Food for Thought: Flavor Pairing

Hey Everyone,

Spring semester is right around the corner! Ever wonder why sometimes one spice tastes like another or why absurd sounding combinations end up tasting amazing? It may have to due to shared flavor compounds!
A paper was written discussing the hypothesis that ingredients sharing flavor compounds taste better together than those with different compounds. For example, though it may not sound appealing to consider eating white chocolate and caviar, both contain trimethylamine and additional flavors. What was also interesting was analysis of cuisines by region show that North American and Western European dishes gravitate towards the use of ingredients with similar flavor compounds. East Asian and Southern European dishes on the other hand, avoid the use of similarly flavored ingredients.

To entice you into reading the entire paper take a look at these flavor networks!

The entire paper can be read here:
http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/full/srep00196.html

Enjoy!

- Charles

Why Doesn't the United States Use the Metric System?

via xkcd

This has happened to me more than once: We're in the chemistry/biology/genetics lab weighing out chemicals or pipetting reagents when someone says (half jokingly), "Why is all of this in grams and liters?? This is America!"

Well, little Timmy, this is why:

American colonists in the 1700's inherited and used the British Imperial System, which was a chaotic system of weights and measurements, while France developed and refined the metric system. In 1790 Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was supportive of a decimal-based metric system, but feared that the US wouldn't be able to verify the metric unit of length without sending a costly delegation to France.

International tension also stifled US relations with France. Although France supported the American colonies in the Revolutionary War, the ratification of the Jay Treaty, which basically made France the third wheel in the American-British relationship, changed their opinion of the colonies. France became so hostile that in 1798, it ignored the US when inviting foreign dignitaries to Paris to learn about the metric system (ie. the US was not invited to the metric system party).

In 1821, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was happy with the US Customary System and declared it sufficient, requiring no changes. Meanwhile, the metric system was gaining popularity overseas and by the end of the Civil War in 1865 most of Europe had adopted the system. Recognizing this, President Andrew Johnson in 1866 signed into law that the US "employ the weights and measures of the metric system in all contracts, dealings, or court proceedings."

In 1875 France decided to throw another metric system party and the US was invited this time. The Treaty of the Meter was signed by 17 nations, and the standards of measurement were set and everything was good to go. So after all of this drama why still hasn't the US transitioned yet? Because, little Timmy, Congress made the conversion voluntary. In 1971 the US Bureau of Standards published a report called "A Metric America" that recommended the US transition to the metric system within 10 years. Congress agreed, but made the switch voluntary and the excitement to go metric faded. International economics forced many companies to use both the metric system and the US Customary System, but for the most part, the US remains the only industrialized nation that hasn't adopted the metric system.

Changing gallons to liters and inches to meters is not as easy as it sounds. NASA has estimated that converting their charts, drawings, and documentation to the metric system would cost not only thousands of hours of work, but also $370 million. Even on a smaller scale change would be difficult. Every single sign on freeways and highways will have to be replaced with those that reflect speeds in kilometers per hour and we'll have to start thinking about whether $1.99/kg of potatoes is a good deal or not. I don't know about you, but I have no idea how many pounds are in a kilogram and I would need to bring a calculator every time I go to the store.

Alas, if only the transition were made mandatory Americans wouldn't have to learn two languages of measurement.

All information via How Stuff Works

Spice Rack!

Happy holidays everyone!

I hope you're enjoying your break after Fall semester. I stumbled this product a few weeks ago and I had to share! Feel more like a scientist in your kitchen while having easy access to all your spices!

You can purchase the product here: http://www.firebox.com/product/5773/Scientific-Spice-Rack

- Charles Quinto

Use Science to Improve Your Cookies!

One of my favorite food bloggers, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt from Serious Eats, has done a fantastic article about the science of cookies, specifically those of the chocolatus chipis species. He covers everything from the difference between using melted and creamed butter to egg yolks vs. egg whites to dough temperature and everything else in between. You can find the original article here along with a recipe but in order to get you into the kitchen faster, I present to you the condensed version:

Do not replace butter with other fats (eg. shortening, margarine, lard). The proteins in butter are essential to the flavors in your dough.

Melted butter will produce denser cookies while creamed butter will make cakier cookies.

Cookies made with browned butter will come out softer because of less gluten development. However this may cause it to break more easily.

A higher proportion of egg white to egg yolk will result in a taller cookie while a higher egg yolk to egg white ratio will result in a more dense, brownie-like cookie.

White sugar is pure crystallized sucrose. Brown sugar is mostly sucrose, but also contains glucose and fructose (more hygroscopic than sucrose) with trace minerals that give it flavor and a slightly acidic pH.

Cookies made with 100% white or 100% brown sugar

Cookies made with slightly acidic brown sugar cause them to rise more and spread less because the brown sugar reacts with baking soda (a base) to make bubbles that provide lift. Cookies made with white sugar do not leaven, but they are more crisp because sucrose does not hold water molecules as well as glucose and fructose.

Incorporate your chocolate chips halfway through the wet-dry mixing process to avoid over-mixing your dough. Excess kneading causes more gluten formation which can produce tough cookies.

Incorporating chocolate into dough that has been heated to 80 degrees F will allow some chocolate to melt, leaving chocolate trails in the cookie, while still leaving chunks intact to melt into pools of liquid delicious.

That $25 bottle of Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract is indistinguishable from imitation vanilla flavor.

Baking your cookies at a lower temperature will result in more spreading and more even cooking. But don't go too low, otherwise there will be not textural contrast between the edges and the center.

Leaving dough in the refrigerator overnight will allow time for flour proteins and starches to breakdown and rearrange so that your cookies have a richer flavor and more better browning.

Cookies rested for four hours and two days before baking

HAPPY HOLIDAY BAKING!

All photos: Serious Eats

FOODucation: Cookie Chemistry!

Hey everyone,

The weekend is drawing to a close and finals begin tomorrow! I hope you've all been making some great progress studying, and if not, there's still time! Though this is probably covered in Food Chemistry, here's some interesting information on the chemistry of baking cookies!

I've included a video that's more informative than this post and it includes some cool animation! If you don't have the time to watch the video or you don't want to be tempted with yet another holiday sweet treat, I've summarized a few key points about the video!

 

• The egg is what holds the batter together during the cooking process to prevent it from expanding into neighboring cookies (though that just means a larger cookie if it does!). As the temperature increases, proteins in the egg(s) denature becoming tangled to create a solid network providing structure to the cookie
• At 212 F the water in the dough becomes steam and is part of the reason why the cookies rise
• Baking soda/powder break down carbon to produce carbon dioxide to puff up the cookie by leaving holes making it lighter
• Caramelization! Sugars break down to become a nice brown, fragrant liquid full of taste and aroma!
• Maillard reaction! Involves sugars, egg protein and flour to produce that toasty flavor and nice brown color (mmmmm delicious!)

Want more info? Here are some tips to alter your cookie (more chemistry is given in the article/video)

• Melted butter in raw dough makes the cookie flatter, wider and more chewy
• Cold butter chunks in dough makes the cookie lighter and more fluffy
• Baking powder in place of baking soda makes the cookie more fluffy
• Dark sugars increase the cookie flavor and aroma

Here's the full article:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/03/248347009/cookie-baking-chemistry-how-to-engineer-your-perfect-sweet-treat

Best of luck this week!

- Charles Quinto