Toast, honey and... amino acids

Toast, honing en... aminozuren

Intens gelukkig zat ik een geroosterd stukje brood te eten, ook wel bekend als toast in goed Nederlands. Misschien was het omdat ik honger had, maar de verandering van een droge oude boterham in een fantastische ervaring door het te verhitten is eigenlijk ongelooflijk. Het is de warmte, de geuren, de kleur, alles ervan verbaasd me. Alsof het brood gereanimeerd is en het een tweede kans gekregen heeft.

With intense happiness I was eating a roasted piece of bread, also known in the english vernacular as: toast. It might have been because I was hungry, but the transformation of a piece of stale bread into a wonderfully tasting, almost superreal, experience by heating it is simply amazing. It is the warmth, the flavours, the colour, everything about it amazes me. As if the bread had been reanimated and had been given a second chance.

Bread, chaos and Lyapunov exponents

Brood, chaos en Lyapunov exponenten

"Alle zorgen zijn minder met brood", schreef de auteur van Don Quichote, Miguel de Cervantes. Wie kan hem ongelijk geven, het is waar, de toevoeging van brood bij een maaltijd, of op zichzelf, brood is fantastisch eten. Ik laat hier zien wat er in het deeg omgaat waardoor het brood zo 'chaotisch' goed wordt.

"All sorrows are less with bread", wrote the author of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes. Who can argue with him, for it is true, either the addition of bread to a meal or taken as a meal by itself, bread is a wonderful food. The way of preparing, especially the kneading of the dough, is quite important. I will show what happens with the dough that makes bread 'chaotically' good.

Emulsions, aerosols and granular systems

We continue with our exploration of two-phase systems. As you might recall a stable two-phase system consists of a continuous phase and a dispersed phase. In an emulsion we have two fluids as the two phases. The two fluids cannot mix otherwise the two phases would disappear. I already discussed foams and gels as examples. In this episode we will explore more characteristics of these systems. Just like in the case of the foam, when we make an emulsion, there are shear forces at work that break the droplets of the dispersed phase.

Spontaneous symmetry baking

After the discovery of a new boson (most probably the Higgs) at CERN I feel somewhat compelled to explain what the Higgs is and what it does. What better way to do it than with an analogy! We are going to try and recreate the Higgs mechanism with food. This is going to be a rather long post. First I'll explain what the Higgs field is and why it was theorised. After that I will give you a kitchen example of how we can view the Higgs field.

More than meets the eye

Colour influences our daily lives, whether we are aware of it or not. Sight is our main sense, a large portion of our brain is primed for visual stimuli. Finding and determining potential food is one of the uses for survival. In addition we don't want to eat poisonous plants or animals. Colours help us to find food "at first sight" since red berries between the green branches are easily spotted. It seems we perceive three primary colours, red, green and blue. The theory about the way we perceive colour is not completely elucidated, though. Since the eye and brain are almost inextricably linked it is clear that neurological and even psychological factors are not to be ruled out in the perception of colour.

It's a matter of taste

"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love." - Charlie Brown (by Charles Schulz). Actually Charlie Brown is slightly mistaken here, but we can forgive him because we all know what unrequited love can do. I'm sure he can still taste his salty tears as he can the saltiness of his peanut butter. However, the apparent odour might be affected. Taste and smell are distinct senses, but they are easily entangled in common experience. Of course, it is our sense of smell that is impaired by our blocked nose, either from tears or from a cold, which affects the flavour. In this episode some background theory to the sense of taste. 

Five dimensions of perception

It has been a while since the previous edition, however there is a perfectly good reason for that. I have been absorbed by reading parts of the Modernist cuisine. A comprehensive work about almost everything you have ever wanted to know about preparing food, and couldn't even think of asking! It is a five part compendium of techniques and analysis of ingredients and preparation methods in order out find out why the things work the way they do in the kitchen. Former physicist Alan Myhrvold took it upon himself to develop this cookbook and with thousands of pages of stunning pictures and recipes it is absolutely gorgeous. I don't want to discuss the book, but rather take things one step further. The formalisation of the the art of cooking. It seems a rather daunting enterprise to describe the science of cooking in such a way, and it may not even be possible. When Bertrand Russell tried to formalise logic in the beginning of the previous century he encountered severe problems that changed views on logic forever. Nevertheless the journey often enlightens. Myhrvold took a right step, but it's possible to take one step more. Let's make a roadmap and see where we end up.

Gel

Did you ever wonder about how a wobbly pudding is wobbly, almost liquid, yet stays on your plate? When you shake it, wonderful waves go across its surface, as if it were a pool. But stop and it is a solid again. This wonderful crossing between a liquid and solid is called a gel. In this episode I hope to make you curious about what they are and how they are made.

Foam

Espresso crema

A nice espresso in the morning does wonders for a person. The golden crema over a strong caffeine rich liquid is the secret to a good espresso. The crema is a foam. Also cappuccino froth is a milk foam. Have you ever beaten egg whites? After some time a foam appears and when you do it long enough the foam is firm enough to stay in its given form. When baking bread or a cake with yeast or baking soda, the batter becomes a foam when it is heated in the oven as carbon dioxide is produced inside. Today I want to talk about foam.

Sustainability and food

At the Food Film Festival (in dutch) I was surrounded by friends and people I felt had a dash of idealism. I usually don't give much for -isms but the point of the festival was to appreciate food, where it comes from and where it's going to. I like food, I like optimistic people and I like to believe in a few good idea(l)s. The main idea(l) that the festival wants people to take home is the durability (or rather sustainability) of food. Do the production, transport and consumption help to create a sustainable world? I never really thought about it much, but this is an excellent opportunity to find out what it is all about.