Science Based Cuisine

Manipulating disgust

2013-05-15T15:40:00.001-05:00

Breakfast on the run.

A much hyped concern about biotech crops is that the effector proteins engineered in the plants could have unintended effects when consumed by people. For example, corn that is engineered to make the Bt protein requires much less pesticide since the Bt kills the larvae of certain insects, while remaining harmless to humans. This is so effective that the strategy is being explored to incorporate it in plants like eggplant (Bt Brinjal).

Putting aside this objection for the moment, this fallacious concern that the bioengineered proteins can be toxic to humans, the strenuous objection to processed items from biotech crops like sugar beets is far more difficult to sympathize with. That's because in this case, the consumer product in the end, sugar or crystalline sucrose, has been purified away from any direct gene product. Sugar beets are never consumed in their vegetal state, and after extraction, chemically speaking, sucrose is indistinguishable whether it comes from biotech or heritage sugar beets - or sugar cane, for that matter. In this case, the technology only serves to improve the efficiency of production. The same logic applies to canola oil, or corn oil - the protein products of bioengineering do not make their way to the consumer product.

Protests are even more specious when it involves genetically modified cotton, since that isn't even eaten!

All this illustrates is that the anti-biotech fervor is really not based on logic, but on emotion, and most effectively, on the manipulation of disgust. Disgust is a powerful response in human cultural perception, most notably because it has contamination properties. That is, if one can tie an object to a disgust response, then anything that object come in contact with inherits the same disgust response. I believe the technical term is "cooties". Marketing folks are adept at leveraging disgust responses, and the power of propaganda for manipulating disgust can change whole industries (the history of lard and hydrogenated vegetable fats, or that of lean finely textured protein should be textbook case studies for this). In this case, anti-biotech objectors are trying to tie the disgust response to the crops, but perhaps one would be better able to resist if one is aware of the manipulation.

Evolution in agriculture

2013-05-10T12:52:00.001-05:00

Parsnip and short rib dish, Uchi Houston

The popular press has a strange relationship with modern agriculture. Although undisputedly the product of evolution, modern crops are often discussed like they are fragile unchanging clones - well, that is sort of true for some varieties of bananas. The way evolution works is, as conditions change, genetic lineages that are less adapted to the new conditions die off, and more adapted ones increase in frequency. Suitability to human tastes could be one of those conditions - that is why modern sweet corn looks nothing like the ancestral teosinte. Or that modern turkeys have such proportionally huge breasts (and inability to breed without human intervention).

This is an important point to consider as panic seems to be spreading around the mysterious spread of colony collapse disorder (CCD) among domesticated honeybees. Often portrayed as a sudden onset of events (actually, hints of this condition has been around for decades), the hysteria has led to the actual ban of neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides, in Europe. Truth is, CCD as a diagnosis is pretty vague - numerous reasons could be behind the death of a colony, yet everyone is on the hunt for the cause, leading to mob-like indictments of various suspects, from genetically modified organisms to cell phone towers.

Calm down. Let's look at this objectively.

Loss of domestic bees will not lead to global famine. Many of our major staple crops (rice, corn, wheat) don't need bee pollination, and even the crops that require bee pollinators can be pollinated by alternative pollinators. All that means is that the supply of these crops, things like almonds, strawberries, peaches, will become constrained - but not extinct. Prices may rise a bit temporarily, but we will adjust. After all, this is just a different set of selective conditions. We can start breeding (or genetically modifying) crops to require less bee-based pollination, or choose parthenogenetic counterparts (fruits that don't need pollination). We can start domesticating (or expand the availability of) new crops that fulfill the void left behind by these traditional crops (cheaper figs, perhaps). And the crops aching to be pollinated will be an ecological bonanza for new pollinators. Perhaps this will seed the return of wild solitary bee populations pushed aside by the domestication of honeybees.

Seen from the perspective of evolutionary transition, CCD can be an exciting turn of biological history. Those that see it in apocalyptic doom and gloom are invested in the status quo, and are, perhaps the financial elites who can afford the luxury of demanding that this restricted set of crops remain eternally unchanging and available.

All the while forgetting that crops always been changing, and haven't always been this widely available.

Labeling Justice

2013-05-06T14:04:00.001-05:00

Ridiculous labeling.

In a guest posting on Keith Kloor's Collide-o-Scape blog on Discover, Ramez Naam presents his case that (genetically modified organisms) GMO supporters should embrace labeling. I was rather puzzled by this piece. He starts the article by being careful to state that he himself is a GMO supporter - pretty much in those terms. And then he expands on his thesis:

"by fighting labeling, we’re feeding energy to the opponents of GMOs"

He uses the term "fighting labeling" quite frequently in the piece, as if there's an active force preventing labeling. This buys into the straw man fallacy, as the fight is against mandatory labeling. Labels do not appear spontaneously on foods, and supporters of GMOs are not somehow marshalling forces to remove them. Enforced labeling, under penalty of law, is the serious debate at hand.

But then, over on Twitter, I confirmed that he was already referring to voluntary labeling, although it sounds like it's coerced voluntary labeling. Basically, Ramez has a hard time countering the contention

“If you’re so proud of your GMOs, why don’t you label them?”

Because he is proud of the technology. I pointed out to him that voluntary labeling already exists - it's branding. I think, though, that Ramez is stuck with the idea that the battle is already lost - he bemoans the fact that multiple states have mandatory GMO labeling laws in the works, all of which are, of course, not based on science and merely fanned by propaganda and hysteria. So, he's playing the same game - never mind the science, let's take away this one talking point by actually labeling the products, albeit with labels that GMO supporters find less objectionable than those being proposed. He doesn't address how these consistent labels will be funded or enforced. He thinks that if we concede this one point, to win the greater war, we blunt the impact of the coming labeling laws.

