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Chefs As Chemists

Posted by kdawson on from the you-want-agar-agar-with-that dept.

circletimessquare writes "Using ingredients usually relegated to the lower half of the list of ingredients on a Twinkies wrapper, some professional chefs are turning themselves into magicians with food. Ferran Adrià in Spain and Heston Blumenthal in England have been doing this for years, but the New York Times updates us on the ongoing experiments at WD-50 in New York City. Xanthan Gum, agar-agar, and other hydrocolloids are being used to bring strange effects to your food. Think butter that doesn't melt in the oven, foie gras you can tie into knots, and fried mayonnaise."

266 comments

  1. fried mayonnaise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    'nuff said

    1. Re:fried mayonnaise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is this redudant? It's the first post and it's pertaining to the article.

  2. And for Dessert... by MyrddinBach · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Atomic Surprise!!

    1. Re:And for Dessert... by KudyardRipling · · Score: 1
      Concerning the new cuisine:

      It is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling. Red Oval cuisine: Better eating through chemistry.
      --
      Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
  3. Hydrocolloidal recipes are available by Werkhaus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    from http://khymos.org/recipe-collection.php

  4. You had me at... by indiepants · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...fried mayonnaise.

    1. Re:You had me at... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only in America would there be people willing to find a way to deep fry something that usually would not be able to be fried!!

    2. Re:You had me at... by jaxtherat · · Score: 1

      No, us Aussies are happily deep frying all sorts of foods too, largely with delicious results :)

      --
      http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
    3. Re:You had me at... by masdog · · Score: 1

      Except the Scottish are also known for their love of the deep fryer.

      --
      My Sysadmin Blog
    4. Re:You had me at... by Propaganda13 · · Score: 1

      Only in America would there be people willing to find a way to deep fry something that usually would not be able to be fried!!


      TFA

      He noted that the hydrocolloids he uses came from natural sources and often had a long history in the cooking of other cultures.

      Then a few chefs like Ferran Adrià in Spain and Heston Blumenthal in England started experimenting.


      Americans are just willing to use other people's ideas on food.
    5. Re:You had me at... by weighn · · Score: 1

      No, us Aussies are happily deep frying all sorts of foods too, largely with delicious results :) There's a shop at Bondi Beach that does deep-fried Mars Bars. Although wikipedia reckons that the Scots were doing this first.
      --
      Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
    6. Re:You had me at... by BadHaggis · · Score: 1

      What you've never heard of Deep Fried Coca Cola. I believe it originated in Texas. Growing up down south you learn quickly that if it can't be eaten any other way you can always deep fry it.

      --
      Homo homini lupus
    7. Re:You had me at... by Squalish · · Score: 1

      As the review says, deep-fried soda really doesn't count - you have to preserve the original food as a significant fraction of the fried food, or else you just have soda-flavored fried batter. I wouldn't add a few drops of vanilla to my pancakes and say I had fried vanilla. "Fried ice cream" isn't fried ice cream if the whole thing is simply mixed into a liquid batter beforehand.

      To encapsulate a liquid and fry it safely, you need skill . Cherry cordials with a little bit of viscous cherry syrup are the closest most people come to encapsulated liquid confections, but I've had russian "cherry vodka bar" which managed, through some deep magics, to surround abound 10ml of totally liquid liqeur with granular sugar and then chocolate. There has to be an analogous process for frying significant amounts of sweet liquid, even if the reaction takes ten steps. I want to bite into a deep fried rootbeer float and have it dribble down my chin.

      --
      People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
    8. Re:You had me at... by Squalish · · Score: 1

      By the way, I know just who to ask.

      --
      People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
    9. Re:You had me at... by BadHaggis · · Score: 1

      What??? You want me to RTFA... I grew up and went to school down south, to read TFA would take me days.

      --
      Homo homini lupus
    10. Re:You had me at... by hey! · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Seriously, though, I come from a cooking family. My dad and two of my brothers were pros, and damned good ones.

      The important thing about deep frying is that the results should not be fatty. You don't want much, if any fat in your fried foods. That's why you fry a white fish like hake or haddock for your fish and chips. You don't fry a fatty fish like salmon or swordfish, because even if your crust was perfect, the fish itself would be dense where you want it to light and tender. I normally prefer a fatty fish, but for fish and chips you want a sedentary fish that ambushes its prey, not one that cruises thousands of miles of oceans on its fat deposits.

      And speaking of chips, an ideal french fry (unattainable of course because you need the fat to carmelize the curst) would have no fat in it at all. A attainably good french fry has very little fat in it; the fat penetrates only a thin layer near the surface, where it drives out water (producing the sizzle) and breaks down starches into carmelized sugars, producing the crisp, golden crust. The oil does not penetrate the interior, but the intense heat does, vaporizing the water bound up in starch granules, causing them to explode like popcorn. The result is a good fry, crisp and golden on the outside, white and light as air on the inside.

      If you want to make a bad fry, the answer is simple: fry at a too low a temperature. The starch inside cooks slowly, releasing its water and giving it a grayish, transparent look. The frying time is longer, so the oil soaks through. A good fry is about yin and yang: gold and white; crunchy and tender. A bad fry is grayish brown and gray, and soggy all the way through. Why would you fry at too low a temperature? Simple, because you are cheap, lazy and unhygenic. As oil is used, it starts to go rancid. Rancid oil darkens the crust too quickly, so if you don't want your fries black, you turn the temperature down. Rancid oil of course is the worst possible fat you could eat, and your food ends up soaked with it.

      I've tried some frozen french fries that you cook in the oven, and they're not bad. The interiors are not dense, gray and soggy like a bad roadside diner. But the crust is not right; it's too fatty. Since fries aren't exactly a health food, I can't be bothered with them unless they are really, really good. Why take the health hit for anything but the best possible fry? And the best possible fry isn't all that bad; it's just a bit on the empty calorie side.

      I can see (I guess) the point of fried Mars Bars, although the universe of fried foods has so many incredible foods (like tempera) that I can't get too excited about it. But fried mayonnaise? Mayonnaise is an emulsion of fat and protein in water; cooking it only turns it into bad mayonnaise. The only point I can see to it is celebrating bad cooking.

      I'm not a foody, or particularly fussy about my food at all, but I grew up eating good food. I don't have any kind of emotional attachment to bad food. For a lot of people, bad food is soul food.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    11. Re:You had me at... by zagmar · · Score: 1

      While El Bulli in Spain is seen as starting the Molecular Gastronomy movement, Grant Achatz at Alinea is widely considered by chefs worldwide as being at the forefront. Considering that no less a person than Anthony Bourdain argues that there are about four people in the world who have any business serving this stuff (Achatz, Ferran Adria at EL Bulli, Blumenthal at the Fat Duck, Wylie Dufresne at WD-50) I hardly think that applying the "Americans stole the idea" argument makes any sense.

  5. How is this different than a food chemist? by schnikies79 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I have a couple friends that went into food chemistry after undergrad. I thought about it but decided to stick with organic chemisty.

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    Gone!
    1. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by Curmudgeonlyoldbloke · · Score: 4, Funny

      About 50 quid a head.

    2. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by ExploHD · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Food scientist are the people who make sure that all the food or product come to you are the same. Think McDonalds and how it is the same, no matter where in the world you are. The chefs who are using chemestry to add to their foods are just doing it for show and taste.

      Remember, cooking is an art, baking is a science.

    3. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by schnikies79 · · Score: 1

      That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

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      Gone!
    4. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by xouumalperxe · · Score: 1

      Your friends went into food from being chemistry undergrands (I suppose). These guys are master chefs that are reaching into chemistry for tools. Food + Chemistry for both. But the paths taken (and end results) are completely different

    5. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by willian.vag · · Score: 1

      Depending on the outcome is a good alternative for food products, on the other hand, know that we are eating food that is a product changed and that will not give the same protein that natural, dai is a little complicated.

    6. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by ToriaUru · · Score: 1

      I can recall reading Harold McGee's book back in the early 1990's and finally understanding why I had to brown meat - to caramelize it for flavour. All of his tricks, and other food chemistry experiments and tricks are just trying to make food better. It's not really "different" from food chemistry, it's just applying the knowledge of chemistry to food, and trying to cook from there. Interesting thought honestly!

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      Toria
    7. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      If you'd stuck at it who knows how far you could go - inventing a new type of ice cream or perhaps even the elected leader of Great Britain!

    8. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was taught chemistry by a personal mentor (no, my family isn't rich -- he was a friend who enjoyed doing it) who called himself a "sugar chemist." This blew me away. Not only did he confine himself to food chemistry, he confined himself to food chemistry on sugars. That's it. He made a 50 year career out of it.

    9. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Remember, cooking is an art, baking is a science.

        And in the south, frying is a religion. Thank you! I'll be here all night.

    10. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by Billy69 · · Score: 1

      Subtle. For those who don't get it, Margaret Thatcher was suprisingly also involved in the invention of soft-frozen ice-cream.

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      #include "disclaimer.h"
    11. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by GermanDZ · · Score: 1

      If you read spanish, you can delight with "El cocinero científico" [The scientist chef] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9871220928/). If you not read spanish, you can buy http://www.amazon.com/Diccionario-Espanol-Ingles-Merriam-Webster/dp/0877799202/.

    12. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 3, Funny

      That ice cream was spooky stuff though. We tried some at university at a meeting of the Socialist Workers Party. All the people who ate it now work for the Conservative Party. Some of the girls turned up with blue rinse hair and pearls before the end of the week.

      --
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    13. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by stranger_to_himself · · Score: 1

      Food scientist are the people who make sure that all the food or product come to you are the same.

      Food chemists also do a lot of work in food safety and nutrition. See the UK Institute of Food Research (where I did some of my PhD work in yeast genetics) if you want to know more.

    14. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by Maudib · · Score: 1

      "Food scientist are the people who make sure that all the food or product come to you are the same."

      They really do much much more then that. Think about Alton Brown, the nerdy chef on food network. His approach to cooking is very often driven by food science. Its not just baking or uniformity.
       
      On one show for example he explained the folow, how does one make a traditionally cream based sauce with yogurt without curdling? Curdling occurs in yogurt because there is not sufficient fat to prevent proteins from getting close and binding together. His solution was to make a corn starch slury and mix that into the yogurt. The carbohydrates from the corn starch kept the proteins apart and prevented curdling.

      The not so recent trend (it started in the late 80s in Spain) of chefs using techniques usually associated with chemistry for cooking is in fact mostly food science, but it adds to that techniques and technology that is traditionally not associated with food.

      A favorite technique that has gained widespread use is using liquid nitrogen to flash freeze and create odd shapes like spheres. The science involved is nothing new, but the method certainly is. Using a torch to caramelize creme brulee is ancient; use a laser and you can create very precise designs, but is caramelization a new science?

    15. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by afidel · · Score: 1

      Remember, cooking is an art, baking is a science.

      Which explains why almost every interview I have ever read with a top chef has had either dessert or baked goods as the least favorite thing to make! I guess it's a good thing we have pastry chef's or else there would probably be a distinct lack of carbs with a great meal =)

      --
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    16. Re:How is this different than a food chemist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, that was funny and too right!

  6. Old old old by ReallyEvilCanine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Heston Blumenthal's Kitchen Chemistry series (which unfortunately didn't make it) was a lot more interesting than this article. You can even find torrents of the pilot episodes. I wish that series had been picked up and continued because there were some very interesting subjects, like the reasons behind certain flavours simply being unable to mix (basil and coffee, for example) as well as an everyman's guide to how the chemistry worked. As innovative as Blumenthal can be, there's no way I'm shelling out £300 for a meal at his restaurant.

    1. Re:Old old old by WombatDeath · · Score: 4, Funny

      I saw some of Heston's latest BBC series. Very entertaining but perhaps not entirely practical - in one of his recipes he made ice cream using liquid nitrogen, and his suggestion for the home enthusiast was to use dry ice instead. I like ice cream as much as the next man, but not to the extent that I'm willing to live through bad 80s disco all over again.

    2. Re:Old old old by nanoflower · · Score: 1

      That works well (using dry ice) but who is in a situation where they need home made ice cream right this minute? I mean, if I have to go to the grocery store to pick up the dry ice, why not pick up some ice cream at the same time. I think what food chemists (and chefs using food chemistry) is great, but some of what they do isn't really practical for home use, or even for most chefs. Things like liquid nitrogen are nice toys but they aren't the sort of thing you are likely to have around the house. Though it is wonderful what liquid nitrogen can do to food. Since it quickly freezes food the textures stay almost exactly the same. It's not the sort of thing most chefs use, but it's great for frozen food packagers.

    3. Re:Old old old by GoofyBoy · · Score: 1

      Don't watch the tv show, "In Search of Perfection, for the food; watch it for the theme music. (I want to see the lyrics sheet for it.)

