO use MSG (even if they think they are only using “chicken essence”).
Cuisines of the world that don’t use MSG typically have ingredients available that are naturally rich in free glutamates. Saying you shouldn’t add MSG to food is lik saying you shouldn’t add salt to foods that are not naturally salty.