This is where I find the stance insidiously repugnant. The imposition of such labeling laws are an injustice, plain and simple. Those that cry "lack of consumer choice" in the current climate are flat out wrong - there are plenty of consumer choices, and that choice is not guaranteed by the market. It's an entitlement mindset that demands enslavement of our farmers and food producers, that a select group of consumers should be able to shackle their means of production beyond reasonable scientific precaution. In order to provide the desired "consumer choice" - they take away choice from the farmers. If not the point of scientific validity, then we stand in support of farmers.

The logic of Ramez's piece is that a heinous crime is about to be committed - so let's do it sooner, at least we'll be gentler. If a girl is about to be brutally raped, let's choose to be the kinder rapist. All the while blurring the fact that horror need not happen at all. No, it's cowardice that rationalizes aligning with, rather than opposing, injustice. AntiGMO propaganda paints a false dichotomy, that somehow labeling is being suppressed - it isn't. Preposterous labels are all over our food products right now ("all natural"), some even with ridiculous health claims. We don't foster better science understanding by giving succor to unjust labeling demands by carrying it out for them.

Interesting small plates

2013-05-02T12:35:00.000-05:00

Beef leg carpaccio, Oxheart, Houston, TX

Salt roasted turnip, Oxheart, Houston, TX

A few months ago, I finally had the pleasure of dining at Oxheart, one of the most celebrated restaurants in Houston. At Oxheart, you order set tasting menus, small dishes of composed items (really, some of them are no more than 2-3 bites) , with delicately balanced flavors meant to offset carefully selected wine list. There really is no ala carte ordering, other than the wine, and this simplification is in part to execute the vision of the talented chefs as a complete dining experience, and also to keep costs down. Indeed, the intricate dishes command the attention of a small platoon of cooks, and given the small size of the restaurant, profit margins must be carefully monitored.

I had a pleasant enough experience with a couple of standout moments and a couple not so stellar items. However, I am in no hurry to return. Despite the homey comfortable image presented on the website, dining at Oxheart is a fairly formal affair. Given the popularity of the restaurant, arranging a reservation was enough trouble that I am willing to wait for that special social event to go back.

On a recent visit to San Diego, though, I encountered Okan and couldn't help comparing the dining experience there. The tiny restaurant, a barely labeled door in a strip mall, is actually similar in seating capacity to Oxheart, right down to a central bar area surrounded by small table tops. Okan also attempts a homey feel, a casual gathering around a large sake selection, and small plates of intriguing food. In fact, that drew me in was the promise of Japanase tapas - it is even called that on the menu (printed by laser printer and tacked casually on the door). The difference: the place is all ala carte. No set menus, and it was an impressively diverse and intricate menu (hamo eel tempura and kamameshi were specials that day). Sadly, I could only try a few dishes that day before filling up.

Rice burger, Okan, San Diego. Two sushi rice patties are grilled, and used to sandwich teriyaki beef and Kewpie mayo. It's remarkably good.

Ankimo (monkfish liver). A standout dish, the unctuous foie gras of the ocean was dressed in a perky melange of sauce, salad and seaweed that balanced beautifully with flavor and texture.

Tempura brussells sprouts. The crispy coating was a delicious foil to the vegetal flavors of the sprouts, without being bitter.

The service pace was unhurried, and diners did indeed treat the place as a casual gathering spot, progressively ordering more food or drink as the evening progressed. And they could - the prices were impressively modest (specially considering the cost of real estate in San Diego) - my entire meal hovered around $20. I find myself wanting to return to Okan on a regular basis, to sample the expanse of the menu, and perhaps that is the measure of the success.

Thinking about milk

2013-04-22T13:18:00.002-05:00

Molly Dunn at the Houston Press Eating Our Words blog starts out her piece with

"Let's face it -- kids are not consuming enough milk today"

and goes on to decry the predominance of artificially sweetened milk in markets, exhorting us (presumably, parents) to teach kids that unsweetened milk is "natural" and healthy.

Let's take a step back, and look at some facts.

1. Milk is not an essential food product. Most mammals (in fact, most humans - but that should be obvious from mammals, right?) stop consuming milk post weaning, and developmentally shut down milk digestion. Lactase persistence is the uncommon condition that permits milk consumption, and is restricted to just a few pockets of humanity. The fact that Ms. Dunn thinks that children aren't consuming enough milk tells me that her perspective comes from this idea that other "kinds" of children don't count. Most children post nursing would have a hard time digesting milk.

2. Milk contains plenty of sugar already. In fact, the going rate is about 5% lactose in cow's milk - that's about 4 teaspoons in a 12 ounce serving...wait, isn't that like soda? It's just that you cannot perceive the sweetness of the lactose in the same way as sucrose, but guess what, sucrose and lactose are chemically very similar, and have notably similar digestion pathways (with the exception of the lactase step).

But what really bugs me is Ms. Dunn's obstinate parroting of pseudoscience and subtle propaganda. For example, she writes

"Adding aspartame to milk doesn't make it milk anymore"

That is an unjust characterization of the issue - it doesn't fit the current FDA technical definition. Her choice of words are meant to emotionally manipulate the reader. She writes the "research has shown" that artificial sweeteners create cravings for high calorie foods. What research specifically? She also denigrates "chemicals" several times, betraying her inherent chemophobia.