      --
      The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
    4. Re:Old old old by Martin+Blank · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's not the speed of making it, but rather the texture that comes about from it. Many others have made ice cream using liquid nitrogen, and it is universally hailed as the smoothest ice cream available (at least until someone figures out how to do it with liquid helium). It's one of those things that is often done just for the sheer experience of it.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    5. Re:Old old old by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      See also this article from Wired. Wired also ran this article, which teaches you how to try this for yourself.

      --
      My blog
    6. Re:Old old old by McFadden · · Score: 1

      Heston Blumenthal's Kitchen Chemistry series (which unfortunately didn't make it) was a lot more interesting than this article. You can even find torrents of the pilot episodes.
      Actually he's moved on and has made an entire series for the BBC. They've been heavily promoting it recently.
    7. Re:Old old old by bladesjester · · Score: 1

      Many others have made ice cream using liquid nitrogen, and it is universally hailed as the smoothest ice cream available

      Two words - Dippin Dots. I have to stop by their stand every time I'm in the mall =]

      --
      Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
    8. Re:Old old old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      come on, seed !

    9. Re:Old old old by franois-do · · Score: 1
      As far as I can see, it seems very similar to what Pr. Hervé This was demonstrating about 8 years ago on his French TV broadcast about molecular biochemistry, just before the chaire of molecular biochemistry was created for him at the Collège de France.

      However I tasted some recipes prepared in the Frères Blanc restaurants in Paris according to Hervé This counseling and I was quite disappointed (especially by the one in which lobster crust was used to make a kind of tasteless mousseline sauce). It does not mean there is no future in the profession, but probably that there is still a long way to go from experiments to consumer products.

      (That being said, I do not find the Frères Blanc restaurants very good anyway, even when they use conventional cooking; Hippopotamus rocks ! ;-) )

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    10. Re:Old old old by lisaparratt · · Score: 1

      For the same reason you don't pick up a weeks worth of McDonald's if you're headed out to the market.

    11. Re:Old old old by smellsofbikes · · Score: 1

      If you own or can rent an insulated dewar you can get liquid nitrogen from a local welding supply company. It's pretty cheap. LN ice cream tastes reasonably good and boy is it fast to make.

      Note: do *not* try this with liquid oxygen. Just sayin'.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    12. Re:Old old old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you're the one guy who buys those. Well, alrighty then. I shall send a box over to your house and the world will be rid of those horrible things.

    13. Re:Old old old by zippthorne · · Score: 1

      Why? they're certainly better than the "print your face on any of these crappy gift items!" booths that are often in the malls. If you want to get rid of mall carts, there are quite a few sketchy things to ditch first.

      I happen to think dippin dots are pretty cool, and not just from a "they're like small candies that turn into ice cream in your mouth." But also from a "how did they make this." My mind starts with a 30' wonka festooned air-chilled shot tower before I let reality set in.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  7. You know someone read your post by Dorceon · · Score: 3, Funny

    and immediately tried to brew basil coffee, right?

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    1. Re:You know someone read your post by Khyber · · Score: 1

      I make basil tea - that could technically be called a coffee of sorts since you're basically extracting flavinoids with hot water.

      Actually coffee should be listed as a type of tea, since the process is pretty much the same.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    2. Re:You know someone read your post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Bullshit. Is beer a type of whisky? Is coca cola a type of wine? You're a fucking idiot.

    3. Re:You know someone read your post by witte · · Score: 1

      Sir, you're a credit to your species.
      How is life in a cave, anyway ?

    4. Re:You know someone read your post by senatorpjt · · Score: 1

      Coffee and Tea are plants. The drinks are both types of infusions.

  8. Food? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    If it uses "ingredients usually relegated to the lower half of the list of ingredients on a Twinkies wrapper", then what the hell does it have to do with food?

    1. Re:Food? by Bastard+of+Subhumani · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Assuming the order is greatest quantity first, woukd you expect the actual food to be in the top half?

      --
      Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
  9. scam to sell stuff by SoyChemist · · Score: 1

    Molecular gastronomy is partially a scam to sell expensive lab equipment to rich foodies. With that said, I will probably sell out and write articles about the coolest gadgets and techniques. I do like the idea of vacuum pumps as a culinary tool. Sucking and pumping was meant for the kitchen.

    1. Re:scam to sell stuff by Swift+Kick · · Score: 1

      "Sucking and pumping was meant for the kitchen.

      I think porn producers cornered the market when it comes to those two...

      --
      "We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
    2. Re:scam to sell stuff by Algorithmnast · · Score: 2, Funny

      Here and I thought that molecular gastronomy was a way for my kids to detect when they shouldn't come into the same room, by noticing what I ate at the restaurant.

    3. Re:scam to sell stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The meaningless name "molecular gastronomy" is the tip-off that it's a scam. "Molecular biology" happens when effects are seen from the sequences of individual molecules (e.g. nucleotides), as opposed to the mere presence of certain molecules. These new cookery fads certainly involve molecules (since what doesn't?), but at the chemical/biochemical level, not the finer molecular level.

    4. Re:scam to sell stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hate rich foodies.

    5. Re:scam to sell stuff by moogs · · Score: 0

      wait, didn't WIRED carry an article about molecular gastronomy? I recall reading it, but too lazy to hunt down the issue. I'm a subscriber, can I get a free gift?

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      I have bad karma. What do I care what you think?
    6. Re:scam to sell stuff by NonSequor · · Score: 1

      Speaking of expensive kitchen gadgets, I had an idea for a device which seems obvious but I haven't seen anywhere. My idea is to attach a vacuum pump to a pot with a sealable lid to achieve the opposite effect of a pressure cooker (or maybe it could double as a pressure cooker too). It seems like a good way to regulate the temperature of a water bath (set the pressure so that the boiling point is the appropriate temperature), but I haven't been able to find anything like that.

      --
      My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
    7. Re:scam to sell stuff by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      I forget whether it was Popular Science or Popular Mechanics, but one of them recently had a big article about this sort of thing, and one of the gadgets they described fits your idea. If you read that article, you could find where to buy and/or how to make one.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    8. Re:scam to sell stuff by TheLink · · Score: 1

      "It seems like a good way to regulate the temperature of a water bath"

      Not really. Your idea only makes sense if you did want to reduce the pressure for some other reason - selectively evaporate stuff - like in fractional distillation.

      For temperature control, you use a thermometer/thermostat with feedback.

      For example you can soft boil eggs in an oven. You just need to calibrate your oven well. Then if you set it to 65 degrees C and stick the eggs in for an hour, they still won't be hard boiled :).

      What would be nice is an affordable home oven with aerogel insulation and a quick safe way for the oven to dump heat to lower temperatures fast and preferably evenly. But I guess why ovens remain inefficient is because the main target market for ovens are people living in colder climates. They don't care if heat "spills out" from the oven - it just makes the room "nice and warm". Believe me, in warmer/hotter places the extra heat is not so nice...

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    9. Re:scam to sell stuff by Orange+Crush · · Score: 1

      and a quick safe way for the oven to dump heat to lower temperatures fast and preferably evenly.

      Open the door.

    10. Re:scam to sell stuff by senatorpjt · · Score: 1

      You can get the same effect with a variac and a piece of wire.

    11. Re:scam to sell stuff by NulDevice · · Score: 1

      I've seen a few websites that take molecular gastronomy into the realm of DIY, like building your own immersion circulator for sous vide cooking from a copuple hundred $ in parts, instead of a few grand for a "proper" immersion circulator. Also sites listing where to get food-grade additives without paying the markups for chef-branded stuff.

      I think eventually it may become the realm of the home nerd-cook, the "food hacker" if you will...

      --

      ----
      "I used to listen to Null Device before they sold out."

  10. Two cents worth... by UncleTogie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have to say that this is why I like watching Alton Brown's Good Eats. He actually understands the science of cooking, and is able to explain how it works without turning off the average person.

    I'm betting "molecular gastronomy" is going to REALLY take off within the next five years or so...

    --
    Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    1. Re:Two cents worth... by SpeedyDX · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's nothing but a new name for an age old process. The process of adding heat to reagents (a.k.a. cooking) is in itself a chemical process.

      Take baking, for example. For those who've never tried it, baking is a very precise exercise. You have to add precise amounts of reagents, mix them together in a certain order, and add a precise amount of heat for a precise amount of time. That whole undertaking is very chemical in nature. If you time it wrong, add the wrong amount of heat and/or reagents, then you're going to end up with some pretty disastrous results. The chemical reactions that make a cake or a loaf of bread is not very different than making a vinegar/baking soda volcano.

      The whole "molecular gastronomy" trend is simply applying the same strategy to "warm" dishes. Instead of adding a "dash" of salt or a "pinch" of pepper, you're now adding precisely X mg of chemical Y. I know we usually don't think of food and cooking as endeavours relating to chemistry, but I don't see why so many people are so surprised when that fact is pointed out.

      Regardless, I think this is a very good thing. I love food and I love science. Now I can eat food that's created by using scientific principles!

    2. Re:Two cents worth... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I totaly agree, Alton does more than show you recipes. He explains what happens when you;re cooking and why he does things. His cooking show covers everything from butchering to exotic recepies, from appliances to nutritional anthropology with a mix of humour that makes his show "Insert hokey music and lame animation"

    3. Re:Two cents worth... by UncleTogie · · Score: 3, Funny

      That's nothing but a new name for an age old process. The process of adding heat to reagents (a.k.a. cooking) is in itself a chemical process.
      The whole "molecular gastronomy" trend is simply applying the same strategy to "warm" dishes.

      ...which is why I included it in quotes as well. Slapping lipstick on a pig does NOT make it Natalie Portman.

      Paris Hilton, maybe, but not Portman.

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    4. Re:Two cents worth... by c_forq · · Score: 1

      At the same time baking isn't that precise - there is quite a lot of room for wiggle. This is most noticeable when it comes to heat, as VERY few ovens give you the ability to control the temperature to a single degree, let alone a fraction of one. Also noticeable in that you don't have to plug your heat and time into a formula to account for difference in air density (usually due to distance from sea-level). With that being said, it is a lot more complicated to make a good flavored bread that turns out well than it is to make pasta sauce.

      --
      Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
    5. Re:Two cents worth... by Bee1zebub · · Score: 2, Informative

      The chemical reactions that make a cake or a loaf of bread is not very different than making a vinegar/baking soda volcano. Whist baking cakes does tend to rely on sodium bicarbonate reacting with an acid (usually tartaric acid) to produce CO2, and also to a lesser extent on the natural raising agents in eggs, bread is completely different. Bread is risen by the carbon dioxide produced in anaerobic respiration performed by yeast (the same as when brewing), and the alcohol produced then evaporates off when the brad is baked.
    6. Re:Two cents worth... by daniorerio · · Score: 1

      The process of adding heat to reagents (a.k.a. cooking) is in itself a chemical process. No, it's not, it's physics. It's chemistry when molecules react with each other.
    7. Re:Two cents worth... by only_human · · Score: 1

      "Slapping lipstick on a pig does NOT make it Natalie Portman." Applying hot grits however could marry colloidal and celluloidal properties with no cellulite in sight. (dunno why I had to do it, but this meme almost fit the article -- this once)

    8. Re:Two cents worth... by stonecypher · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's nothing but a new name for an age old process.

      By this logic, it should be called food alchemy. Believe it or not, just because you don't know the difference doesn't mean that there isn't one.

      The process of adding heat to reagents (a.k.a. cooking) is in itself a chemical process.

      One which essentially nobody - including professional food chemists - understands in even the simplest of organic foods. Cooks sure as hell don't - they know how long to fry it, and generally what's going to happen when you fry it, but one mention of the single most prevalent chemical in the reaction, phospholipthene, and you're greeted with a bunch of glassy looks.

      You might as well argue that being a coffee barista is a chemist's process too; it turns out that frothing milk - the process of building a colloid from the 40 or so whey caseins and half dozen fats in cow's milk is more complex than broiling steak, baking bread and aging tofu put together. 'Course, they just get a five minute training on it, like a cook does: use at least four ounces of milk, keep the milk as cold as you can, keep the steam a quarter inch under the surface. That's cooking: being oblivious of the chemistry, and focussing on the food.

      Molecular gastronomy is a powerful tool for cooks, but it isn't cooking, and it's essentially useless on its own.

      Take baking, for example. For those who've never tried it, baking is a very precise exercise.

      Nonsense. You can vary the amounts of almost every ingredient in a bread dough by 200% or more and it'll still be just fine.

      You have to add precise amounts of reagents, mix them together in a certain order, and add a precise amount of heat for a precise amount of time.

      Have you ever baked? At all? Do you know what a bagel actually is? Did you know that if you want a crusty bread, you can just brush the half-cooked loaf with water, then oil, and increase cooking time ~20%? None of those three things you said are true; baking is, with notable rare exceptions like souffle, one of the most forgiving and imprecise forms of cooking there is. You almost couldn't have chosen a less appropriate example, short of slow-roasting meats or curing foods over months.

      That whole undertaking is very chemical in nature.

