Crycotuv – a combined vacuum chamber and super fast freezer with internal spray nozzle.

If I were to name a topic for this year’s Flemish Primitives event I guess gadgets would be it. I’ve already covered the high pressure processing in a previous post. Regrettably we were only shown pictures and movies of this machine (it is to large/complex to be brought on stage) but there was much more that would qualify for a post focusing on some of the gadgets presented.

Crycotuv
The most obscure machine in my opinion was the Crycotuv – a vacuum chamber which could be cooled to any desired temperature between -150 and 0 °C in seconds/minutes. (more…)

Sang Hoon Degeimbre (chef at L’Air du Temps) on stage at TFP2010. Photo by Piet De Kersgieter.

As mentioned in my previous post on The Flemish Primitives 2010 (TFP2010) two chefs had taken their inspiration from Asia. Peter Goossens had come across high pressure processing during a study trip to Japan, and had developed this further in cooperation with Stefan Töpfl. Korean born Sang Hoon Degeimbre (of L’Air du Temps) on the other hand had returned to his roots to study kimchi, the ubiquitious Korean staple food. It is a pickled dish made of vegetables with various seasonings, and it is a very common side dish in Korea. In fact, it’s so common that Koreans say “kimchi” when being photographed, just like we say “cheese” in English.
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I just received an alert today about a major review article on molecular gastronomy: Molecular Gastronomy: A New Emerging Scientific Discipline (DOI: 10.1021/cr900105w) is a British-Danish joint publication by Peter Barham, Leif H. Skibsted, Wender L. P. Bredie, Michael Bom Frøst, Per Møller, Jens Risbo, Pia Snitkjær, and Louise Mørch Mortensen. Peter Barham is a professor in polymer physics at the University of Bristol, author of The science of cooking and probably doesn’t need further introduction. The Danes are all associated with the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen and have a varied background in chemistry, food science, sensory science and psychology background. Check out the links to their individual profiles more info on projects and publications. Leif H. Skibsted and Michael Bom Frøst head several molecular gastronomy related projects. The Danish scientists also work closely together with Claus Meyer, chef at Meyers madhus and visiting professor at Copenhagen University, and Torsten Vildgaard, assistant head chef at Denmark’s gastronomic shining star Noma (which Claus Meyer started together with René Redzepi in 2004 – they were ranked 3rd in Restaurant magazines top 50 list for 2009, only surpassed by el Bulli and The Fat Duck).

Considering the impact factor of Chemical Reviews (ranked as a clear no. 1 among chemistry journals), this review will likely remain the review on molecular gastronomy for years to come – so you can just as well go ahead and read it. It’s got a whopping 53 pages and more than 350 references, and will be very useful for further studies and research. Oh, and the authors have opted for sponsored access, meaning that you can download the whole review for free!

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Shellfish after treatment for 2 min @ 6000 bar. Fresh, juicy and tasty!

The available litterature in English (including blogs) on popular food science focuses mainly on Western cooking, although the academic litterature on Asian foods is catching up quickly. Although widespread and apparently “well known”, Asian cooking is still largely being referred to in broad categories such as Chinese, Indian etc. Having spent 10 years of my childhood in Asia I’ve always had the feeling that this wasn’t quite right, and I do indeed look forward to learn more about the science aspects of Asian food in the years and decades to come. In one of the breakout sessions (more about those in a separate post) Alok Nandi made a point that Indian cuisine is as diverse as the European cuisine. With this background it is interesting to note that two of the chefs presenting at The Flemish Primitives 2010 had taken their inspiration from Asia.
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Again I was lukcy that all the practical details worked out so I could attend this year’s Flemish Primitives in Brugge. For some one who’s not attended, it’s not so easy to grasp the concept and ideas behind The Flemish Primitives (TFP). And I admit, even though I’ve been there twice it’s not so easy to convey it in a short way. First of all the name is rather cryptic (unless you’re into art) as it refers to early Netherlandish painting. The link to food is described as follows by the organizers of the event (my highlights):

In the 15th and 16th century, ’The Flemish Primitives’ were masters in combining their talent with new techniques. Techniques they developed by interacting with other disciplines like manuscripting, sculpting, etc. This way of working changed the painting techniques in all of Western Europe forever. The event ‘The Flemish Primitives’ wants to continue in the same spirit. Respect for food products and beverages, the knowledge of the classic cooking techniques combined with a stimulation of new techniques and creativity. By promoting interaction between scientists, the world’s most famous chefs and artists, the event wants to deliver a creative boost for the food industry and gastronomy in Belgium and the world.

