McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture

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McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture

McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture

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The Erice meeting continues, renamed the "International Workshop on Molecular Gastronomy 'N. Kurti' " in memory of its founder. And over the last decade its focus, the understanding of culinary excellence, has taken on new economic significance. The modern industrial drive to maximize efficiency and minimize costs generally lowered the quality and distinctiveness of food products: they taste much the same, and not very good. Improvements in quality can now mean a competitive advantage; and cooks have always been the world's experts in the applied science of deliciousness. Today, the French National Institute of Agricultural Research sponsors a group in Molecular Gastronomy at the Collège de France (its leader, Hervé This, directs the Erice workshop); chemist Thorvald Pedersen is the inaugural Professor of Molecular Gastronomy at Denmark's Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University; and in the United States, the rapidly growing membership of the Research Chefs Association specializes in bringing the chef's skills and standards to the food industry. What I'm beginning to realize is just how much knowledge one needs to get their head around, to be a really solid, creative cook. A book such as this is necessarily going to be massive and dense, if it's going to be anywhere near complete. Otherwise it would just be another superficial guide.

As science has gradually percolated into the world of cooking, cooking has been drawn into academic and industrial science. One effective and charming force behind this movement was Nicholas Kurti, a physicist and food lover at the University of Oxford, who lamented in 1969: "I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus, we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés." In 1992, at the age of 84, Nicholas nudged civilization along by organizing an International Workshop on Molecular and Physical Gastronomy at Erice, Sicily, where for the first time professional cooks, basic scientists from universities, and food scientists from industry worked together to advance gastronomy, the making and appreciation of foods of the highest quality.Fresh milk, cream, and butter may not be as prominent in European and American cooking as they once were, but they are still essential ingredients. Milk has bubbled up to new prominence atop the coffee craze of the 1980s and '90s. On wooden vs. plastic cutting boards: "It turns out that wooden cutting boards are good in a couple of ways — they're porous so they tend to soak up juices from cutting meats and fish, for example, and that carries the bacteria down into the cutting board where they're not at the surface anymore. And woods often contain anti-bacterial compounds in them so there's kind of a natural antibiotic in the surface of the wood. Plastic cutting boards are easier to clean and are safer to put in the dishwasher, for example, but they also will tend to develop scars and bacteria will lodge in the scars and cause problems later. So I actually have a couple of each and use both. When a plastic cutting board develops scars, I replace it." Keeping Micelles Separate...One member of the casein family is especially influential in these gatherings. That is kappa-casein, which caps the micelles once they reach acertain size, prevents them from growing larger, and keeps them dispersed and separate. One end of the capping-casein molecule extends from the micelle out into the surrounding liquid, and forms a "hairy layer" with a negative electrical charge that repels other micelles. Now a few words about the scientific approach to food and cooking and the organization of this book. Like everything on earth, foods are mixtures of different chemicals, and the qualities that we aim to influence in the kitchen -- taste, aroma, texture, color, nutritiousness -- are all manifestations of chemical properties. Nearly two hundred years ago, the eminent gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin lectured his cook on this point, tongue partly in cheek, in The Physiology of Taste:

The box below shows the nutrient contents of both familiar and unfamiliar milks. These figures are only a rough guide, as the breakdown by breed indicates; there's also much variation from animal to animal, and in a given animal's milk as its lactation period progresses. It's still the practical things that prove the most compelling, however, and I have a list that I present to him: The logic of this trend is obvious: it's a waste of its resources for the body to produce an enzyme when it's no longer needed; and once most mammals are weaned, they never encounter lactose in their food again. But if an adult without much lactase activity does ingest a substantial amount of milk, then the lactose passes through the small intestine and reaches the large intestine, where bacteria metabolize it, and in the process produce carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane: all discomforting gases. Sugar also draws water from the intestinal walls, and this causes a bloated feeling or diarrhea.The great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredients The Sheep The sheep, Ovis aries, was domesticated in the same region and period as its close cousin the goat, and came to be valued and bred for meat, milk, wool, and fat. Sheep were originally grazers on grassy foothills and are somewhat more fastidious than goats, but less so than cattle. Sheep's milk is as rich as the buffalo's in fat, and even richer in protein; it has long been valued in the Eastern Mediterranean for making yogurt and feta cheese, and elsewhere in Europe for such cheeses as Roquefort and pecorino.



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