      What, because you need a specific amount of a specific stuff and you have to put it in at the right time? By that logic, putting gas in your car is a work of chemistry, as is washing your clothes (and let's not even get started on mixing paint.) Just because something is made out of chemicals doesn't mean using it is chemistry. Humans are made out of chemicals, too, y'know. In fact, everything is. You might want to look up the word "tautology."

      If you time it wrong, add the wrong amount of heat and/or reagents, then you're going to end up with some pretty disastrous results.

      Ah, so ironing my clothes is chemistry, using hot glue guns is chemistry, soldering is chemistry and alka-seltzer is chemistry. Got it.

      You're one of those people who argues that anything you can describe a process for is art, aren't you?

      The chemical reactions that make a cake or a loaf of bread is not very different than making a vinegar/baking soda volcano.

      The chemical reaction in vinegar volcanoes is a hydrogen exchange salt reaction.

      CH_3 COOH + NaHCO_3 --> CH_3 COONa + H_2 CO_3

      There are more than two hundred chemical reactions involved in bread, but the one you're probably thinking of is the yeast breaking sugar and alkali into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This is two primary reactions with dozens of variants:

      C_6 H_12 O_6 + Therm. --> 2 (C_2 H_5 OH) + 2 CO_2

      2 (C_3 H_6 O_3) + K_2 CO_3 --> 2(KC_3 H_5 O_3) + H_2 O + CO_2

      The two processes are, in fact, very different. One is a simple chemical reac

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
    9. Re:Two cents worth... by zifferent · · Score: 1

      With that being said, it is a lot more complicated to make a good flavored bread that turns out well than it is to make pasta sauce.
      That's funny. I find it much easier to understand the inner workings of bread (knead,rise, punch, etc.) and have had trouble in the past making a descent marinara directly from tomatoes.
      I guess, as always, YMMV.
      --
      cat sig > /dev/null
    10. Re:Two cents worth... by Jack9 · · Score: 1

      Complete understanding is not necessary to garner the label "student of ". Chefs are pragmatic chemists. What has your lengthy post added to that? Is it that you're more picky?

      --

      Often wrong but never in doubt.
      I am Jack9.
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    11. Re:Two cents worth... by Sody · · Score: 1

      Alton is a lot of fun to watch (and his books are pretty great, too), but there is a difference between his cooking and this cooking with purified chemical compounds. Part of the fun of cooking, for me, is getting the ingredients to play well together when each one brings multiple compounds, each of which changes the flavor/texture/etc. of the dish in some way. Alton understands the ways these components interact and works with them within the structure of "normal" food ingredients.

      I say all this as a chemist. I enjoy the messiness of the chemistry of cooking. I think using ultrapure compounds in the kitchen just takes out the sport. I say, keep the reagent bottles in the lab, and go make a mess in the kitchen.

    12. Re:Two cents worth... by afidel · · Score: 1

      Making good sauce is like making good bbq, the process is low heat and lots of time.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    13. Re:Two cents worth... by Alystair · · Score: 1

      I believe this what chefs define as "getting served" ;-)

    14. Re:Two cents worth... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nonsense. He rightly called out GGP on using the same kind of dubious logic that make people proclaim that medieval people used 'nanotechnology' every time it is discovered that some primitive manufacturing technique affect the molecular structure of an object. (Like, say, baking.) Chemistry is a science, the study of the composition and interaction of substances at a molecular level. Using chemical reactions with no underlying understanding doesn't make chefs be chemists any more than garbage burners are.

    15. Re:Two cents worth... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought sodium bicarbonate broke down from the heat when used in baking.

    16. Re:Two cents worth... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Both happen. That's what they mean by "double acting"

  11. Fried Mayo? by dbatkins · · Score: 1

    The guy that deep fried a Snickers bar thinks that fried mayo is a bad idea...

    --
    I used to be with IT..now IT seems strange and scary to me.
  12. Meh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've never been there, but Yelpers don't seem terribly enamored with the place.

  13. Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by maillemaker · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    http://www.goveg.com/feat/foie/

    What a despicable thing to do to an animal just to make it tastier to eat.

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
    1. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Misanthrope · · Score: 1

      Why should I trust a website run by vegetarians to have completely accurate and unbiased information regarding animal based food production? There probably are some farms that have problems with causing harm to geese while making foie gras, I however only buy from reputable small farms for most of my terrestrial meat products.

    2. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by pragma_x · · Score: 1
      While I agree that it's right up there with veal, I couldn't help but recall Dennis Leary on the matter:

      Because eggplant tastes like eggplant but meat tastes like murder and murder tastes pretty good, doesn't it?
    3. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Rank_Tyro · · Score: 1

      Many people would think that feeding corn to a cow in a feedlot is a despicable thing to do to an animal, just to get it grow to a size suitable for slaughter.

      Please, if you find the idea abhorrent don't buy it and deprive the producer of your money. But I would suggest that if you eat a hamburger for lunch and wear leather shoes or a belt, you might want to do a hypocrisy check and see what your score is. Koreans consider Kagogi to be a delicacy. You would probably consider it to be a pet. I would guess that if you linked to an article on pig farming and how they treated those animals before they turned into bacon you might not have gotten so much attention to your post.

      For the record, I have tried Foi Gras and in my opinion, there is no way in hell I would pay to put that stuff in my mouth again. I might pay a few bucks in order to keep it OUT of my mouth, but I would say that of caviar, sea urchin, and (through a weird combination of falling off of a horse in a corral full of cows), cow shit.

      --
      Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
    4. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by heinousjay · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Eh, no worse than chopping them into serving size pieces.

      Life feeds on life. This is necessary.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    5. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Interesting

      just a side thought: i think animal rights activists should be the most pro-genetically modified special interest group in the world. reason being, if you could genetically engineer foie gras in vats, or animal flesh, you would:

      1. feed all of the carnivores, more cheaply, and with less environmental impact
      2. not harm a single feeling conscious (cue the sad violins) beautiful harmless loving animal. it would be just tissue in vats you were harvesting

      of course things like mouthfeel, taste, etc. would need to be technologically refined over time. at first you would be making nothing better than spam. real gastromes would talk about the consistency of the flesh and the subtle flavors based on diet. but you could gradually, over time, approach a meat source that defies the experts to tell the difference from real meat

      however, you get the usual luddite reaction from animal rights activists: stop eating meat in the name of cruelty, stop GM food because it's an abomination

      yeah, right

      animal rights activists are an abomination: eating meat is perfectly natural

      animal rights activists should meld their artificial morality (it's certainly impossible in the natural world, outside of civilization) with artifical genetic engineering, and create the nirvana of an animal never harmed

      you really think it's harder to do that than convince carnivores to stop eating meat?

      path of least resistance friends. animal rights activists: pool your money, and get going with the GM startup

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    6. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      Why should I trust a website run by vegetarians to have completely accurate and unbiased information regarding animal based food production? What an absurd question. A lot of people become vegetarians because they know about the cruelties of the food industry. Do you generally not trust sources because they are too informed on a topic?

      And no, there aren't any small farms making free range foie gras. There is no way to produce it without the force feeding.
      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    7. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by aliquis · · Score: 1

      Yeah and I only buy my child pornography from the USA!! Not any thailand or chinese shit!! No kids were harmed for my porn!

    8. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      you really think it's harder to do that than convince carnivores to stop eating meat?

      Humans are omnivores, not carnivores.

      On a side note, your little tirade didn't really seem to address the point the GP was making: Do we really need to torture animals before killing & eating them?

      --
      There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
    9. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by momfreeek · · Score: 1

      "just a side thought: i think animal rights activists should be the most pro-genetically modified special interest group in the world. reason being, if you could genetically engineer foie gras in vats, or animal flesh, you would:" - And by that logic those who dislike Bush should actively support his assassination. Not every solution is going to be a good one. "animal rights activists are an abomination: eating meat is perfectly natural" - things change. Paedophilia was perfectly natural a few hundred years ago. Human rights is a concept in its infancy and animal rights can be seen as the obvious next step. You accuse these people of being 'luddites': afraid of technological change.. yet you are the one showing intolerance of changes in morality.

    10. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by ClioCJS · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      You're a Tool.

      --
      -Clio
      Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
      Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
    11. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by sokoban · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not that much worse than what non-free range chickens go through. Ever seen what a large scale chicken farm is like?

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq77ET5af5U

      While I don't really like how animals are treated in large scale farms, I don't think vegetarianism is really the answer. People need a little bit of respect for the things they put in their bodies. Maybe eat a little less meat and buy from local farmers who raise and slaughter their own livestock. It is probably a little bit better for you, and actually has taste (especially chicken).

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
    12. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've got to be joking. Do your own googling if you don't believe it. By definition, foie gras (French for "fat liver") is "the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by gavage". Wikipedia even included the link to the French law: French rural code L654-27-1: "On entend par foie gras, le foie d'un canard ou d'une oie spécialement engraissé par gavage." ("By "foie gras" one is to understand the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by gavage").

      Gavage is the force feeding. In this context, the force feeding is not to keep a subject alive, but to fatten the ducks or geese so much so that the livers swell 6 to 10 times the ordinary size. Do you really think that making a liver swell 6-10 times the normal size humane? If someone shove food into your mouth more than double the amount that makes you full every single day, you'll cry torture. Bet on it.

    13. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by swillden · · Score: 1

      You're a Tool.

      You told him.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    14. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Justin+Ames · · Score: 1

      Yes, it makes them taste better.

    15. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, this is basically what the McDonalds ("Super Size Me") and other fast-food chains are doing to people. ("..OMG, Its an alien(V) conspiracy!..")

    16. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by FleaPlus · · Score: 5, Informative

      What a despicable thing to do to an animal just to make it tastier to eat.

      The photos of tubes being put down the throats of ducks certainly look horrific, but animal rights activists have a tendency to over-dramatize things. From an article in Time magazine:

      http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1669732,00.html

      The debate is centered on the practice of gavage, in which corn is force-fed to farm-raised ducks through a funnel down their throats. Some argue that gavage is inhumane, while others counter that the physiology of a duck is not the same as a human. "It seems terrible if you don't know that a duck's esophagus is lined with a very thick cuticle, if you don't realize that baby ducks are fed by their mother pushing her beak down the baby's throat," says Ariane Daguin, owner of D'Artagnan, the largest foie gras purveyor in the U.S. Recent studies by Dr. Daniel Guémené, a leading expert on the physiological effects of gavage, have shown that ducks with young in the wild were under more stress than the ducks being fed through gavage. And both The American Veterinary Medical Association's House of Delegates and the American Association of Avian Pathologists have concluded that foie is not a product of animal cruelty.

      Also, here's an abstract of research by Guémené:

      http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/animres/pdf/2001/02/faure.pdf

      The debate on welfare issues related to the force feeding of ducks and geese involves understanding the reactions of the animals to the force feeding process. Two types of experiment were performed. Ducks and geese were trained to be fed in a pen 8 metres away from their rearing pen and were then force fed in the feeding pen. The hypothesis was that if force feeding caused aversion, the animals would not spontaneously go to the test pen. There were some signs of aversion in ducks, but not full avoidance, and there were no signs of aversion in geese. In another experiment, the flight distances of ducks from the person who performed the force feeding and from an unknown observer were measured. Ducks avoided the unknown person more than the force feeder. Their avoidance of the force feeder decreased during the force feeding period. There was no development of aversion to the force feeder during the force feeding process.

    17. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by noidentity · · Score: 1

      Obligatory: Bob the Angry Flower Vegetarian's Dilemma (summary: GM the animals to have no head)

    18. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nevertheless, it is delicious when properly prepared.

    19. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by bladesjester · · Score: 4, Interesting

      But I would suggest that if you eat a hamburger for lunch and wear leather shoes or a belt, you might want to do a hypocrisy check and see what your score is.

      Sanity check time. Eating a cow isn't the same as force feeding a goose until its liver basically explodes so that it's extra tasty.

      I spent a large portion of my childhood on a farm and have been through the whole cycle from feeding the calf to walking the adult cow in to get slaughtered. I have absolutely no problem with eating meat, hunting (provided it's done for food or to rid oneself of threats to land and crops, etc. I don't condone pure trophy hunting), and the like. In fact, I've done/do all of them myself.

      That said, I can't condone the torture of an animal just because you think engorging its liver will make it yummy. If you raise something for food, treat it with respect, and when it comes time to kill it, make it a clean kill. Doing otherwise shows a lack of respect for the things which keep you alive and, by extension, a lack of respect for yourself.

      (Oh, and I wear leather too. Quite a lot of it - coat, belts, several pairs of gloves, multiple pairs of shoes and boots, etc - and I view that as a positive thing. It means that one more part of the animal that helped feed someone gets used toward a positive end instead of being thrown away).

      --
      Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
    20. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      I quit reading/watching when they started anthromorphizing.

    21. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by sjames · · Score: 1

      I can't speak to making it swollen and diseased, but there are good reasons to eat a healthy liver.

