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Egg whites: The art and science of edible foams
When considering the great florescence of thought and ideas that was the Enlightenment we tend to focus on the big ideas, the big innovations and the big thinkers like Voltaire, Locke and Adam Smith. But, as in any other time of great intellectual or technological change, there are other, smaller, ideas that fly under the Continue reading
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Oxygen, electrons and Scottish chefs: How understanding redox reactions could save you from a bollocking
Many years ago I was working in a restaurant in Scotland and in an effort to save myself some time I prepped a stack of apples we were using as a garnish hours before we needed them. Thinking I’d done something clever I was radiating smugness until a coworker pointed out that the apples would Continue reading
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Pork, another red meat
Fear is a great motivator and, being in the business of motivation, advertising has always been very quick to take advantage of human uncertainty to build demand. An example of this is the famous “The other white meat” campaign for pork that ran in the States in 1987 and was copied here in Australia during 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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Quick bite: A cooks tour of fats and oils, the good, the bad and the ugly
In my last post on emulsions I was a pretty loose with my terminology when referring to fats, oils, lipids, cholesterol etc. In this Quick Bite I just want to explain some of the terminology and start getting a bit more precise about what I mean when I say ‘fat’ (or an oil which is 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
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Understanding Emulsions I: The science behind your favourite sauces
Emulsions where would be without them? No mayonnaise, no custard, no hollandaise and no milk, butter or sausages. Not having thought too much about it before, I was surprised to find out just how many of my favourite foods are emulsions or how many are covered with emulsions when I eat them. It’s pretty clear Continue reading
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Quick bite: A cooks tour of protein chemistry
If you have read any of the posts on this blog you are probably starting to realise that when we are talking about chemistry in cooking a lot of the time we are actually talking about proteins. For this reason it is important that we have a clear idea of what a protein is, how Continue reading
The Science of Food 