Considering last year’s sucess it was no big surprise that this year’s event was sold out (and the foyer of the Concertgebouw was equally full in the coffee breaks). And with the memories from last year I arrived in Brugge with great expectations. One main difference from previous years was that the scientific parts were much better integrated throughout the day. Scientists were on stage alongside the chefs, explaining their work. Also, contrary to last year’s back stage kitchen, they had now moved the kitchen onto the stage, flanked by a bar, some sofas and laboratory mezzanine. A good decision!
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The gingerbread cookies pictured are made with ginger, cloves and cinnamon. I didn’t use ammonium carbonate as a leavening agent for these, so no amphetamines were created “in furno” in this case. But I’m sure the cookies can cheer you up anyway!

A while ago I came across the article “Christmas gingerbread (Lebkuchen) and Christmas cheer–review of the potential role of mood elevating amphetamine-like compounds formed in vivo and in furno” (abstract from NCBI, free full text pdf download from publisher). The paper reviews a hypothesis proposed by Alexander Shulgin in a series of papers appearing in Nature in the 60’s. Shulgin noted that allylbenzenes and propenylbenzens found in many spices are “merely lacking ammonia to become amphetamines”. The author reviews the evidence that such substances may be converted in the body to psychoactive metabolites, but concludes that the evidence is equivocal at best. However, the author launches an alternative theory:
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Richard Wiseman has posted a lovely video with Top 10 science stunts for Christmas parties:

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A sourd dough bread made from a spontaneous starter

After 7 days of feeding my sour dough starter “took off” and was ready for baking. Even with a water bath set to 28 °C it took longer than expected. I started off with 100% hydration as this is convenient when you have to feed your starter frequently. Using only whole grain rye flour and water, I fed my starter every 12 hours (I’ve included details of the “feeding schedule” at the end of this post). This time interval is based on the growth cycle of yeast, where the yeast after an exponential growth phase reaches a plateau after 8-12 hours. This is the best time for feeding the starter.

There seems to be a consensus that a wet starter (more…)

Last year, while visiting family in Germany, I decided to pick some walnuts to bring home to Norway. They were not ripe, which was good, because I was planning to make nocino, a walnut liqueur. You can easily find a number of recipes by googling and there is also a nocino-thread over at eGullet.

What fascinated me the first time a saw nocino mentioned in a book about liqueurs was the nearly black color. Many recipes comment that after steeping, the liquid looks more like used motor oil than something edible. The color is really amazing and I also observed that most recipes recommended the use of gloves as the stains from the unripe walnuts would not easily come off. The juice from the walnuts is a light yellow green color to start with, but when exposed to air it quickly turns dark brown. Color chemistry is always fascinating and I couldn’t resist the temptation to investigate this further. (more…)

I recently stumbled across an interesting article on risk perception: If It’s Difficult to Pronounce, It Must Be Risky – Fluency, Familiarity and Risk perception. Researches from the University of Michigan had students read lists of fictious words and imagining that they were reading food lables and judge the hazard of each ingredient form very safe to very harmful. The words were divided in groups of easy-to-pronounce words (such as Magnalroxate) and difficult-to-pronounce words (i.e. Hnegripitrom). If I were to take the test I’d probably rank Magnalroxate as worse than Hnegripitrom – the “roxate” somehow reminds me of a pesticide or something like that. It turned out however (as expected) that substances with difficult-to-pronounce names were perceived as more harmful than substances with easy-to-pronounce names.
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There’s a new book by Hervé This available in English: Building a meal – From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism. In the book he examines six bistro favorites — hard-boiled egg with mayonnaise, simple consommé, leg of lamb with green beans, steak with French fries, lemon meringue pie, and chocolate mousse — and discusses the chemistry of the preparation and the eating of these dishes. I haven’t seen the book yet, but it seems to be something like In search of perfection meets On food and cooking. I’ve also had troubles finding the original French title for this one. There is an excerpt chapter covering consommés available from the publisher website.

Bruce Bryan demonstrated a glowing cocktail drink (top left), and tempted us with fluorescent cake frosting (top right). The chocolate surprise boxes included a lollipop (bottom left) and I was quite busy sucking the lollipop, listening to the translation of the Belgian/French/Spanish contributions, taking notes and photographing at the same time (bottom right).

