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Tomatoes and Fake News
Humans love a good story. We also love a simple story. We like our good guys to be good, our bad guys to be bad, we like a message that reinforces our beliefs and we definitely like some closure, everything wrapped up with a nice little bow. Our love of a well-formed narrative, and our… Continue reading
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Why is Kobe Beef So Good?
I’ve been to a lot of places and I’ve eaten a lot of things. I thought that there was nothing left that could give me a culinary jolt. I was wrong. I’m in Osaka, Japan. I’m travelling with my family and another from our home town of Brisbane. We had landed at Narita Airport two… Continue reading
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Are Michelin Stars All in Our Mind?
I’ve been watching ‘Knife Edge’ on Apple TV, a documentary that follows the trials and tribulations of Michelin star hopefuls. It is a guilty pleasure; it’s basically reality TV with some Michelin star prestige to ramp up the stakes. A couple of things did strike me when I was watching though. Firstly, why would anyone… Continue reading
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Custard, Avgolemono and Carbonara: The Science of Using Eggs to Thicken Sauces
The world of sauces can be pretty intimidating. The French, in particular, have elevated the art of sauce making to such an extraordinary extent that the whole idea of making a sauce can seem overwhelming. They have their mother sauces, their daughter sauces and a whole culinary tradition based specifically around sauces. To the French… Continue reading
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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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Quick Bite: New research lets us know who to thank for our chocolate
It is a truism in science that the more you learn about something the more you know you don’t know. This can make talking to a scientist frustrating. A scientist will rarely tell you something without immediately telling you why it is probably wrong and that more work is needed. A good example of this… Continue reading
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Quick Bite: New research shows what was on the menu 2 million years ago
The Ship of Theseus is the name given to a thought experiment first related by Plutarch around the beginning of the second century. In this story the ship Theseus rescued the children of Athens with was kept by the people of Athens and used every year in a pilgrimage to Delos. Over time, and many… Continue reading
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Aphrodisiacs: Can food make you sexy?
Sex has always been something of a problem for human societies. Love, marriage, children and the passage of assets from one generation to the next has always been a primary human preoccupation. Yet in all these endeavours sex and sexual attraction lurks like the drunk uncle at a wedding; unpredictable, inconvenient but impossible to ignore.… Continue reading
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Quick Bite: Ultra-processed foods give you lung cancer? Maybe not
In the past I’ve been critical of both observational studies and the reporting of these studies in the media and yesterday the Independent published an article called “Food that makes up more than half of western diets linked to lung cancer” which really pushed my buttons. The title is clearly link-bait and it had me… Continue reading
The Science of Food 