So, this was an article about teaching kids to choose "real food" (whatever that means). I am responding with this: teach our kids to think critically before they are indoctrinated.

Reformulating a favorite

2013-04-17T13:21:00.000-05:00

One of my guilty pleasures is getting Jumex mango nectar. A Mexican origin product, it's actually pretty good, and relatively inexpensive. But recently, I noticed that the can has received a makeover. Now, since the can, sized for 12 ounce, already contains a shrunken 11.3 ounces, I doubt if the makeover is due to the infamous Grocery Shrink Ray.

The old can is to the left, the new to the right. The main change in information is the disappearance of the claim that mangos are a natural source of Vitamin A.

Indeed, looking at the RDA values, the old can used to claim 25% for vitamin A, and it went to 0% in the new can.

How can there be a complete depletion of vitamin A content? Vitamin A is a group of compounds that can be formed from the carotenoids of many yellow and orange fruits and vegetables, such as carrots (from which they are named). Mangos, being a yellow fruit, contain carotenoids. Granted, the reformulated nectar also shrank from 30% juice to 21% juice. The ingredient list is more or less the same. Mystery upon mystery.

But aside from this, how did it taste? Well, the new stuff is thinner, sweeter - less fruity. More or less in line with the lowered juice content. Sadly, I think an old favorite is gone.

Do you know your E. coli?

2013-04-15T15:06:00.002-05:00

Salt roasted turnip salad, Oxheart, Houston, TX

You'll hear it quite often in the news nowadays. E. coli found in green leafy vegetables. Beware! People get all panicky about it now - and unlike issues like GMO labeling, this one does merit a little caution. What exactly is E. coli? Well, it is shorthand for Escherichia coli, perhaps one of the best studied bacteria on the planet. Maybe. We'll get back to that shortly.

E. coli is a commensal bacteria - one that coexists with humans (for the record, in the average human body, the bacterial cells outnumber the human cells roughly 10:1 - you are more a constellation of bacterial communities than a single organism). But the name is actually about a group of diverse microbes that live in humans. Some are so benign, their ancestors served as the domesticated workhorses of modern molecular biology. We splice genes into them (heck, we still E. coli as our major engine for most kinds of DNA engineering), make them produce proteins of interest, or even to build genetic networks.

But there's a dark side - some kinds of E. coli harbor the capability to make humans sick. In fact, what you probably hear in the news as E. coli is shorthand for E. coli O157:H7, the outbreak bacteria not to be confused with the benign laboratory bug. But there are others. You'll see the term STEC - that stands for shiga toxin-producing E. coli. Or EHEC - which is enterohemorrhagic E. coli - this one is nasty, causes internal bleeding. All these, and others, get called E. coli because they pass the physiological tests for E. coli - and this microbial classification lets us standardize our procedures once we know.

Except that the human need to classify, to impose order over nature, may actually be counterproductive in this case. A study of 186 E. coli genomes (yes, we've sequenced that many), reveals what we call E. coli is probably a lot of different species. In fact, a different organism called Shigella should actually be classified among the E. coli - and that the diversity is so big that we can probably name six different species out of the E. coli group. Truth is, biology, while beautiful in its unity, rarely divides neatly into the classifications that humans require. And dealing with that complexity is part of the challenge, the excitement and the exasperation of science.

Thousand layers

2013-04-05T12:32:00.001-05:00

While in California, I encountered one of the few remaining bakers in the USA who make baumkuchen: cakes cooked on a spit, such that when cut across, the browned layers of cake crust look like tree rings (hence, the name - German for "tree cake"). But, in Southeast Asia, they have a version. And it doesn't need a spit.

Kuih lapis, pandan flavor. Singapore.

Kuih lapis is constructed by building thin layers of batter under a broiler, before pouring the next layer, painstakingly built up to earn the name "thousand layer cake". In contrast, the thousand crepe cake is far easier to construct.

The source of heat can be a charcoal broiler, which infuses the cake with a smokey flavor. Variations of the cake can also be built using different flavored batters, though I suspect that the laborious nature of the confection rarely incorporates quite so many flavors. This video should illustrate what it takes to make one layer. Kuih lapis is found in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Reviewing the science

2013-04-04T12:26:00.001-05:00

Salak: the snakeskin fruit.

False beliefs and pseudoscience are comfortably ensconced in most food and food practices in just about all cultures I know of. Though I don't understand it, the emotional connection people have with food seems to trump rational perspectives, such that beliefs and biases will be held on equal footing to evidence. Case in point, Molly Dunn, in the Houston Press, blogs about a list of foods that are mood modifiers, with little more than WebMD to back up the claims (if the name sounds familiar - she had previously written about an old, easily disqualified claim about the sports performance enhancing properties of beer).

While at Norwescon, I was privileged to attend a panel with PZ Myers on detecting pseudoscience and applying critical thinking, and this blog post is chock full of the primary features of pseudoscience: exaggerated claims, misuse of scientific terms (take the old trope about turkey and tryptophan), unfalsifiable ideas, and sloppy referencing.

While such "listicles" - articles consisting primarily of lists - are a common motif in commercially produced blogs to elicit discussion (invariably, these lists will be "incomplete"), there's a difference between opinion and publishing pseudoscientific conclusions. The latter are a parasite on the hard won reputation of science, which was forged in the difficult crucible of peer review and objective study, and we should not stand by uncritical as such claims continue to circulate. Pseudoscientific portals like Mercola and Dr. Oz do a damaging enough job with regards to nutrition and food culture, our local publication could at least not contribute to this intellectual barbarity.