      It's not so much a filter as it is a neutralizer. The liver produces a very wide array of enzymes that break down toxins. It is also involved in maintaining metabolic balance, digestion of protean and storing energy. The latter plus it's high concentration of vitamins makes it far too nutritionally valuable to ignore. It may not be that critical today in the U.S. where everything's super sized and vitamin supplements are easily available, but for most of history, it was quite important.

    22. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by guzziguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      What an ill-informed statement. Here's a few facts about this so-called "despicable" treatment: 1. Ducks (and geese) are not human. Things that might be uncomfortable to one species are perfectly fine to others. Anthropomorphism is bad, mmm-kay? 2. Ducks (and geese) are designed with a crop, no gag reflex, and an esophagus that is lined with stuff similar to what our fingernails are made of. Why? Because thy are designed to swallow really freaking huge things... like live fish that are flipping around with their tails still protruding from the bird's mouth. Does the bird care? Of course not... it will digest it when it's damn good and ready. 3. Migratory birds are designed to store *tremendous* amounts of fat prior to migration. They do NOT store fat on their hips and thighs (remember the anthropomorphism thing in note #1...). These birds store fat in their liver... it's what they do. It's not "diseased", it's simply stored. Once they stop eating and begin migrating, the fat is used, and the liver goes back to normal. Except, birds on foie gras farms aren't allowed to migrate, for obvious reasons. 4. Commercial chicken farms are far more cruel than foie gras farms, except you don't ever see people picketing restaurants trying to ban the serving of chicken. Odd. 5. There is a direct correlation between the amount of stress on a bird raised for foie gras and the quality of the foie that's produced. The result of this is that modern production methods pretty much dictate that the birds are treated like royalty during their rather brief lives. At Hudson Valley Foie Gras, for instance, once a person has been assigned as the feeder for a group of birds, that person is the *ONLY* person that can touch them... switching the person who is responsible for them just stresses the birds out. Bottom line: when I come back, I hope it's as a foie gras duck, because it pretty much guarantees that I'll live like a rock star, and then die young. Isn't that all anybody really wants? 6. Sheeple that regurgiate PETA bullshit should be thrown off a cliff, because their lack of ability to apply their own critical thinking to a situation is a big part of the reason common sense is being bred out of our gene pool. 7. I just got home from a 6-course foie gras dinner. It was orgasmic. Thanks. Carry on.

    23. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by guzziguy · · Score: 1

      Sorry for the lack of formatting on that post... didn't realize I was in HTML mode. Too much wine.

    24. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm pretty sure that ducks are precocial animals and while they follow their mother around they independently feed. Consider the wide flat bill of an adult duck and the skinny throat of a duckling. Plus a mother duck would have a difficult time keeping a dozen babies fed. So adult ducks are not shoving their bill down a baby duck's throat.

    25. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe eat a little less meat and buy from local farmers who raise and slaughter their own livestock. It is probably a little bit better for you, and actually has taste (especially chicken).

        I can vouch for that. My mom grew up on a farm, and when she moved to the city, she threw out the first two packs of eggs she bought -- she thought the chickens that laid them must've been sick. The yolks were pale and yellow and nasty, whereas she expected an egg yolk to be a vibrant orange and quite a bit tastier. (This is mostly due to the more varied diet that free-roaming chickens get, with more kinds of plants and bugs. Such eggs are far tastier, I can attest from personal experience.)

        The big problem with buying from local farmers though is often regulatory. For example, take raw milk. Raw milk tastes better, and is better for you, yet in much of the U.S., it's illegal for you to buy raw milk, it has to be pasteurized. This supposed to be "for your safety", because raw milk from a sick cow can make you sick.
        On the contrary, what this kind of law really does is allow the giant agribusiness plutocrats to sell you pasteurized milk from sick cows (chock to the gills with antibiotics to keep 'em from keeling over, which creates antibiotic-resistant E. Coli blooms in their gut, which can them wash over onto the neighboring spinach crops, and make you sick that way. Remember that?) while putting the small farmers and their generally healthier cows at a disadvantage. Even if you've known your neighbor for years, and know that his cow Clarabell's as healthy as a horse, you could be breaking the law by buying her milk from him.

        Most people think of government regulations as a burden to business (nanny state) -- but they're really only a burden to small business. (crony state) They usually get written with the assistance of large business interests, and serve to skew the market in favor of those interests. The agribusiness cartel is among the worst for doing this, but there are plenty others.

        - mantar

        Oh, here's a couple illuminating quotes from the agribusiness industry:

      "We have a saying in our company: 'Our competitors are our friends. Our customers are the enemy.'"
        - James Randall, president of Archer Daniels Midland

      "There isn't one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians."
        - Dwayne Andreas, former CEO of Archer Daniels Midland

    26. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      Did you even read what you linked?

      "Due to this force feeding procedure, and the possible health consequences of an enlarged liver, animal rights and welfare organizations and activists regard foie gras production methods as cruel to animals. Foie gras producers maintain that force feeding ducks and geese is not uncomfortable for the animals nor is it hazardous to their health. Scientific evidence regarding the animal welfare aspects of foie gras production is limited and inconclusive."

      And

      While force feeding is required to meet the French legal definition of "foie gras", producers outside of France do not always force feed birds in order to produce what they consider to be foie gras. Award-winning Spanish producer Patería de Sousa produces foie gras by taking advantage of the natural instinct of geese to fatten their own livers in preparation for migration.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    27. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      > If someone shove food into your mouth more than double the amount that makes you full every single day, you'll cry torture. Bet on it.

      In America, we don't call it torture. We call it "McDonald's".

      Just like the geese that get turned into delicious foie gras, we Yanks line up to gorge ourselves like that!

    28. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      Torture is such a "strong" word. I prefer the term "stress". It works on plants(including the smokable ones), too. It makes them produce more of their vital juices which provide their flavor give them their punch. And you're more likely to get a confession.

      --
      What?
    29. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by FleaPlus · · Score: 1

      Here's a quick primer on how birds regurgitate food to feed their young:

      http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/expert/previous/regurgitate.asp

    30. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Do we really need to torture animals before killing & eating them?"

      Of course not!, that's why nutty animal rights activists SHOULD be happy that guys like me actually shoot the food we eat, instead of buying ground chuck at Costco from a meat packing plant - But they're not....

      Alot of vegans I have spoke with live in a dream world that says to make things "fair", should I choose to eat meat, that the animals should be armed too!

    31. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Mr.+Shotgun · · Score: 2, Funny

      Do we really need to torture animals before killing & eating them?
      Well, if they would just confess and tell us where Bin Laden is...
      --
      Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
    32. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On a side note, your little tirade didn't really seem to address the point the GP was making: Do we really need to torture animals before killing & eating them?


      We kill 9 billion chickens in the US every year. 9 BILLION. Our selective breeding is so effective that meat chickens go from birth to slaughter in about 8 weeks.

      The meat and poultry industry is a nasty, nasty business. Any illusion that we treat meat animals with any sort of dignity goes out the door when you learn how fiendishly optimized the whole affair is.

      It is a peculiar thing that we think it's OK to eat animals. I eat meat because it's acceptable to do so in my culture and because I like the taste. I make no claims of moral righteousness. If you're not willing to face up to what needs to happen to get you your meat, you shouldn't be eating meat. I absolutely respect vegetarians (I know several) and particularly vegans for the choice they have made. It is not my choice, but it is one that I can easily justify.

      When you really, really get down to it, there's little more inhumane than the breeding of animals for the sole purpose of their later slaughter. How we treat the animals has ramifications for our safety and health, and it is often the most graphic effect of the system. It does not, however, have much to do with the morality of the situation.

      In essence, when we have billions of animals created essentially as expendable meat factories, force feeding a few geese seems like small potatoes.
    33. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by TheLink · · Score: 1

      "force feeding a goose until its liver basically explodes so that it's extra tasty."

      You got to stop getting your info solely from the religious materials distributed by PETA et all. For groups like PETA and the ALF, hardly any science or evidence is involved. They're modern day cults with their Jihad.

      Easy sell I guess as war seems so popular nowadays. You have war against foie gras, war against eating animals and so on.

      Maybe some farms are cruel to their birds, but cruelty is not necessary (and some argue not even beneficial) for the production of good foie gras.

      It sure seems like the geese are happily gorging themselves. Pigs!

      My family (well ok my dad) used to have a pair of geese and they'll definitely peck you or worse if they weren't happy. Gave them away in the end. Maybe we should have made foie gras from them, but I suppose the convention is to not eat pets :).

      --
    34. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 1

      http://www.goveg.com/feat/foie/
      What a despicable thing to do to an animal just to make it tastier to eat.


      Not that I'm defending Foie Gras (not having ever had it, I don't even know whether or not I would like it), but you need to consider your source. PETA is about as far away from sanity as you can get with regards to "animal rights".

      Like Greenpeace, PETA is at the fringe of the movement and by linking there you associate yourself with that fringe. If that's what you want, so be it, but if you intend to convince moderate individuals you would do better by selecting a moderate source. You don't need to be PETA to oppose Foie Gras.
    35. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alot of vegans I have spoke with live in a dream world that says to make things "fair", should I choose to eat meat, that the animals should be armed too! In that case they'll be in favor of hunting wild boars with spears. Yes?
    36. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes.

    37. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Funny

      Highly intelligent grapes were crushed while still alive to make that wine. Bastard.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    38. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by denzacar · · Score: 2, Funny

      Do we really need to torture animals before killing & eating them? Only the endangered ones.

      Mmmm... panda-burgers...

      I mean... come on people.

      Humans have always been eating other animals.
      You know... being the top of the food chain has its responsibilities as well.

      If we stuck to what fell of the tree... well... lets just say that Marky Mark and Charlton Heston would not call this place their home.

      Instead, human ancestors ate meat.
      Whenever they could get their greedy little hands on it. And that tasty protein made them stronger, bigger, smarter hunters.
      After a while, they became so smart they realised - "Why the fuck should I run after these animals whenever I need food? Lets capture some of them, put them in some kind of a fence and keep them there for later eating."

      Tortured? Dude, we used to bash their heads with rocks and sticks.
      And we didn't even bother to feed them and take care of them for years before that.
      We would just sneak up on them, and then 10-20 of us would start throwing rocks at it.
      Many times we would just hurt it a lot, and it would run away to die from the wounds while we went for other, slower pray.

      Get the ancestors of today's cows and ask them if they would rather have it the old way, or would they have it like their relatives today?
      I already know what they would say.

      They would say: MOOOO!!!
      --
      Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    39. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by lisaparratt · · Score: 1

      How about breeding animals for the sole purpose of extracting labour from them, then discarding them to die slowly and without dignity when they're no longer capable of performing?

      Welcome to the human race.

    40. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by maillemaker · · Score: 1

      The veg site was just the first one that caught my eye from a Google search.

      Don't like the veg site? (I'm not a vegetarian, either) Google for yourself.

      --
      A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
    41. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1

      If you're not willing to face up to what needs to happen to get you your meat, you shouldn't be eating meat.
      I'd expand on that a little further. If you are psychologically unable to prepare your meat all the way from live animal to your plate, you should refrain from eating meat. I've done it many times, and I believe anyone who eats meat should do it.

      For me, the mroality of eating less (or no meat) has nothing to do with animal rights. It has to do with the production capacity of the planet and the population we expect to support. Producing meat is a very inefficient use of arable land from a total edible calorie standpoint. Meat production should be limited to land that is marginal for producing crops, and limited to species that do well on that land. This alone would alleviate much of the hunger seen worldwide, as well as reduce the carbon footprint (and other pollutants) of food production. Furthermore, it would free up resources to be used for other processes.

      Unfortunately, meat just tastes too good. Our bodies crave the protein and the fat. I try to eat it in moderation, and have respect for those who choose to abstain for moral or other reasons.

      But, one thought for vegetarians and vegans out there -- if God did not want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?
      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    42. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by my+$anity++0 · · Score: 1

      if God did not want us to eat people, why did He make them out of meat?

    43. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      It is a peculiar thing that we think it's OK to eat animals.

      No, it's not. It's completely and utterly natural. Indeed, given there are some requirements of a healthy diet that are difficult to find in nature other than in meat, it is *not* easting meat that would be classified as "peculiar".

      When you really, really get down to it, there's little more inhumane than the breeding of animals for the sole purpose of their later slaughter.

      There are many more inhumane things. For example, pretty much any other "use" of animals (clothing, labour, entertainment, comfort, sport) would easily class as more inhumane, because in general it's not providing essential aspects of survival. Not that I personally consider any of these things inherently "inhumane", but on the scale of things humans do to animals[0], eating them is pretty far down the list - not least because it's the same thing other animals do to animals.

      [0] Yes, I know, "humans are animals, too".

    44. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, but I pay people to kill and prepare the animals I eat. I also pay people to harvest crops, make my clothes, build my car, and heat my home.
      I have desire to do any of that myself, I have my own duties to deal with.