The chocolate surprise box was one of the highlights at The Flemish Primitives that I’ve blogged about three times already. As I promised you in the last post I’d come back to the lollipop that was included in the box. Between chocolates number 2 and 3 Bruce Bryan entered the stage. The lights went off, we were instructed to suck intensely on the lollipos and then – when I took the lollipop out of my mouth it was glowing! (more…)

Can the natural process of aging wine in corked bottles be accelerated?

I recently found an interesting article on how an electric field can be used for maturation of wine (New Scientist news coverage of the article). Applying a AC field of 600 V/cm for 3 minutes resulted in an accelerated aging of wine and according to the authors of the paper, it made “harsh and pungent raw wine become harmonious and dainty”. They observed changes in concentrations of higher alcohols, aldehydes, esters and free amino acids. But I was quite surprised that they don’t say anthing about astringency and polyphenols (tannins). I’d expect some changes there as well, but alas it’s so much more difficult to measure the polyphenols than the low molecular compounds. A sensory panel identified both positive and negative effects of the electric treatment which helped identify an optimum treatment. Apparently several Chinese wine manufacturers are testing the technology on a pilot scale now. Many people have a romantic impression of how wine is made, but the extensive catalogues of “corrective chemicals” available to the modern wine maker should perhaps make you reconsider the romatic idea of wine making. Even professor Hervé Alexandre at the University of Burgundy has given the technology a thumbs up: “Using an electric field to accelerate ageing is a feasible way to shorten maturation times and improve the quality of young wine”. Who knows – maybe you’ll soon be drinking a wine that has been zapped?
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I have recently come to know Miss Silvia. She’s from Italy, weighs a good 14 kg and even my wife welcomed her in our kitchen! As home brew espresso afficionados will know by know, I’ve become the proud owner of an espresso machine from Rancilio! She’s been around for a number of years, and is one of the most popular among prosumer espresso machines available before you take the step up to double boiler machines that allow simultaneous brewing and steaming. Every place that is (proud of) serving espresso uses these machines, but their price is well beyond most coffee lovers budget. The good news however is that even single boiler machines can produce excellent espresso!

The first time I offered the science of espresso any thought was when reading Jeffry Steingarten’s accounts of his espresso adventure (in “It must’ve been something I ate”) which brought him all the way to Italy and Illy and then back again to Manhatten where he set up 14 home espresso machines in his kitchen. This is also where I first was made aware of the fact that 7 g of coffee should be used for a single espresso (which is considerably more than the 5-6 grams found in the Nespresso capsules).

Since I decided to buy an espresso machine I have been devouring sites written by and for coffee enthusiasts: CoffeeGeek, Home Barista and Espresso! My Espresso! to mention a few. You’ll be surprised how much one can possibly write about espresso!
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Brazilian chiles in oil (very nice with Moqueca!)

Oils and fats are long molecules which are mainly non-polar and hence the opposite of water which is a polar molecule. Ethanol which has both a polar and a non-polar end falls in between oil and water. I’ve covered extractions using water and ethanol previously. That water and oil are opposites is easily observed by the fact that they don’t mix, and because of it’s lower density oil floats on top of water. This property allows us to easily separate water and oil.

Volatile molecules – the molecules that we detect by their smell – are mainly non-polar and therefore soluble in oil. This is one reason why foods with fat often have a different and often better flavor compared with their fat-free counterparts (fat of course also influences mouth feel etc.). Everytime you cook with oil it will actually help extract aroma (or smell flavorants) from the food ingredients and deliver these to your nose.

There are several oil extracts used in the kitchen, and the nice thing about them is that the oil extracts aromas and then protects them from the air. This is good as it prevents oxidation of the aroma molecules, but in some extreme cases bad because the anaerobic conditions may promote growth of botulinum spores – more on that in the last paragraph. When the flavored oil is added to a dish you get can immediately perceive the aroma. If the oil is tasted pure it serves as a carrier for the aroma giving a small explosion in the mouth (or nose to be more precise…). Some examples I can think of where the oil plays an important role in extracting and delivering aromas are: pesto, tapenade, mayonaise, aioli, curry paste (and all other spice pastes), chili oil and truffle oil to mention a few. Notice that in most of these the source of the aromas is still present in the oil.
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