Domesticating Cancer

2013-04-02T17:01:00.000-05:00

Crispy pork adobo

I recently spent time in Seattle at Norwescon, a science fiction convention, and got to talk about science and speculation about the future of food. While it is fun to speculate, among the scenarios we talked about was the issue about predicted future shortages as the global climate changes. I had to point out that some of the panicked speculation of future food shortages stem from a very first world centric view of what is acceptably food. Shared preferences in food may constitute a primal tribal discriminator in humans, which, of course, means that despite a predicted food shortage, people still worried about the availability of meat.

That leads us to the idea of vat-grown or tissue cultured meat. Although alleging to assuage vegan concerns about killing animals for food, sadly, this process remains expensive and ironic - the growth factors that are used in tissue culture are extracted from other animals. For now, the most cost effective way to make a steak is a cow. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be great if a cow would just regenerate an edible part, and we didn't have to kill the animal?

We could do just that. Animals can be generated with a genetic background that lets them spontaneously generate tumors - which we can harvest for food. Despite any misgivings, there shouldn't be any particularly adverse reactions to eating tumors - it would just be meat. In fact, benign tumors are probably already in some of the meat we eat today. The moral justification would be easier - we are saving the animal's life by lopping off the cancer.

But this is just the beginning, of course. Well behaved cancer stem cells can be used to seed animals, leading to exotic meats that can be cultured on host animals. The transmissible face cancer from Tasmanian devils suggests that a biological mechanism can be built into tumors that can avoid rejection - and then that opens up the possibility of culturing various exotic meats on domestic animals. Or perhaps, another biotech path to acceptable cannibalism that may be morally acceptable to some vegans.

Carbolearning

2013-03-22T17:39:00.000-05:00

Quite trendy among the orthorexic folks is the concept that dietary carbohydrates should be reduced or eliminated. I've heard preposterous claims that carbohydrates directly cause cancer; some practices advocate not just the reduction of "carbs", but the complete elimination from the diet - which, of course, is followed by a meat-heavy (if not exclusive) regimen.
Do you know what carbohydrates are?

Sardines, seaweed salad, and fried pork belly. It's "no carb". Not really.

Carbohydrates are chemicals.

Ok, being facetious aside, carbohydrates are molecules made from just carbon, hydrogen and oxygen - and that comprises a huge range of compounds. Take for example, cellulose, the stuff that is the primary component of wood and paper: it's a carbohydrate. But it isn't a dietary carbohydrate

Dietary carbohydrates stem from three basic simple units: glucose, fructose and galactose. These all have the same basic composition, but are isomers of each other - meaning that the main difference is how the individual atoms are arranged in these simple carbohydrates. The fun thing is that these can then be hooked up in combinations like interlocking bricks, to become more complex carbohydrates. Sucrose (table sugar) is made up of a fructose and glucose (which is, of course, very similar to high fructose corn syrup). Lactose is a glucose and a galactose.
But you can go way beyond two. In organismic biology, the simple carbohydrate glucose is a direct feed into the energy production of the cells. Plants, in particular, make these very long chains to store their glucose - and these are the starches. If you can imagine the variety of ways six carbons can be arranged to make molecules of many different properties, when hundreds are arranged in these long chain carbohydrates, you get things with different properties - hence the variety of cooking starches available. Which is why wheat starch is different from potato starch, and how glutinous rice starch is different from long grain rice starch.

Now, there are people who are even stricter than low carbing — they go for the "no carb" diet, avoiding even fruits and vegetables that may provide a hint of sugar or starch. And they tend to eat meat-heavy diets. Well, this is where that incorrect use of the word "protein" comes into play. It's become commonplace to hear cooks call a piece of meat, fish, poultry, or tofu "the protein" of the dish, when in scientific parlance, protein means a very specific chemical situation. And meat, despite this practice, actually contains carbohydrates.

Animals store glucose subunits, too, in the form of glycogen. In a sense, you can think of glycogen as "animal starch". And depending on the cut of meat, it can be a rich source of glycogen (liver, in particular). In fact, I propose the most expensive sweetener in the world, just out of ridiculousness: extract glycogen from foie gras and oysters, break it down into glucose, convert a little over half of it with isomerase into fructose - and voila: High fructose oyster and foie gras syrup (HFOFGY).

And absolutely not vegan.

Browning bread

2013-03-08T14:34:00.004-06:00

I've mentioned before that I love baking bread. In part because it is such a fine art balancing out the sciences of microbiology and biophysics in getting a good product out - and there really aren't that many failures. In general, for bread baking, a hot oven is needed. That's because race is happening: the heat causes the carbon dioxide bubbles and water to expand within the loaf to create the holes, but at the same time, the crust is also hardening to hold it in. The crust also browns - providing additional flavor. The browning, of course, is the product of the Maillard reaction, and is promoted by heat and inhibited by moisture. Thus, as the bread dries out on the surface, that's the hardening and also the browning.

Two other things promote the browning: increasing the pH (the opposite of acidity - alkalinity) and increasing the protein content. I like brushing on a layer of milk to do so. For bagels and pretzels, those breads are first boiled in a pot of alkali (it could be as harsh as lye, but baking soda will work), and that results in the distinctively brown and chewy crust.

Or, you can make the two phenomena happen at different times. In Asia, there's a tradition of steamed breads. Often stuffed with fillings savory and sweet, these breads eschew the crust altogether, prizing instead the fluffy texture that steaming affords. But who says you can't create a crust when it is desired?

The deep fried mantou.

Steamed bread dropped into a deep fryer will develop a nice crisp crust, while retaining that fine crumb and fluffy texture therein. This is, in a way, no different from how sous vide cooking of meat is done in two parts, where the moist cooking is done first before the final dry high heat is used to finish the dish with Maillard complexity.

Here we go again

2013-03-06T15:43:00.001-06:00

So, posting in the Houston Press blog Eating Our Words, Molly Dunn reports

researchers at Granada University in Spain have discovered that beer can hydrate your body after a workout better than drinks like Gatorade, water and chocolate milk.

With, a link to the Washington Times article citing exactly that. Well, except for the chocolate milk part. That seems to be a casual addition - certainly, though, the original scientific article would have compared beer and chocolate milk. Except, the Washington Times article does not link to the original scientific paper either. Instead, it cites a report from The Telegraph, reporting on a conference in Granada. But no link to the article itself. Or any specifics about this report. Surely, this should raise alarm bells.

Well, it's the age of Googling, after all. A quick search for Manuel Garzon and Beer reveals this article from The Telegraph. Written in 2007. As well as enough links to other articles that point to the "beer better hydrator than water" claim as an urban myth.

Seems that The Telegraph isn't exactly the best source of scientifically vetted information — very often, a claim that is too good to be true, is.

Breakfast Cereal

2013-03-05T11:22:00.000-06:00

"What's your favorite breakfast cereal?"

That's one of those common questions that make up online surveys, and comprise these "listicle" articles online to stir up discussion among the fooderati. After all, it's a safe thing, to wax nostalgic about perhaps the earliest act of childhood independence - having a choice at the table, and the perhaps even the act of putting the dish together.

My favorite breakfast cereal? Rice. Because it comes in so many myriad forms. But for breakfast, it shines.

In Dumaguete City, freshly cooked glutinous rice (and let me reiterate - there is no gluten in glutinous rice) is served alongside some hot cocoa. The cocoa here is made from cacao harvested nearby, cooked simply with sugar and water. The two (called potomayo) are eaten together, making a satisfying and filling breakfast. The leftover rice, incidentally, is wrapped in banana leaves, with a shot of chocolate, to make portable, fragrant, temperature stable snack packets for later.

But odes could be written about the joys of breakfast nasi (rice) in Malaysia.

The king of breakfast is the packet of nasi lemak - rice cooked in the rich and aromatic mix of coconut milk and pandan. Healthy lumps of the stuff is served with various viands, here, an egg, fried fish, some cucumber, chicken rendang, peanuts and ikan bilis (small fried anchovies).

This version of nasi lemak incorporates goat and squid. The ever present sambal - a chile paste redolent with lemongrass and dried fish - rounds out the meal, providing foil with the sweet milky tea served alongside.

But perhaps the most curious thing I encountered was nasi biru - literally, blue rice. Although you may guess that a Smurf may have been cooked in it, this rice is colored by the juice from the flowers of the bunga telang plant (Clitoria ternatea).; one of the rare times of a true blue food. Heck, blue is usually considered unappetizing, yet, here it is. Incidentally, the bunga telang only conveys color - it still tastes like regular rice.

Mango morphotypes

2013-02-13T04:44:00.001-06:00

Mangos. From sweet to tart, aromatic and perfumed.

The distinction between a banana and a plantain is largely arbitrary - there's a wide diversity of seedless edible bananas, both things intended for cooking or eating plain. Likewise, there are a wide diversity of mangos. In Houston, we are lucky to get at least two varieties - the standard large red mango, and the smaller ataulfo (or champagne) mango. But in Southeast Asia, the diversity can be dizzying. Here, a small portrait of the morphotypes available.

Cosmetic Chemophobia

2013-02-11T02:11:00.004-06:00

Certain words seem particularly charged with emotional meaning - they trump reason. One of them, apparently, is "chemicals". Chemophobia is this irrational fear and trepidation from using scientific chemical terms, because of some perceived notoriety - be it ethylene gas, or glutamate, or dihydrogen monoxide.

You'll see it in all sorts of advertising - that a particular product is "all natural" and "free of chemicals" - even though, technically, all food is chemicals. From proteins, to fats, to carbohydrates. Such blanket fear is useless without knowing which specific chemicals are to beware of - and even then, we'd need to know the amount and circumstance. The ridiculousness, however, can extend beyond food. Into, say, cosmetics - not unusual due to the close relationship between ingredients used in both.

This is the label of a box of soap from a small cosmetic producer; I blurred out the actual brand name. But I am pointing out the claim that it is 100% No harmful chemicals.

A close look at the ingredient label reveals the use of sodium hydroxide - in conventional circles, that's drain cleaner. It's a very caustic ingredient that can dissolve most biological material. I'd say that is pretty harmful. Except, of course, that soap itself cannot be manufactured without some kind of harsh alkali like sodium hydroxide.

I am not pointing this out to be pedantic about the label of this particular soap — my point is to highlight the folly of marketing to chemophobes. And this is just about stuff that is present in the product.

And then there's gluten-free cosmetics - for items that aren't even going to be ingested.

MSG

2013-02-01T17:56:00.002-06:00

So my friend asks me - do I know if a certain favorite Chinese restaurant is MSG-free? This is a loaded question - to be honest, no restaurant is probably MSG-free. But I am getting ahead of myself. Just what is MSG anyway? The initials stand for monosodium glutamate - chemically, that breaks down into one atom of sodium and a glutamate molecule. The sodium isn't usually the relevant element; glutamate is the moiety of interest. And what is glutamate? It's an amino acid.

