Notes From Under the Stove » Food Science

Purple Tomatoes

Michael Taeuber — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:50:09 +0000

A new tomato has appeared… and it’s purple! This new, genetically modified purple tomato contains nutrients that have been proven to help prevent cancer in mice. Anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant found commonly in dark berries such as blackberries, have shown to lower the risk of cancer, heart disease and other diseases. Purple tomatoes are red tomatoes that have been genetically modified with these Anthocyanins, which is what gives the purple tomato, it’s violet color.

The purple tomatoes, genetically modified with the Anthocyanins, have only been tested on mice thus far… but tests have shown great potential. The next steps include tests with humans, and then getting people to eat enough of the tomatoes to see a difference.
LINK

Cooking and Evolution

Michael Taeuber — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:30:50 +0000

“For a long time, humans were pretty dumb, doing little but make ‘the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years,’ says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism. The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances, although definitive claims of causation are premature. In most animals, the gut needs a lot of energy to grind out nourishment from food sources. But cooking, by breaking down fibers and making nutrients more readily available, is a way of processing food outside the body. Eating (mostly) cooked meals would have lessened the energy needs of our digestion systems, thereby freeing up calories for our brains. Today, humans have relatively small digestive systems and allocate around 20% of their total energy to the brain, compared to approximately 13% for non-human primates and 2-8% for other vertebrates. While other theories for the brain’s cognitive spurt have not been ruled out, the finding sheds light on what made us, as Khaitovich put it, ’so strange compared to other animals.’”

LINK

Use Vaccuum Sealer to Make Better Cookies

Michael Taeuber — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:42:48 +0000

This innovative chef uses a vacuum sealer to redistribute the moisture in a cookie dough similar to how they are used by chefs to make pasta dough. Read what he says and keep this technique in mind, it may come in handy.

LINK

Peel a Harb Boiled Egg With Out Peeling!

Michael Taeuber — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:15:34 +0000

Interview with Harlod McGee

Michael Taeuber — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:34:47 +0000

Great interview by one of the founders of molecular gastronomy. See the link for the whole interview.

Q I’m curious about the ingredients used in experimental cooking, such as thickeners made from seaweeds and microbes. What new kitchen chemistry do these ingredients enable?

A They’re kind of like gelatin, but with different properties that allow you to produce different textures. Gelatin takes a liquid and turns it into a moist, delicate solid. The thing about gelatin is that it melts at about body temperature. Alginates, agar, carageenans, gellan, curdlan and xanthan, all these other gums, are more stable. You can make things to serve warm or hot.

Q Are these ingredients available to home cooks?

A They’re still not at your corner grocery store, with one exception – xanthan gum – which you can buy at most groceries because it’s an important ingredient in gluten-free baking. The others you have to get from specialty mail-order stores.

One of the most popular applications of the alginates is “spherifications.” They’re like egg yolks or caviar, in the sense that they have a membrane around the outside and a fluid interior.

You put it in your mouth, and it’s a solid thing, but when you bite into it, it pops open and releases flavorful liquid. This is done by putting alginates into a flavorful liquid and then putting that liquid, a spoonful or a dropper of it, into a water bath that contains calcium.

Q Is there a difference between what high-end experimental chefs are doing and what food scientists at Kraft or General Mills are doing? Aren’t they both substituting chemistry for natural ingredients?

A I would say there’s a big difference, because the people at Kraft are not interested in deliciousness. I still think that’s the really distinctive thing about this (experimental) approach. These may be ingredients that were originally used in industrial contexts, but they’re now being used to give people pleasure, not to substitute for the absence of gluten or the absence of some other fresh ingredient that would actually have flavor.

LINK

Read Between the Lines

Michael Taeuber — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:49:14 +0000

I ranted before how you need to scrutinize the menu closely when you dine out. Using hot catch phrases to lure you into purchasing a cheap product is the name of the game. So much psychology goes into how we interpret menus a graduate student at the Univ of Mich has concluded that people perceive fancy fonts as better food. “People think, ‘If it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do’,” researcher Hyunjin Song said. I myself prefer simple menus, not too wordy and easy to read font, but this may be a poor choice in fine dining where you need to make the client perceive he is getting the meal of his life.

LINK & Interview

Science Investigates Drunkeness

Michael Taeuber — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:57:28 +0000

Turns out, besides activating reward circuits in the brain, alcohol impairs the amygdala’s ability to detect threats. No news to anyone who has seen a drunk idiot start a fight with three guys at the same time. The researchers properly boozed up test subjects and showed them scary pictures while scanning their brains. Once again science seems slow behind common sense.

LINK

Rosemary, Steak’s new Best Friend

Michael Taeuber — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:01:01 +0000

Scientists found adding the herb to hamburgers can break up potentially cancer-causing compounds called HCAs (heterocyclic amines) which form when meat is cooked.

The presence of HCAs can be a particular problem in beef cooked at high temperatures over a long period of time.

However, research at Kansas State University showed that adding rosemary to beef patties reduced levels of HRAs by 30 to 100 per cent. This is due to the herb’s antioxidant properties.
Adding rosemary is an alternative to cooking meat at lower temperatures.

LINK

Count the Segements in an Unpeeled Citrus

Michael Taeuber — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:40:40 +0000

This experiment is a simple one, but it will amaze your friends. When you finish, you will also have a good start for a delicious snack.

For this experiment, you will need:

1. several oranges

2. a magnifying glass (optional if you have sharp eyes)

Select an orange. Look at the end where it was attached to the tree. You should see a small button shaped piece that is greenish brown in color. Use your fingers to carefully remove this. Underneath, you will see that there is now a small indentation. Looking closely and you will see a ring of tiny dots. This is where some of you might need a magnifying glass. It will look almost as if someone had used a needle to punch a circle of holes, near the outer edge. Count the dots and remember this number.

Now, slice the orange and count the number of sections. You will find that there are the same number of sections as there were dots. Using this method, you can accurately predict the number of sections inside an orange before it is peeled. Be sure to practice a couple of times before you try this in front of an audience. By counting the dots beforehand, you can pretend to be determining the number of sections by listening to the orange, smelling it or even by spinning it on the table. Once you make your prediction, slice the orange and show that you are correct.

Understanding the Science

How does this work? The orange is divided up into sections, which are pretty much separated. There has to be a way for all the sugar, juice and other yummy stuff to get into those sections. Tiny tubes inside the tree bring all that wonderful stuff to the orange. Since the sections are not connected to each other, each must have its own tube. Count the tubes and you count the sections.

LINK

The Coffee Zone

Michael Taeuber — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:05:05 +0000

To any serious coffee lover this is the Holy Grail of coffee machines. Leave it to the Japanese to bring coffee brewing into the 21st century by involving more technology than in most nuclear power plants. Each “pot” consists of two globes. Water vapor evaporates from the bottom globe into the higher globe to meet the grounds. The coffee is then stirred with a bamboo paddle, removed from the heat and siphoned back to the lower globe (sans grounds). Served in a flask, it’s more like drinking a mad scientists brew than coffee. “Siphon coffee is very delicate. It’s sweeter and juicier, and the flavors change as the temperature changes. Sometimes it has a texture so light it’s almost moussey.” All the news reports claim that the machine just bought by a Californian coffee shop cost 20k, but this includes the shipping costs.

Watch it in action:

In other coffee news, David Lynch, the movie director, has released his own brand of coffee. “I’d have coffee, sometimes six cups, along with the shake, and I’d have sugar in my coffee. By then I would be pretty jazzed up, and I’d start writing down ideas.” So that’s where he gets those crazy ideas of his.