    45. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is an interesting trend here: there are no "anti-foie" comments which have been moded up to prominence, but a large number of "vegans are stupid about foie" have been highly moded. just says something about the demographics of /.-ers... they tend to eat meat.

      by the way, i strongly agree with point 4. i'm a veggie who hates aethetic arguments about this stuff... i don't think cute animals deserve any special rights just for being cute. eat them or don't (i don't) but don't go off on some self-righteous rant about foie or such just because it looks bad and presents an "easy target".

    46. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1

      Thanks, but I pay people to kill and prepare the animals I eat.
      Oh, I didn't say that you should do it all the time. I just said that you should be pyschologically (or philosophically) capable of doing so. Nice try, but next time bother to read what was written and not set up a straw man.
      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    47. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      Many people would think that feeding corn to a cow in a feedlot is a despicable thing to do to an animal, just to get it grow to a size suitable for slaughter.

      i'm one of them. cows aren't designed to eat corn. it screws up the pH of their gut, causing all manner of nasty ulcers etc. not to mention it creates a great breeding ground for e coli by making the system more alkaline. not to mention feedlot cows are packed in together and have little room to move, which also raises disease levels.

      it's a shitty existence.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    48. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read what you wrote and it's bunk. I don't have to kill any animal before I can be allowed to eat meat, thanks. There's a series on TV called "Dirty Jobs" and while, there are plenty of duties that are valuable and needed for society, I'm not ever going to do any of them myself. I make money to pay others to do them. I also don't have to do them, even once, to then be allowed to use that service.

      So, in conclusion, fuck off with your lame proposition.

    49. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Abcd1234 · · Score: 1

      just says something about the demographics of /.-ers... they tend to eat meat.

      Or maybe it's because the vegans are simply ignorant regarding the production of foie gras. I know, what a crazy idea...

      Personally, I think it's funny that you assumed there was some moderator bias, as opposed to conceding that the foie-haters might simply be wrong.

    50. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by bladesjester · · Score: 1

      Maybe some farms are cruel to their birds, but cruelty is not necessary (and some argue not even beneficial) for the production of good foie gras.

      I hate to break it to you, but you're wrong. It's legally defined as "the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by gavage" (gavage is forced feeding).

      Ask any good chef, and chances are you'll get the same answer. If you don't they're either lying to you or themselves. (for reference, I have one or two in my family)

      --
      Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
    51. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by SlashIan · · Score: 1

      Actually they can do ethical foie gras. The geese lead a good life are well treated and do not have grain forced down their gullet. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/18/wfoie18.xml

    52. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Maudib · · Score: 1

      6. Sheeple that regurgiate PETA bullshit should be thrown off a cliff, because their lack of ability to apply their own critical thinking to a situation is a big part of the reason common sense is being bred out of our gene pool.
       
      7. I just got home from a 6-course foie gras dinner. It was orgasmic. Thanks. Carry on.

      Rock on brother.

    53. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Luyseyal · · Score: 1

      As an omnivore who cooks for his vegetarian wife, I say "Amen!" to that. I've been barking up that tree for years now.

      -l

      --
      Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
    54. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by WilliamSChips · · Score: 1

      Not necessarily a true confession. If all you want them to say is "I am a black criminal and I bomb schools" then torture might be your method but if you want information torture just makes the person not trust the interrogator.

      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
    55. Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit... by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1

      Wow, Mr. internet tough guy. You still fail at reading comprehension.

      I didn't write that you have to kill an animal if you want to eat them. I wrote that you need to be psychologically capable. Apparently even the second time around, when I pointed it out, was too much for you to handle -- are you that daft for real, or just being willfully obtuse?

      Summary: You have time to troll on slashdot, but no time to bother reading comments. Not only that, but your trolling is weak and amateurish.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  14. That's great and all but... by Starteck81 · · Score: 1

    ... that stuff doesn't make twinkies healthy why would I want to eat more of it?

    --
    "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
    1. Re:That's great and all but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Industrialized food production methods at your local restaurant does not strike me as as a good idea. Sheesh... packaged food is not particularily healthy... and now there's a move to bring that sort of crap into restaurants? Yuck! Double yuck!

  15. Iron Chef? by Known+Nutter · · Score: 1

    didn't I just see this on an Iron Chef episode?!?

    http://blogs.foodnetwork.com/food/nic/2007/10/episode_2.html

    oh, yes... I did.

    --
    Beware of the Leopard.
    1. Re:Iron Chef? by BiggoronSword · · Score: 1

      You mean the Next Iron Chef? Yes, I saw that episode. Although dropping all the chemicals wasn't all that cool; providing them with some interesting technology, was. I mean, an anti-griddle? Oh, hell yes! Liquid Nitrogen to make a quick batch of ice cream.... aww yeah. And a device that will guarantee the exact temperature you're looking for with little or no variance. All these were great. *adds these to his Christmas list...

      --
      interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
  16. Food as Art, Science or chemistry by cyberzephyr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hello all,
    Currently I'm doing the Chef part of my life at this time. What is being described here is very old stuff http://www.foodarts.com/ and all this stuff is just commonplace technique nowadays. Adria, Achatz, Andres I have met or worked with. It's really not that amazing when you think that we as culinarians are (actually they are), just being creative instead of the things that a lot of people have been eating all along but in a different form. For instance: Grant Achatz (whom i think is Awesome) guinness that's thickened with Gelatin is just "Jello" "tm" but flavored with beer. Ferran Adria is the guy you seek if you want to know/learn stuff He invented this whole thing in first place about 10 or 12 years ago and it took the world by storm. He makes drops of olive encase in suger bags. Hell, there is a gut in chicago that invented a computer printer that makes edible and taste-infused menu's that you eat to before you order your food: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Chicago_chef_invents_edible_menu. Anyway, my whole point is: We as chefs, are very creative, funny and dedicated to bring the food world into the computer world accepept as munchies on a late night!

    --
    I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
    1. Re:Food as Art, Science or chemistry by karnal · · Score: 1, Funny

      You chefs also forgot to shut off teh boldz!

      --
      Karnal
    2. Re:Food as Art, Science or chemistry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...not to mention a measure (or two) of coherency.

      +2 Cage Rattling

  17. The Presentation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These chefs concern themselves so much with the presentation. Can't they buy an autofocus camera so their pictures don;t look like shit.

  18. Re:Foie Gras is some tasty good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Maybe you should try it and you'll agree that what they do to create such delicious stuff is well worth it.

    In fact, I'm going to eat more of it just to spite your tree hugging, faggoty feelings.

  19. What did you think of these "chemists"? by iminplaya · · Score: 4, Funny

    They were delicious!

    --
    What?
    1. Re:What did you think of these "chemists"? by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 1

      So one cannibal says to another, "Does this clown taste funny to you?"

      --
      Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
  20. High end struggles to catch up with the low end by Animats · · Score: 1

    In commercial food production, none of this is new. Here's a first course in food chemistry online. Read Sources of Flavor Volatiles in Food (PowerPoint).

    Some of the advanced technology used in food production plants is filtering down to the chef level. The commercial guys have to produce products that are storeable, transportable, and repeatable, so they have a tougher job. If you don't have to do that but have access to commercial technology, a whole range of interesting options open up. One of the newer ideas of interest is cryogenic grinding, where foods are cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures before grinding. This reduces loss of volatile components (which carry most of the flavor) during grinding. Works well for nutmeg, and is being tried for other spices.

    1. Re:High end struggles to catch up with the low end by tsstahl · · Score: 1

      foods are cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures before grinding

      Great! Where the hell am I going to find room in my kitchen for the new Ronco liquid nitro food processor? A better question is will Sears service the darn thing?

  21. Re:Foie Gras is some tasty good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The secret ingredient is: Cruelty!

  22. WD-40 by davidc · · Score: 3, Funny

    Okay, hands up those who read that as WD-40.

    1. Re:WD-40 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dammit! NOW what to with all these cans!

    2. Re:WD-40 by witte · · Score: 1

      guilty.

    3. Re:WD-40 by dwarfsoft · · Score: 1

      I was wondering why my food tasted bad, and after eating my jaw was feeling loose and mobile. At least the food went down easily.

      --
      Cheers, Chris
    4. Re:WD-40 by Alzheimers · · Score: 1

      Actually, I read it as LD-50

      looks around suspiciously

    5. Re:WD-40 by NotmyNick · · Score: 1

      Ayup, and wondered how the trademark lawyers felt about it.

      --
      Notmysig
    6. Re:WD-40 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I still have my job, and I can still take out my frustrations by being an absolute cocksucker to that homeless guy who posts on Slashdot.


      No AC's have trolled you in over a week, Stevie. Maybe the scientology run investment bankers controlling html cookies don't give a shit about you anymore?
    7. Re:WD-40 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because even we are starting to get tired of your shit.

      And we still mod-bomb him whenever necessary--that counts as being a "cocksucker" which we rather enjoy (and, since we have to work next to you, and since you're so happy about that gay rights bill, we know you're a cocksucker, too--and that's said only half tongue in cheek).

      Did you actually have a point? Oh yeah: Hey Stevie, KILL YOURSELF!

    8. Re:WD-40 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You aren't fooling anyone, Stevie. Your inability to form a coherent sentence gives you away every time.

      So does your obvious homophobia. In fact, you're so homophobic, I half expect you to come out of the closet any day now and admit that you just pretend to be homeless to have anonymous gay sex.

      So how's that wide stance working out for you in the stalls, Stevie?

      Finally - no one wants you to kill yourself. I certainly don't want you to kill yourself. I want you to get a job, a life, and quit being enslaved to your pride and your desire to smoke pot.

      I want you to be a happy, productive member of society, who doesn't continually make self-destructive choices for himself - such as, the choice to remain homeless, the choice to remain addicted to weed, etc.

    9. Re:WD-40 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ^I didnt' have time to troll him last week. I was busy driving around la jolla in my 4 door Mercedes looking for the bum with the laptop.
      The weat4her's been kind of cold and gloomy in la jolla lately. I was wondering if homeless guy will decide to get a job so he can rent a warm apartment?

  23. French cooking is like this too by Wabbit+Wabbit · · Score: 1

    Which is why I like cooking French. Quantities and instructions are very precise because they have to be. If you mess with the formula, the dish won't come out right. An ex-girlfriend fancied herself a cook, and was good with Italian dishes but never got the knack for French cooking because it required the kind of precision of which you speak.

    I also found that as soon as I switched to better pans, my own cooking improved as well, because the heat transfer required by the recipe was now finally taking place. Nothing like a big heavy copper (or copper core) pan.

    --
    Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
    1. Re:French cooking is like this too by Eivind · · Score: 4, Insightful

      -certain- things must be just-so, others can be experimented with without ill effects, or easily be corrected if you get off-track. The reason cooking is hard for beginners is that they're not aware of which things belong in which category, so they stress the stuff that isn't actually that critical, or are too sloppy on the few spots where you really need to do it -JUST- so, or both.

      If you're making bread it -matters- if the temperature of your liquids is 30C, 38C or 50C. If you're making lasagne it does -not- matter, well theoretically you may need to leave it for 3 minutes longer in the oven... If you triple the amount of chili in your chili con carne the result may be non-edible for non-dragons, if you triple the amount of estragon on your pizza, you get sligthly-more-estragony pizza, nobody will even really notice. (it'll taste a bit different, but not inedible, probably not even bad)

      If you're making buns, they'll in general (up to a point anyway) be better if you work the dough more vigorously, perhaps letting them rise multiple times with workings of the dough between. To the contrary, if you're making any kind of sponge-cake where the airness comes from beaten eggs, then you should stir as little as absolutely humanly possible after adding the flour, since otherwise you'll beat-out all the airiness.

      So, in short, cooking ain't in general hard at all. There's certain details that you need to pay attention to. It takes some practice or teaching or both to learn which, precisely, that is. You probably need to mess up these things a few times to really learn them. Most people I know have tried the trick of baking pizza with too-warm water once -- most people don't need to do that more than once to get the idea....

    2. Re:French cooking is like this too by aclarke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It sounds like you've just described most activities that people outside those activities find hard.

      Auto mechanics ain't in general hard at all. It's just knowing which nuts and bolts to undo, in which order, and on which part.

      Assembling one's own computer ain't in general hard at all. It's just knowing which parts are compatible with which parts, plugging components into each other, and knowing when you are in danger of frying a component due to static electricity and when you aren't.

      It reminds me of an anecdote I've heard attributed to Henry Ford but couldn't find after an exhaustive 30 second search on Google. Henry had some equipment that was malfunctioning, and his engineers couldn't figure out what was wrong. He decided to call in the guy, let's call him Bill, who had designed the equipment. Bill spent 45 minutes working on the equipment, got it working, and left. A couple weeks later Henry received an invoice from Bill for $10,000. Henry called Bill up and said, "I know your time is valuable, but don't you think $10k is a little much for twirling a few knobs and bolts?". Bill agreed and said he'd adjust the bill. Henry got an adjusted bill soon afterwards that said, "Adjusting a few knobs and bolts: $1000. Knowing which knobs and bolts to adjust: $9000."

