I keep bumping old threads lately but I swear it's not a campaign, just a coincidence. We've talked about so much shit that whenever I read something new I remember that one time we talked about it.
In this case the occasion is the publishing of Modernist Cuisine, a five-volume (plus a recipe book) illustrated encyclopedia of the history and science of cooking by Nathan Myhrvold, a multifold genius (he was accepted to UCLA at 14), entrepreneur and cook. Smithsonian magazine has an article about this masterpiece.
As gross as those tofu pearls upthread look to me, I cannot deny finding this fascinating. But wait! There's more! There's video!1 The first segment is charcoal being lit in extreme slow-mo, and the second is an amazing series of slow motion captures of a gelatin cube in motion. A. May. Zing.
Did you ever watch the Heston Blumenthal series "In search of perfection"? It is well worth having a look, although I do not recommend trying to follow his recipes, as he is a man who thinks NOTHING of inventing a recipe that takes 3 days to cook, or requires a 10 foot deep barbecue pit to be dug in your garden, or that requires you to find some way of creating you chocolate mousse in a vacuum.
Now THERE is a man who takes his food chemistry seriously. I am definitely going to make a point of taking her indoors to the Fat Duck one day to sample his culinary extravaganza.
We get Heston's Feasts down here. It's pretty awesome, and he talks about food chemistry (like the 80s episode when he figured out how to get cheese to go all gooey and stringy).
Well, the gelatine will move like a liquid because it is a liquid.
Contrary to macroscopic appearances, gelatine (being a hydrocolloid) is actually a mesh of solid particles contained within a liquid. What you actually get, therefore, is a liquid held in place by a 3D microscopic net.
Freezing the gelatine will poke a few holes in the net and allow very small particles (inc. water and flavour molecules) to filter through as the gelatine thaws.
That book is ridiculously expensive. ABE Books posted last week that they had a few copies listed and they were in four figures. Since my reference budget for the cookbook section is about $500 and due to be cut I know I won't be buying it for the library.
__________________
"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Fat Duck I bought, it was fairly reasonable. Modernist Cuisine is the ridiculously expensive one.
__________________
"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette