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Starch and Gelatinisation in Everyday Cooking
I’m no historian but I think it would be fair to say that for most of history most humans relied primarily on starchy grains and vegetables to keep themselves and their families fed. Grasses like wheat, rice, oats and barley are easy to grow and the seeds, or grains, of these grasses are rich in Continue reading
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Milk: Nature’s Beverage and Its Curious Chemistry
I think humans have an interesting relationship with milk. Most of us start our food journey with human breast milk yet many, long after we’ve out grown any biological need for milk, chose to consume the milk and milk products of other species. To support this we have set up a $800 million dollar a Continue reading
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Fermentation I: Beer and chemistry
I had a long break over Christmas and these are a few of the meals I had during that break: at the local pizza joint a pepperoni pizza washed down with beer, a trip to the German club where I had a pork knuckle with sauerkraut washed down with beer, a trip to a French Continue reading
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Mastering the science of sugar: From simple syrups to caramel
I’ve been catching up on the latest series of the Great British Bake Off and in one episode, amongst all the usual drama of collapsing pastries and sagging cakes, the contestants were overcooking their caramel for the Banoffee Pie technical and it made me think about sugar. In recent posts I’ve talked a lot about Continue reading
The Science of Food 