      So I've babbled on enough, and I agree with you that once you get into cooking, much of it isn't that daunting, but neither are most other pastimes once you've figured them out.

      --

      www.clarke.ca
    3. Re:French cooking is like this too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you triple the amount of estragon on your pizza, you get sligthly-more-estragony pizza, nobody will even really notice.

      Is that some kind of contraceptive pizza? But seriously, what are you talking about? As a non-American I have no idea.

    4. Re:French cooking is like this too by Eivind · · Score: 1

      I was responding to the spesific claim that in cooking one needs to, in general, be extremely careful with amounts, temperature, stirring, whatever.

      Which ain't true. You *sometimes* need to be careful with those, and other, things. The main trick isn't learning to be generally exact. The main trick is learning when to pay attention, and when sloppiness and doing things aproximately is fine.

      Sure, 80% of everything is trivial. That's just how life is.

    5. Re:French cooking is like this too by Eivind · · Score: 1

      It's a herb, reasonably close to Oregano, if that tells you anything. Point is, it is mild, and merely one component in a complex taste-picture, not dominating and strong like chili.

      So, you could leave it out even if the recipe called for it, and nobody that didn't know that particular recipe well would even notice, or you could add triple the requested amount, and that'd likely go trough un-noticed too.

    6. Re:French cooking is like this too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks. Once I knew it was a herb I managed to find it on Google; we call it tarragon in the UK. And we do have oregano!

    7. Re:French cooking is like this too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Adjusting a few knobs and bolts: $1000. Knowing which knobs and bolts to adjust: $9000."

      Wow. Inflation. In the story I remember the bill was $50. Also it was a millwright who fixed a pump by hitting it with a hammer. Interesting that the story is hard to find. Maybe it's because our culture values new tricks more than old knowledge?

      Ha! CAPTCHA is "factory".

    8. Re:French cooking is like this too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The version I've always heard (which was fairly easy to find) is an engineer who marked a broken part on a machine with an "X" and charged for "knowing where to put the X". It's still a good parable today, though more and more bosses seem to forget that knowledge is what engineers are paid for.

    9. Re:French cooking is like this too by AeroIllini · · Score: 2, Informative

      That story is actually attributed to the famous G.E. Electrical Engineer Charles Steinmetz, and the story was told by Charles Vest as part of the 1999 MIT commencement address.

      I can't guarantee that the story is true, but that's where it's from.

      --
      For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
  24. Why do they call this food? by rrohbeck · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ok, it may not kill you right away and it may have calories, but I don't consider that edible.
    Sounds worse than McDonald's to me. Yuck.

    --
    thegodmovie.com - watch it
    1. Re:Why do they call this food? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 1

      Funny, some people say the same thing about, say, haggis (though, admittedly, I don't mind the stuff), or any number of other "acquired" tastes (I still don't understand why people would even attempt to eat Durian, but they do).

  25. Please buy a Macro lens, NOW! by ChangeOnInstall · · Score: 1

    That site literally made my eyes hurt.

    --
    What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
  26. Molecular gastronomy by vorpal22 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The technique is generally referred to as "molecular gastronomy", and has produced even weirder things than listed in the main article. For example, Dufresne has used "meat glue" (i.e. transglutaminase, which was, IIRC, designed to produce Chicken McNuggets) to make pasta entirely out of shrimp, and another chef has made flavoured edible menus out of soybean and potato starch with fruit and vegetable inks that come in such varieties as steak and sushi. Here's a page with some interesting links on Chow:

    http://www.chow.com/stories/10411

  27. Just what I want when I get fine dining... by nevesis · · Score: 1

    .. strange foods tied together with massive amounts of chemicals to make them taste like real foods.

    Isn't that what McDonalds is for?

  28. I'm trying not to. by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Funny

    Think butter that doesn't melt in the oven, foie gras you can tie into knots, and fried mayonnaise.

    I don't want to think about butter that doesn't melt in the oven, or foie gras in knots ... and I especially don't want to think too much about fried mayonnaise. Cripes, talk about adding insult to injury.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    1. Re:I'm trying not to. by antifoidulus · · Score: 1

      They have mayo flavored potato chips in Japan, and that was one of the most disgusting things I have ever eaten.

      --
      Monstar L
    2. Re:I'm trying not to. by mink · · Score: 1

      You can blame my ancestors (French) for that.
      I know many French people who when presented with fried bits of potato ask for mayonnaise.
      I don't find the mix of fried potato and mayonnaise bad tasting, but I have never tried the potato chips you mention.

      --
      Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
  29. health effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    is the type 2 diabetes epidemic not enough? heart disease? sometimes i think it just happens to be that anything done to food to make it live forever on a shelf is also going to make it live forever in your body.

    i do hope food scientists begin to turn their guns on making food safer. everyone who gets put on a restricted diet becomes unable to eat these creations.

  30. Oh great by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Somebody's gonna find a way to make bombs out of Twinkies, HoHo's, and gasp....Pizza! Then they'll ban them, and we'll be stuck with nutritious food. I hate it when McGuyver's go to the Dark Side.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  31. The Art of Food Preparation is Timing by LM741N · · Score: 1

    I don't know if Chemists in general are good with timing. When I was little my mother would start cooking for the day at 8am,making everything from scratch and magically at lunch and dinner all the correct dishes would be finished simultaneously. Now that is an art.

    Nowadays scientists in universities don't have time for science. They must publish, get grants, do marketing, blah, blah. After a few decades of this they probably don't even know the value of pi. So how the hell do we expect them to get home in time to cook anything?

    1. Re:The Art of Food Preparation is Timing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh? Half the art of being a productive lab chemist is timing things so you're always doing something, but only one setup needs manual intervention (extraction, quenching, sampling, whatever) at a time, while the others are heating or cooling or just stirring. And, you need to have a dead spot around noon for lunch.

      If you screw that up, you can end up trying to do too much and lose a reaction. Or, even worse, you get a period where have no lab work that needs attention, which means you have to work on your notebook.

    2. Re:The Art of Food Preparation is Timing by LM741N · · Score: 1

      Oh, we're talking the indentured servants. I thought we were talking about professors.

  32. Re:I'm a medicinal chemist by liquidsin · · Score: 1

    try here for more delicious ideas

    --
    do not read this line twice.
  33. other interesting restaurants by mandown · · Score: 2, Informative

    looking at the blog referenced, there are possibly more interesting meals (and much better pics)

    El Bulli (referenced in the comments above too - lots of crazy looking stuff)
    http://chuckeats.com/blog3/2006/06/22/el-bulli-roses-spain-the-mad-scientist/

    Keyah Grande (looks stunning)
    http://chuckeats.com/blog3/2007/01/19/keyah-grande-pagosa-springs-co-rip/

    El Poblet (i'm not sure of the techniques used but it looks wild)
    http://chuckeats.com/blog3/2007/10/08/el-poblet-denia-spain-a-midsummer-nights-dream/

  34. TV Dinners by PPH · · Score: 3, Funny
    "I even like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue." -- ZZ Top

    For some reason, this is the first thing that popped into my head when I read TFA.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  35. WD-50 is good if you are in NYC by chiefloko · · Score: 1

    If you are in Pittsburgh....
    http://www.bigelowgrille.com/alchemy.html
    is a lot better, also not cheap.

    but the chicken and waffles were unbelievable.
    chicken = fried chicken skin, cut in the shape of a chicken
    waffles = some sort of butter/syrup jello
    gravy = gravy that was made into crunchy/soft foam?

  36. and you by ClioCJS · · Score: 1

    And you, my friend, quite possibly did not get the subtle joke there. Or maybe you did. But probably not.

    --
    -Clio
    Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
    Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
  37. no worse than chopping ... ? by weighn · · Score: 0, Troll

    Eh, no worse than chopping them into serving size pieces. Well, you can choose to believe that the deceased creature can feel this chopping. The rest of us will be over here in the Real-World(TM) wondering why anyone would tortuously force-feed a living creature to deliberately induce liver-disease so that some fat-rich arsehole can enjoy a plate of Foie Gras.
    --
    Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
  38. "Tool" reference for the ignorant by weighn · · Score: 1

    And you, my friend, quite possibly did not get the subtle joke there. Or maybe you did. But probably not. "Life feeds on life. This is necessary." From Disgustipated (a song) by Tool (a musical troupe aka band).
    --
    Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
  39. But veggies have feelings too... by scooter.higher · · Score: 1

    To reference a popular verse:

    And the angel of the Lord came unto me,
    snatching me up from my
    place of slumber,
    and took me on high,
    and higher still until we
    moved in the spaces betwixt the air itself.
    and he bore me unto a
    vast farmland of our own midwest,
    and as we descended cries of
    impending doom rose from the soil.
    one thousand, nay, a million
    voices full of fear.
    and terror possessed me then.
    and I begged,

    "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"
    And the angel said unto me,
    "These are the cries of the carrots,
    the cries of the carrots.
    You see, reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day
    and to them it is the holocaust."
    And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat
    like the tears of one millions terrified brothers
    and roared,
    "Hear me now,
    I have seen the light,
    they have a consciousness,
    they have a life,
    they have a soul.
    damn you!
    let the rabbits wear glasses,
    save our brothers...can I get an amen?
    can I get a hallelujah? thank you, Jesus.

    --
    Ramen
  40. you could have googled it by ClioCJS · · Score: 1

    But I'll take your word for it, in which case... *I* didn't get *your* joke. :)

    --
    -Clio
    Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
    Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
  41. pedophilia was never natural by circletimessquare · · Score: 2, Insightful

    that is, sex with a real child, who is biologically sexually immature. you can bet your archeologist's tenured chair that our ancestors thousands of years ago were bashing the heads of men (and women) who preyed on the prepubescent

    meanwhile, teenagers are biologically mature enough for sex. now in modern times, certainly, the issue of TEENAGERS being verboten for sex with adults is a new thing. but that's because we respect the notion of mental immaturity nowadays. so let them experiment amongst themselves, and keep the predatorial adults away from them

    seems like progress to me

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:pedophilia was never natural by momfreeek · · Score: 1

      ok.. not natural in the sense that "flowers are natural". But it was something accepted. I guess its always been more controversial than meat eating though, yeah. How about slavery? That was pretty universally accepted.. but is certainly not acceptable these days.

      The issues of human rights have become second nature and human abuse is, these days, morally repugnant to most. Animal rights are gaining ground but really its a very confused area.. cruelty to animals is against the law, yet killing them is acceptable under many circumstances even if it is simply for human entertainment. Clearly this is nonsensical.

    2. Re:pedophilia was never natural by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 1

      that is, sex with a real child, who is biologically sexually immature. you can bet your archeologist's tenured chair that our ancestors thousands of years ago were bashing the heads of men (and women) who preyed on the prepubescent

      You'll lose your bet.

      There is no practice so vile, no institution so abhorrent, no culture so depraved that it was not practiced openly at some point in history, somewhere on the earth. In fact, most practices that people cannot even fathom there being support for, were once regarded as laudable virtues in some societies. Societies our modern one is descended from. Mass murder, slavery, blood sacrifice, racism, sexism, ephebophilia, and yes, even pedophilia, were all at one point socially acceptable and even encouraged.

      You can't put limits on the human capacity for depravity. Or societies' for that matter.
      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
  42. Re: Vegetarian's Dilemma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eventually followed by the logical conclusion.

  43. Good Eats with Alton Brown by KefabiMe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Probably the best show on the Food Network. Alton Brown's show gives me the impression that Alton's a physics major that happened to get into cooking.

    1. Re:Good Eats with Alton Brown by ewieling · · Score: 1

      I love Good Eats, but some of the episodes would be better with more information and a little less drama and humor. The first episode I watched was the banana show where he is in a "jungle". Not enough information gained compared to the annoying theater I had to get thru. I never watched another episode until several years later when someone suggested the show to me.

      --
      I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
    2. Re:Good Eats with Alton Brown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      don't know if he was a physics major, but professionally he was a director of commercials and training videos and the like. started off in film school, iirc. just look at all the cockeyed camera angles, shots from within drawers and ovens, and so on. a.b. is as much about the film as the food (which i think is a good thing... i mean, what other cooking show is actually visually interesting to watch? we might like the ideas, but the footage?)

    3. Re:Good Eats with Alton Brown by belg4mit · · Score: 1

      Don't forget America's Test Kitchen on PBS.

      --
      Were that I say, pancakes?
  44. Why is this modded down? by Rob+Simpson · · Score: 1

    A bit holier-than-thou, sure, but the grandparent post is insane. Foie gras is comparable to chopping up an animal into serving size pieces - while it's still alive. Any slaughterhouse performing such obviously unnecessary cruelty (instead of the usual instant killing blow) would be shut down immediately.

    1. Re:Why is this modded down? by TheLink · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Foie gras is comparable to chopping up an animal into serving size pieces - while it's still alive."