Let's take a quick trip to basic biochemistry. You've heard that protein is important in your diet, right? Well, that's because proteins make up a lot of the workhorse molecules that govern life itself - from enzymes, to structural materials, to regulatory switches, proteins do these things. And proteins, well, they're made of up smaller subunits called amino acids. Think Lego bricks - you can make anything from a computer to a starship with a limited set of brick shapes, it just depends on how you arrange them together. Much the same way, most life takes a basic set of 20 amino acids, hooks them up in various ways, and viola, you get hemoglobin, or puffer fish toxin, or aspartame.

Of these 20 amino acids, human can synthesize 10 - the other 10 are called the essential amino acids because they have to be procured in the food. That is, we eat proteins, break them down into the component amino acids, and then reuse them for our purposes. And glutamate? Well, we already make this amino acid in our own bodies.

The concept of umami or the flavor of "savoriness" may still sound foreign to a lot of folks as the "fifth" taste, but biochemically, we definitely have receptors for this sensation - and it is triggered by glutamate. Foods rich in protein, like broth, teem with umami because there's lots of glutamate there. Common techniques of adding mushrooms or yeast extract are simply ways of adding crude amounts of glutamate to the bolster the umami profile of a dish - after all, that is what the receptors have evolved to look for. In a sense, almost no food, so long as it has some protein in it, is free of glutamate. So, why all the fuss about MSG - which is basically just a chemically pure form of glutamate? Could it stem from the demonization of chemical purity? And why specifically the quest for MSG-free Chinese food?

Years of testing has failed to tie any particularly adverse reactions to exogenously added MSG to food, unless the tasters know about it. And this includes ridiculous amounts of added MSG. But the story is a fascinating one that inspects the American distrust of "ethnic" incursions in the 1970s, tenacious adherence to a cultural scapegoat, and is quite capably told in The MSG Files. Highly recommended reading.

Guaranteed

2013-01-30T17:32:00.000-06:00

Seems that food blog reading can be as formulaic as writing :). I couldn't help finding this listicle amusing on the types of food blog posts that attract traffic. I don't think this is scientifically vetted, but certainly listicles in general attract discussion since they are almost invariably incomplete. By the way - it's "bare your soul", not "bear your soul".

Small change

2013-01-29T14:22:00.000-06:00

I've been writing this blog for over three years.

When I tell others that I write a food blog, they often ask me about restaurant recommendations. In the explosion of food blogging, writers seem to fall into three main categories:

There are those who write about restaurants, and perhaps travel.
There are those who write about cooking, and recipes.
There are those who photograph food.

But what I wanted to write about didn't fall exactly into these categories. I knew I wanted to write about science and food, but it wasn't just about hydrocolloids and enzymatic digestion. It's taken a number of years, but I've finally coined the term: science-based cuisine.

This cause matters enough to me for me to make some small changes to the blog. There's a new domain name: sciencebasedcuisine.com - I'll be making additional changes to the brand identity in the coming weeks.

It's simply acknowledging what I've been writing all along. Science-based cuisine is a frame of mind about food and food practices that incorporates scientific reasoning. It'll be fun.

Fuel to the fire

2013-01-16T22:04:00.003-06:00

I often get challenged by people dogmatically adhering to the anti-GMO position - despite patient and careful explanations (and Lord knows, I am not as patient as Kevin Folta), opponents cling on to the same arguments, despite evidence to the contrary.

Or maybe they're not so crazy after all. Among the problems with GMO technology activists rattle off are the potential for genetic "pollution" as modified organisms breed into the wild population, or that genes encoding toxins are being used, or the "terminator" technology that renders the modified organisms effectively sterile so they can't be propagated, bringing farmers back to the supplier (presumably Monsanto) for more.

Well, there's a biotech company out of Oxford, UK, that is precisely doing all these things. And thank goodness.

Oxitec is commercializing genetically engineered sterile insect techniques. How this works is they engineer a gene producing a toxin into insects, but this is under control of a suppressor (I believe in this case, it's tetracycline). So, as long as the insects are fed tetracycline, they're fine, but withdraw it, and the engineered bugs die. They also made a specific version which is primarily active in the females, such that a population will only produce males if the inhibitor is withheld. In this way, insect factories can be built that produce volumes of insect males that are, effectively, sterile. When released in large enough volumes, the sterile males competes with wild populations, bringing down the population of a problem insect species. And while they are currently targeting mosquitos (colluding with major governments like Brazil), nothing stops this same technique to be applied to major crop pests like bollworms or animal insect parasites.

Then again, the sterile insect technique is not exactly new - it began back in the 90s, when sterile insects were produced by irradiation. Unfortunately, irradiated insects were also sickly, and didn't compete against healthy ones as well. Even so, this has been a standard technique of insect pest control for a long time. It's specific, non polluting - and improved with genetic engineering.

Soft Pairings

2013-01-09T01:02:00.000-06:00

"Tasting menus" are a standard way of showing a chef's (and kitchen staff's) versatility and range, and a common upgrade are the drink pairings, where each course is paired with a different wine. I've decried the enforced twinning of food with wine; I feel that often it is a crutch to a chef's vision. Moreover, the alcoholic nature of wine excludes a lot of people; surprisingly, most restaurants would rather hew to the wine pairing rather than explore beverages beyond that range (well, beer comes in once in a while). Charlie Trotter's non alcoholic pairings in 2004 created enough of a stir, but I think the teeototaler's drink pairing with a multicourse meal remains a rare beast.

A beast that Chef Steve Marques took on recently. Formerly of Tasting Room Uptown, Steve is now executive chef of Coal Vines in Sugarland, and presented tasting adventure for sans alcohol, by drawing upon his unexercised repertoire of home made sodas and phosphates.