      It's not comparable at all. The geese willingly go to get themselves stuffed with food (google). It might not be healthy for them, but whether they get fattened or not they're going to get slaughtered in the end anyway. The farm definitely won't want any of them to die prematurely either.

      AFAIK, plenty of people willingly queue up to supersize their meals and themselves.

      As for slaughterhouses being shut down, people should be asking why there's so much salmonella and e. coli about - it's because of really crappy practices. Telling people to cook their contaminated meat thoroughly so that it's safe to eat is avoiding the real issue on why there's so much "shit" in/on the meat (or even vegetables) in the first place. The regulators allow unsafe practices and shift the problem to the consumers.

      --
    2. Re:Why is this modded down? by weighn · · Score: 1

      It's not comparable at all. The geese willingly go to get themselves stuffed with food (google)... AFAIK, plenty of people willingly queue up to supersize their meals and themselves. yes, McDonald's and Coca-Cola have made some really cool ads, but it isn't quite the same as force feeding.
      --
      Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
    3. Re:Why is this modded down? by Mushdot · · Score: 1

      Geese at some 'free range' type farms may enjoy getting fed more than usual, but in general the mass produced Foie Gras is not done humanely. Fair enough you may argue that the animal is going to die anyway but surely they can be afforded some basic comforts before that end. Search youtube for 'Gavage' and you will find some videos.

    4. Re:Why is this modded down? by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1

      It's not comparable at all. The geese willingly go to get themselves stuffed with food (google).
      Traditionally, foie gras was made by nailing the feet of the goose to a board, then force-feeding the goose via funnel which stretched the neck of the goose so as to allow more food to be inserted. While most producers now use much more humane methods, foie gras still carries the taint of this practice. Futhermore, if the geese were allowed to feed normally, I'm not so sure they'd willingly go to "get themselves stuffed with food". Most poultry learn to feed by example; if all the geese ever know is getting stuffed, then of course they will willingly go to do so -- they never learned another way to feed as hatchlings.

      As for slaughterhouses being shut down, people should be asking why there's so much salmonella and e. coli about - it's because of really crappy practices.
      Only partly true. For salmonella, particularly with chicken, it's due to the bacteria spreading among the chicken population. For food production on the scale necessary today, there is little we can do to limit the spread of salmonella among poultry. Regardless of how clean your abbatoir is, there will be salmonella present in some of the finished product.
      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    5. Re:Why is this modded down? by maillemaker · · Score: 1

      >The geese willingly go to get themselves stuffed with food (google)...

      Yeah, that's why they call it FORCE-feeding, I'm sure.

      --
      A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
    6. Re:Why is this modded down? by heinousjay · · Score: 1

      I'm not insane, I just don't care about how the goose feels. It's food. That's all it was every going to be from the moment its egg was fertilized.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    7. Re:Why is this modded down? by sjames · · Score: 1

      Telling people to cook their contaminated meat thoroughly so that it's safe to eat...

      Meanwhile, their definition of cooked thoroughly is somewhere between "might as well eat your loafers" and "never mind the steak, just serve the briquettes".

  45. Not really by Rob+Simpson · · Score: 2, Informative

    Enzymes, being proteins, aren't normally absorbed by the body. (Which is why insulin, for example, can't be taken in tablet form.) Also, these enzymes aren't supposed to be floating around in the blood (which is where they'd be if they were absorbed) - Liver function tests measure the presence of these enzymes in the blood, since they show that liver cells have been damaged/lysed, releasing their contents.

    Vitamin A deficiency is still a big problem in developing countries, though, and liver is definitely the best source of it. Of course, too much of a good thing can also be a problem.

    1. Re:Not really by sjames · · Score: 1

      The enzymes aren't useful for nutrition for exactly the reasons you state. It's the glycogen store and the vitamins that are useful nutritionally.

  46. uh... no by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    throughout the entire animal kingdom there are animals eating animals, for millions of years

    and throughout the animal kingdom, sex with the sexually immature isn't normal, for millions of years

    it's moral, and natural, to not have sex with children, and to eat meat

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:uh... no by momfreeek · · Score: 1

      animals have been killing animals for millions of years, yes. You seem to be justifying eating animals purely on the basis that animals have been doing it for millions of years and that its 'natural'. Is it natural then for humans to kill animals? For humans to kill humans? For humans to eat humans? There is certainly a distinction made between animals and humans. Acceptable behaviour is not based purely on the past behaviour of animals. It is not based purely on the past behaviour of humans either. Morality is constantly under review and what is seen as acceptable is always changing. I'm not a vegetarian, but I can't actually justify killing animals to eat them any more than I can explain the meaning of the universe.

  47. natural morality is a real concept by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    for example, it is not ok to eat your fellow humans, because eating the dead flesh of your own species encourages diseases. in fact, there is a prion disease called kuru, similar to mad cow disease, amongst papua new guineans who dug up and ate their dead ritualistically

    likewise, fucking children incurs the wrath of parents, for good reason: it is their biological role to shepherd their children to adulthood. their interest in that is making sure the child reaches adulthood before mating. because when you are mature, you can do a better job of picking a genetically healthy mate. the genetically inferior, shoved aside, will seek to prey on those with immature abilities to choose a good mate. such that if you as a parent tolerate sexual trangression against your children, you are imperiling your own genetic lineage to an inferior set of genes: kid fuckers. preying on children is a potent sign of genetic unfitness

    in other words, the strongest argument against pedophilia is not only that children are hurt, but that the completely natural and organic rage of parents against pedophiles is something that will not be dispelled and must be respected, simply because there is no placating it

    and as for eating meat: go view half an hour of national geographic about what goes on on the plains of the serengeti on any given night, for the last dozen million years. meat gets eaten. sorry about how you feel about that, but that's just the way it is

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:natural morality is a real concept by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 1

      In fact, sexual mores are not that universal, and there are many societies that do, in fact, tolerate the sexualization of pre-pubescent children.

      You are attempting to get around a critique of a cruel practice - the production of foie gras, by treating some kinds of moral claims as arbitrary and relative, and then sneaking other types of moral claims into a kind of genetic universal. The data, however, doesn't support it. You have ideas of mate selection and parental investment in them that have a lot more to do with the development of modern European culture (and cultures which have developed middle classes, generally.) Given that moral/ethical axioms are always generated culturally and historically and not "genetically," ultimately you are going to have to deal with the possibility of a real conflict of ethical norms that can't be resolved by reference to "nature".

      Most of us who actually witnessed the production of foie gras would be as mortified as we would be if we saw a 13 year old boy torturing a cat. I'm not a vegetarian, but the fact that I eat meat doesn't mean that I don't see ethical issues at work in the treatment of animals.

      See, I think an appropriate use for technology is to reduce the obligation to be cruel. Farmed tissues could some day replace the slaughter of animals for meat: at that point, I think it really would be immoral to continue to slaughter animals for meat. This article is about the use of chemistry to create interesting new flavours: one would think that some of that inventiveness could be used to create flavorful, less cruel alternatives to foie gras.

  48. Fried Mayonanaise Rocks... by nick_davison · · Score: 1

    ...and fried mayonnaise. If you're ever in San Diego, try the Tlaquepaque at Jimmy Carter's (least Mexican named Mexican restaurant ever).

    If you can get over the notion that it's basically a hot mayonnaise and jalapeno sauce, it's actually just the right amount of sweet, creamy and spicy that combines brilliantly with the rice.
  49. Don't forget this one: by lindseyp · · Score: 1

    Molecular Tapas Bar in the Oriental Lounge, Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo.

    It rocks.

    --
    j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
  50. Natural = overrated by TheLink · · Score: 1

    AFAIK the bonobos also have sex with immature members of their group (google). Seems to work fine for them. I won't be surprised if dolphins and other animals do that too. It's probably just not suitable to show on the National Geographic channel ;).

    Anyway, "natural" is overrated.

    Humans should use their big brains and figure out what is good overall and long term. That said the norms of cultures that have survived and _thrived_ for thousands of years should not be discarded overnight without a great deal of evidence. There are many different human cultures, and it is fairly obvious that some are crappier than others.

    We need to start using our brains a lot more and not just do stuff because it is technologically possible. Society is not ready for a USD10K "kill everyone" bioweapon kit. And just because someone figures out a way to make a cheap gigawatt "infinitech" powerplant it doesn't mean everyone should have one before we figure a way of preventing/avoiding the entire world from glowing red hot from the excess heat.

    --
    1. Re:Natural = overrated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There aren't any cultures that have survived for thousands of years, unless you look at modern Western culture and Ancient Greece and perceive them to be automorphic.

  51. Liquid Helium? by aproposofwhat · · Score: 1
    Yay - ice cream that makes you talk like Donald Duck!

    Excellent idea for livening up children's parties, and possibly a standby comfort food for deep sea divers!

    --
    One swallow does not a fellatrix make
  52. Food chemistry by jandersen · · Score: 1

    Very interesting, intellectually, but good food is simple: start with good ingredients, don't overcook, and eat in moderation. The last one is important - if you eat until you are close to vomiting, it doesn't matter whether the meal was of good quality. The old saying 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating' means exactly that.

    1. Re:Food chemistry by senatorpjt · · Score: 1

      Looking at the pictures of the food portions, I don't think that's a problem. I'd probably be trying to get the meal over with so I could go home and eat a sandwich.

  53. Dinner at WD-50 by guanxi · · Score: 1

    I ate there earlier this year. One of the best meals I've had, but the menu -- while more creative than almost any other I've seen -- had none of the flashy mad scientist concoctions that are so well publicized. If you are in NY and are a bit of a foodie, it's definitely a worthwhile experience. Better than many well publicized restaurants like Babbo (IMHO).

  54. It took a long time for this to appear in /. by niktemadur · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A friend of mine is an excellent chef (mediterranean/mexican fusion with emphasis on seafood), regularly invited to prepare meals in places like Oslo, Paris, London, Evian (Switzerland), San Francisco, Acapulco, etc. No matter what city it is, he splurges on at least one meal at the most celebrated restaurant (according to the gastronomic insiders) in town, and money is no object on these special occasions.

    A couple of years ago, while visiting London, my friend and his wife went to Blumenthal's place, The Fat Duck, specifically for the sampler meal at three hundred pounds per person, for two people. Sixteen tiny courses, fifteen of them with their own specific wine.

    Just to give you an idea, the first course was a sphere chilled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen, handled with chemist's pliers. Within a second of being popped in the mouth, the sphere vaporized and expanded. Containing mostly gas, with some green tea, lemon and vodka, this did three things: cleansed the taste buds, stimulated the appetite and gave an immediate buzz.
    Supposedly, the fourth or fifth course was the proverbial sledgehammer to the head - a quail jelly on a bed of green pea puree and wheat. That's when the sky cracked open and the meaning of life was telepathically revealed from above. After that it was a two-hour haze of "artistic perfection".

    How many of us can say that a certain meal, a sequence of flavor combinations, caused a full-blown epiphany, a mystical experience?

    To this day, my friend's eyes glaze and focus off into infinity while remembering "the best meal I've ever had in my life, the best twelve hundred dollars (!!!) I've ever spent". The good wife agrees, even as the Harrod's shopping budget was obliterated by one dinner.

    --
    Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
    1. Re:It took a long time for this to appear in /. by ghyd · · Score: 1

      Nothing that fine sardines bread and butter can't do. But I guess we've all seen the news that indeed our brain do rationalize a posteriori every choices we make.

    2. Re:It took a long time for this to appear in /. by niktemadur · · Score: 1

      Nothing that fine sardines bread and butter can't do. But I guess we've all seen the news that indeed our brain do rationalize a posteriori every choices we make.

      My bad, I didn't specify the following detail:

      When the guy walked into The Fat Duck, he knew exactly what he was getting into - Number One restaurant in the world, according to the Michelin Guide. He knew the prices before he got there, so the decision to sacrifice the shopping was taken before the trip. Instead of a posteriori rationalizing, it's closer to delineating priorities and sticking to them.

      As you can see, the guy is truly passionate about this sort of thing. One night in his restaurant, a couple showed up and whispered to me that they'd just been to McDonald's and split an order of nuggets, but "Shhh, don't tell Ol' Mustache, will you? He's gonna harangue us if he finds out". So yeah, he's a bit of a culinary tyrant, but he puts his money where his mouth and temper are, so you gotta respect the guy, can't accuse him of hypocrisy.

      The guy paid his dues working as cook for two or three years in tuna fishing expeditions up and down the Pacific, so he's got a bit of a tough façade. Think of the crew of "The Perfect Storm" and you're near the idea, up before dawn, lighting dynamite sticks with cuban cigars to guide tuna to the nets, hauling in the catch for hours on end, that sort of thing.