The meal started with an amuse bouche, pairing of in season oysters with home made ginger ale. This pairing was sheer genius. The minerality of the oysters popped with the spicy zing of the ginger ale. There was a clear story in this bite, with layers of texture and flavor that flowed with the bite and the sip.

Gulf oysters, saffron mignonette, celery leaves. A bit large for an amuse bouche, but we weren't complaining.

House made ginger ale.

The salad course was simplicity itself: celery, olives, goat cheese, black pepper, and some fruity olive oil. No vinegar was used - the olives themselves provided the requisite acidity. This was an appropriate follow on the oyster course, as it gently brought back the memory hinged on the celery leaf flavor.

Celery, olive, goat cheese salad.

The fish course paired a Meyer lemon phosphate with salmon cooked en papillote. This is a great technique for cooking fish, and leveraged the strength of having a powerful brick oven in the kitchen. The salmon was beautifully cooked, herbal, moist and flaky. I feel that Meyer lemons are one of those ingredients which have more of a reputation than they deserve - mainly because most people can't take advantage of the distinct and delicate flavors. In this case, though, pairing the fish with a Meyer lemon phosphate cemented the baseline lemon flavors, but kept the delicacy of the herbs from being swamped.

Salmon, thyme, bay, Meyer lemon cooked en papillote.

Meyer lemon phosphate

The main course was pheasant, a silky smooth Japanese sweet potato puree, and a lightly spiced cranberry compote, paired with a cranberry birch beer. When all the components are eaten in one bite, the flavors harmonize. This is no truer than in the case of the drink and the compote. Separately, the cranberry birch beer tasted a bit flat, lacking the tart vibrancy of the cranberry component. However, it all made sense when tasted with the compote, the flavors completed each other.

Pheasant stuffed with pistachios, Japanese sweet potato puree, cranberry relish.

Cranberry birch beer

A side note: I made the mistake of sipping the Meyer lemon phosphate with the pheasant course. The clash of flavors was as jarring as an electric shock; I definitely knew I picked up the wrong glass. But it also highlighted how carefully Steve had mapped out the matching of drink with dish.

Dinner was capped by the "best chocolate ice cream in the world", redolent with thyme, salt, dried cherries and pistachios, accompanied by a salted caramel ice cream with candied cashews.

Steve has some great ideas in the works for the sodas (the ginger ale is definitely a keeper, even if it is served alone); and he conquered the rare beast. Convention relegates nonalcoholic pairings as kid stuff, but I was fortunate enough to witness (and taste) one that is fun, sophisticated and mature.

Hydrocolloid and Foam

2013-01-04T15:06:00.000-06:00

My favorite New Year's traditional food stuff is mochi. Or it's various incarnations. Particularly when it's a waffle. To recap, mochi is made from pounding short grain glutinous rice, so called because of the very high amylopectin content. This gives the rice starch a notably sticky quality highly prized in many East Asian cuisines. Despite the name, glutinous rice does not contain gluten, and flour prepared from it can be used to make gluten free baked goods. Like many other newfangled hydrocolloids, amylopectin use is actually quite old. One disadvantage of mochi, though, is that it loses its chewy quality after a day or two of storage in low humidity - I suspect this is due to dehydration. Seems that wheat starch, or maybe the accompanying gluten, retains water longer. And happily, glutinous rice flour forms a synergistic gel with wheat flour, and by blending the two in various ratios, you can accomplish a product that has the mouthfeel of mochi, with the staying power of wheat flour (although, understandably, this is no longer a gluten-free product).

So, I took this hybrid hydrocolloid, and made a messy heat stabilized foam with it: mochi brownies. Truth be told, a brownie is no more than a delicious failed chocolate cake, so I am not going to worry about proper measurements. You can make these brownies using all mochiko if you prefer, but it'll have a different chew.

Preheat the oven to 350F (which is the standard here in the US).

Melt some chocolate with some butter. I used the microwave for this. Of course, the quality of the chocolate depends on what your tastes are. I used most of a bar of 88% dark chocolate with a little less than a stick of butter.

Meanwhile, beat an egg with about 1/2 cup of sugar - more sugar if you have a stronger sweet tooth, and 1/2 cup of milk.

Mix together mochiko flour with regular AP flour - I used a ratio of about 2:1 - with about 1 tsp of baking powder and some salt. If you want more chocolatiness, add cocoa at this stage. Mix this into the egg mixture, and then incorporate the melted chocolate. Pour into a shallow pan, and bake for 15 min, turn off the oven, and leave it in there to finish cooking with the residual heat.

All the same?

2013-01-03T10:56:00.000-06:00

Food is rife with traditions. French bakers were outraged to learn about outsourced croissants, but it doesn't come from objective tasting of the industrial bread. Rather, it is just the idea that the boulangerie would not take the effort to create it the old fashioned way. Notwithstanding, sometimes the disruption of a tradition can create one that is as entrenched as the original. For instance, most Americans don't know that the wasabi they get in sushi restaurants isn't real; that it's a colored blob of powdered horseradish and mustard. However, when presented with the real stuff, hon-wasabi, the average aficionado may actually find it disappointingly delicate. They've grown accustomed to the sinus clearing mix with soy sauce -- something that may horrify sushi traditionalists, but really, is it any less valid when the diner enjoys it?

One Thanksgiving, I went through the trouble of baking pies from scratch. As I served them with a modicum of pride, one of the diners asked for Cool Whip. I said, I had some freshly whipped cream, but was quickly rebuffed.

"It's just not the same."

Favorite Food Experiences 2012

2012-12-28T11:10:00.000-06:00

When I introduce myself as a food blogger, conversations seem to center immediately on restaurants. Indeed, in my survey trying to understand the archetypal food blog, I found that the restaurant experience seemed central to a lot of them. In fact, many consider food blogging an extension of the ancient (by Internet standards) art of restaurant critique — bloggers exist as an amorphous entity between and among formal critics and Yelp complainers.

I make it a point that I do not review restaurant reviews exclusively. In fact, I am trying to understand the gist of what provides a favorable restaurant experience. So eloquently illustrated in the movie Ratatouille - the most powerful restaurant experience seems to tap into a private memory of the diner. And that is almost an impossible challenge for a chef, to understand and empathize, perhaps to educate, complete strangers expecting something designed for them. Which is probably why as the stakes go up, most restaurants become less daring. To hedge the bets, a restaurant tends to aim for the lowest common denominator.

But dining is also an act of communication; reviewers often forget the social aspects of the dining experience that can overshadow nature the food itself. In that sense, the reason why so much writing focus is on restaurants is that it offers an asynchronous and a reproducible experience. It's the DVR of food, one need not only vicariously experience it, but a reader can go and recreate the experience.

Here is my end of year list of memorable food experiences - my mix tape, to stretch the metaphor. Some of these will not easily recreated, but I share my memories in memory of the year past, and in anticipation of the year to come.

2012 opened with a delicious offering from Chef Steve Marques, at the time working at the Tasting Room Uptown, Houston. Here is his "best chocolate ice cream in the world" - luxuriantly nuanced with duck egg yolks, accented by thyme. Timeless.

White ramen, Menya Musashi, Singapore. Perhaps the richest ramen broth I have ever encountered. Not the perfect ramen experience, but quite good.

Bo ssam in the air. I wouldn't have thought that an airplane meal would count among the memorable dining experiences of the year, but Asiana Airlines proved me wrong. This savory and generous combination of pork belly and fresh herbs and leaves is a standard that would do well on the ground.

On my visit to Santa Monica, CA, the most interesting food I had came from the varietals in the farmer's market. Here is a variety of tomato that was the sweetest I have ever had (it rivaled a strawberry). And the avocado was simply stunning in flavor and texture.

Steve Marques also opened my eyes to the delicious decadence of chicken fried bacon, so much so that I had to try my own hand at beer battered bacon.

Already showered with accolades, I must admit that Uchi Houston has finally come into its own. I think they carry the most interesting desserts in Houston, in a town so bereft of interesting dessert items. But I was treated to this nigiri sushi of meat off a flounder fin. Notoriously difficult to procure, comprising but a fraction of the flesh off the fish, this is a treat rarelyserved.

This torchon of foie gras with cucumelons and pear is one of the most amazing things I've tasted this year, and was also an offering from Uchi Houston. Both sweet and savory, it illustrates why foie gras is such a celebrated ingredient.

While the food in Banana Leaf Malaysian food in Houston can be tepid, this crispy duck dish on curry is a must try. Practically boneless, it is expertly fried with an ethereal crust, and is complemented by complex curry sauce.

Salted duck eggs are a surprise to those unused to these savory flavor bombs. I was fortunate enough to have this beautiful specimen earlier this year on a trip to Aklan, the Philippines. Not the very best possible, it's still heads and shoulders better than the shrink-wrapped specimens common in Houston's Chinatown.

I tried to share some of the diversity of cuisine found in Singapore, so I'll just relay a few of the delicious dishes I tried there. Here is a colorful bowl of cendol, tapioca noodles flavored with pandan, in a bed of ice with gula melaka.

Then there's the iconic Peranakan dish of chicken cooked with buah keluwak. From the restaurant Chilli Padi.

But really, few things are so memorable, so comforting, as charcoal grilled toast, smeared with the coconut custard kaya, and a slab of butter. I still bake bread just to make kaya toast at home. It's worth it.

There you have it. 2012 kind of whizzed by. Looking forward to a prosperous and delicious 2013.

Creamy jackfruit cookie

2012-12-26T16:25:00.003-06:00

Jackfruit, the largest tree born fruit in cultivation, is pretty popular both in sweet and savory applications, and, fortunately, canned jackfruit is easily gotten here. Last year, for the holidays, I prepared a jackfruit and coconut ice cream. This year, I tried out a new method: a two toned cut cookie bar.

First, prepare the housing: I used a square cake pan, which I lined with parchment paper. I find this is best accomplished by laying two layers intersecting in the middle.

The cookie layer starts by creaming a stick of butter with some ratio of white and brown sugar. The more brown sugar, the softer the resulting cookie layer. I used about a cup of sugar, with about 25% brown sugar. After creaming, beat in a room temperature egg, and about 2 tablespoons of milk. Then 2 cups of flour and some shredded coconut, until it comes together into a sticky cookie dough. Chilling the dough will make it easier to work with, but just press it into the pan into an even layer.

Bake this for about 20 minutes at 175°C (350°F) , and allow to cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, drain a can of jackfruit, cut across the strings, and puree in a food processor. Beat some room temperature cream cheese or neufchâtel cheese until soft, mixing in sugar (be careful as the jackfruit would be sweet already), an egg, the pureed jackfruit, and a 2-3 tablespoons of tapioca starch. Pour this over the cookie layer, and bake it in a 150° C (300° F) oven until the top layer sets. I found this took around 30 minutes. Allow to cool in the refrigerator overnight before cutting into cookie-sized slices. These bars are fairly rich.

Should go well with strong tea.