      One New Year's he prepared a nine course, five hour dinner for 25 acquaintances, the Number One culinary event in my life so far, check out some of the items: Raw sea urchin in a shot glass, with mezcal, lemon and tomato juice. Abalone and artichoke lightly fried in olive oil. Tuna tartare with pear and avocado. For the beef crowd, there was aged rib eye in a black olive cream with a slight hint of habanero. Dessert at five in the morning was "Chocolate Cascade", where you stick the fork into the crust and hot chocolate cream spews out like lava under pressure. A seemingly endless stream of wine kept flowing, we all ended up leaving his place at nine the following morning, happy campers and thoroughly fumigated.

      As for twelve hundred spare dollars in my pocket in London, mine would have gone to a week long Guinness, Laphroaig and Fish & Chips pub binge! Many pubs in GB are now open twenty four hours, you know.

      --
      Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
    3. Re:It took a long time for this to appear in /. by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      How many of us can say that a certain meal, a sequence of flavor combinations, caused a full-blown epiphany, a mystical experience?

      Nowhere near as many as can say they've had the same experience kneeling beside their bed talking to an invisible man...

  55. Did you know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That heart disease is the second leading cause of death in industrialized nations. Only government kills more people.

  56. Totally missing the point... by maillemaker · · Score: 1

    >It is a peculiar thing that we think it's OK to eat animals.

    I have no problem with eating animals. I do have a problem with torturing them in order to make them more yummy.

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
  57. The key word here is... by maillemaker · · Score: 1

    ...in which corn is force-fed to farm-raised ducks... If you have to force the animal to engage in the activity, they probably don't want to be doing it.

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
  58. Yet another defender who completely ignores... by maillemaker · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...The whole "FORCE" feeding thing.

    Oh, it's natural. Oh, their livers are /supposed/ to store fat. Oh, they are treated much better than chickens.

    Except we have to cram food down their mouths in the name of making them taste yummy.

    I'm all for eating animals. I'm not for force feeding them to make them taste better.

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
    1. Re:Yet another defender who completely ignores... by mrtrumbe · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Use some logic here, will ya?

      We FORCE chickens to live in pens. Some chickens are FORCED to live in small cages. We FORCE cows to take hormones and antibiotics so they can produce more milk than is natural without becoming diseased. We FORCE veal calves to live in small cages. We FORCE sheep to be sheared. We FORCE cattle, chicken and other animals into corrals for slaughter. We FORCE electricity through their heads, or FORCE bolts into their heads or force cleavers or saws through their necks to kill them for processing.

      See, this is what eating meat is all about: FORCING animals to do certain things so that we can eat their flesh, milk and eggs and use their by-products. Just because people look at gavage and say, "that must really hurt the animal," doesn't make it so. In fact, from all evidence available, it isn't detrimental to the animals' health. It certainly doesn't cause "exploding livers" as one poster put it.

      In light of all this, it is absolutely relevant that foie gras animals are treated better than the average chicken raised for meat. We force animals to do a lot of things and from all evidence available, forced slaughter is still the most detrimental to the animal.

      This "issue" is simply an attempt by animal rights extremists to open the door to further limits on society's ability to use and eat animals (even keep them as pets). It is a gateway issue for them. Don't be suckered into their little games.

      Taft

    2. Re:Yet another defender who completely ignores... by guzziguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Force feeding" is a bit of a misnomer. It's more like "assisted feeding".

      Here's the thing... after the duck has been feed using gavage, they will typically go around and pick up any pieces of corn that have dropped on the floor and eat that too. The farmers are simply using technology to improve the efficiency of the process... left to their own devices, the ducks would "force feed" themselves without any help from us. Like I said before - quality of the product is inversely proportional to the stress that the animal is under. It is not in the farmer's best interest to stress these ducks out.

    3. Re:Yet another defender who completely ignores... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      You can actually get hold of foie gras that isn't produced by force feeding -

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/18/wfoie18.xml

      I read somewhere that if you put the goose in a pen next surrounded by food it will eat continuously. The end result is the same as gavage, it just takes longer and needs more space. Foie gras produced this way costs about 50% more but if you can afford foie gras you can probably afford the extra 50%.

      In most countries force feeding is illegal, so the only way to produce foie gras is like this. France requires food described as foie gras be produced by force feeding though.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  59. CHRIST PLEASE USE GOOGLE by maillemaker · · Score: 1

    LOOK - I am not pro-PETA nor am I a vegetarian. It happened to be the first link on Google about the reality of Foie Gras that I came across.

    Don't like the PETA/VEG opinion on it, Google for yourself!!!!

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
  60. Exactly, thank you! by maillemaker · · Score: 1

    It was poor of me to pick a vegetarian URL for describing Foie Gras.

    I eat meat, and I'm all for the raising and slaughter of animals for eating. Thanks for the excellent post.

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
    1. Re:Exactly, thank you! by bladesjester · · Score: 1

      It's not a problem. I just find it kind of weird that you got modded through the floor for your posting. Granted, the link was from a very biased source, but still.

      Then again, most people don't even have respect for each other let alone for the food they eat or the rest of the world around them. Being horribly self-absorbed and short-sighted seems to be a rampant disease.

      A bit off topic, what kind of maille items do you make (asks the swordsman)? :P

      --
      Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
    2. Re:Exactly, thank you! by maillemaker · · Score: 1

      Here is my web site: www.forth-armoury.com

      Not to toot my own horn too loudly, but I basically "invented" the commercial process for replicating wedge-riveted maille.

      --
      A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
    3. Re:Exactly, thank you! by bladesjester · · Score: 1

      I'm looking over it now.

      The advantage of butted maille is that it's a heck of a lot easier to make and repair (so it would, theoretically, be cheaper). It also frequently allowed for a more dense maille than riveted rings (doing rivets in tight places is a pain in the hand - so speaks the apprentice blacksmith).

      Armor is really a trade off of a lot of things - type of protection, material, flexibility, weight, cost, etc. It's a lot like computer security, really.

      Armor was expensive, and you got the best that you could, but not everyone could get the best that there was. Heck, sometimes the best you could do was a brigandine or even just light leather armor and that was certainly better than nothing.

      The thing is that, and this will make some people's heads hurt, lack of actual surviving pieces of armor and weapons that are described in literature or historic accounts actually often attests to their popularity - they kept getting used until they broke. It's the reason that grave effigies and literature are so important in the field - they give a good indication of what was popular.

      However, with maille, it's basically impossible to tell from a drawing or carving if maille is butted or riveted. The fact that there are so many examples of riveted maille could be attributed largely to its cost since it would have been used by the very rich who don't do most of the actual fighting.

      Oh, and on the cutting of maille with a blade article, in general, chain provided quite a lot of protection from slashing strikes for its weight and bit less protection for chopping strikes. Piercing ones are another story entirely because even riveted maille will split.

      --
      Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
    4. Re:Exactly, thank you! by maillemaker · · Score: 1

      >However, with maille, it's basically impossible to tell from a drawing or carving if
      >maille is butted or riveted. The fact that there are so many examples of riveted maille
      >could be attributed largely to its cost since it would have been used by the very rich who don't do most of the actual fighting.

      This debate has been put to bed years ago, my friend. It is the generally unanimous opinion of all experts in the field that maille armour intended for actual battle use was almost always riveted.

      I don't want to come across as a braggart here but I have researched this heavily for nearly 10 years, and I have lectured on the subject internationally, as well as appearing on television. None of this makes one an expert, of course, but I can assure you, having discussed this topic in depth with professional arms and armour experts around the world of much higher abilities than my own amateur efforts, for all practical purposes, all maille was riveted, or alternating rows of riveted and solid links. The only exception to this has been parade armour. This conclusion is what all current research and surviving items support.

      Concerning the tightness of the weaves: I have handled a pair of maille braise (essentially underwear) in the reserve collection of the Royal Armouries that was woven so tightly you could not poke the point of a pencil through it. It was riveted.

      If you are interested in pursuing the subject of armour in more detail there is an awesome bulletin board, www.armourarchive.org. If you are interested in maille in particular, perhaps one of the most knowledgeable in the field today is Mr. Erik D. Schmid. His web page is here: http://webpages.charter.net/erikdschmid/

      Steve

      --
      A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
  61. Food technology by The+Fun+Guy · · Score: 1

    This will come as no surprise to the members of the Institute of Food Technologists. All of the big-scale industrial foods have a TON of science at their core - flavor, color, texture, nutrition, marketability, shelf-life, etc., etc. ad delectum. Spaghetti sauce turned out at 10,000 jars an hour uses all kinds of special processes and ingredients (i.e. chemicals) to achieve the desired outcome. Now, this same science is finding its way into the retail market, for meals prepared at the rate of only 100/hour in a kitchen.

    Better living through chemistry. Long live the food technologists!

    Disclaimer: I'm a Professional Member of IFT, although I'm not employed or paid by them.

    --
    The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
  62. Cooking isn't chemistry by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

    If cooking were chemistry, we'd be measuring solids by weight and not volume. Making bread is far more difficult than it needs to be because two people can't measure out the same cup of flour. I'd blame it on bad lab technique, but it's actually faulty recipes that specify solids (powders) in terms of volume. That makes no sense unless you specify the density of the packing as well. It would be much easier and more accurate to just specify a certain number of grams of flour instead.

    --
    No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    1. Re:Cooking isn't chemistry by Sody · · Score: 1

      Actually, I do weigh my ingredients when baking, for just the reason you say. Sure, it required buying a scale, but it basically made all other measuring implements obsolete. Dry ingredients really only make sense weighed, but most liquids (wich are mostly water) can be weighed very easily as well, assuming 1 fl.oz. = 1 oz. (and "a pint's a pound, the world around).

      A good source for how to start doing this is Alton Brown's book on baking, "I'm Just Here for More Food." Now, whenever I get a baking recipe from somewhere else, the first thing I do is convert the volues to masses.

    2. Re:Cooking isn't chemistry by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

      I determined for myself that 1 fl. oz is not 1 oz.

      1 oz. is about 28 grams, and 1 fl.oz. is something like 29 grams or 29.1 grams. If I'm making 3 billion tons of gravy, that's quite a large difference.

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    3. Re:Cooking isn't chemistry by Dirk+Pitt · · Score: 1

      Open most European and most professional cookbooks, and you'll see ingredients listed by mass instead of volume - for non-liquids. The 'cup of flour' thing is a uniquely American idiocy, AFAIK.

  63. the world is a brutal place by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    so you wish to take that observation as a justification for brutality?

    nothing that victimizes another person is ever 100% tolerated. we're still struggling with that concept, but we're making progress. i don't know how the fact things were once more brutal means that we should accept them, or say that in history there was no search for justice as well

    you wish to paint a pciture of a time when all manner of horrible things took place, and no one cared

    oh, they cared all right, they were just more outnumbered then

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  64. yes by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    i submitted this article

    and i also wrote the comment above that said animal rights activists should grow beef in vats to fight cruelty to animals

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  65. Pinky & The Brain: "Spell Bound" by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

    Using ingredients usually relegated to the lower half of the list of ingredients on a Twinkies wrapper, some professional chefs are turning themselves into magicians with food. Merlin: Sonny Tufts, Sonny Bono, Lorna Luft, Yoko Ono; Paula Abdul, Chip 'n' Dale, Hillary Clinton, Quinton McHale! Behold! I have made a very nice pie.

    (Actual recipe for pie from spell book: Sift one pinch powdered spider nostril, 1 maggot's armpit, 1 smoked tapeworm. Set aside. Blend grumph from a troll's belly button, 2 goat's hoof-jam. Add powdered mixture. Puree until creamy. Add fruit to taste.)
    --
    Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  66. inflating chickens by symes · · Score: 1

    might i assume that you missed the episode where they experimented with inflating a chicken? 'in search of perfection' was one of my favorite tv shows for a while - it appealed to my inner gastro-geek.

  67. I guess you just have to choose where to draw the by maillemaker · · Score: 1

    ...line.

    It seems by your logic, since the animals are being "forced" to do anything at all, then anything at all goes.

    It must be nice to rationalize cruelty so easily.

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
  68. Mushrooms, oranges and horse dung ?? by hman · · Score: 1

    Could you please follow up on those flavor equality charts that put mushrooms, oranges and horse dung together ?

    The shuddering just won't stop.

    1. Re:Mushrooms, oranges and horse dung ?? by stonecypher · · Score: 1

      They share several indoles, terpenes and so forth which create smells and flavors. This shouldn't be surprising: horse dung is made from vegetable matter. Some of it's going to survive.

      The actual charts are enormous, and I'm not retyping them; if you want to see them, buy this book.

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
  69. Blumenthal's Restaurant by kieran · · Score: 1

    there's no way I'm shelling out £300 for a meal at his restaurant.

    I have (although I don't think it was quite that much) - myself and a bunch of friends went for the tasting menu at the Fat Duck, which is not so much a meal as a gastronomic rollercoaster. It was extraordinary, although obviously given the cost I wouldn't go there often.

    The snail porridge was a lot nicer than it sounds, the bacon and egg ice cream not so much. It took a couple of hours all told to work through the numerous, small courses and accompanying wines. I'd recommend it as an experience.