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Hey Hugh,

avid follower of KKC here.
How about:

• “Quick Cook-off”: Many of your readers are like me: single and lazy. So, how about a contest between you three, on who can cook the fastest meal? You’d have to have some constraints to avoid the beans-in-a-can solution, of course…

• Herbs: I like to cook, and I have no problem following a receipe or even improvising, but when seasoning I am often stumped: Rosmary or Thyme? Majoran? All three? Oregano or sage with fish?

• Tenderising with explosives: Yes I know, the mythbusters did it already. Also, might be difficult in England’s fast developing police state. Still: Steak! and explosives!

• Maillard with a vengeance: I think it was in your blowtorch-episode where you detected a faint taste of butane in your sous-vide steak. Well, how about trying alternative sources of heat? The oxyacetylene cutting torch comes to mind, or a plasma torch, or a cutting laser…

• Beer brewing: It’s not exactly cooking, but hey! Beer! Maybe as a contest between you three? Alternatively: Distillation.

• Cooking with electricity: I faintly remember having read that you can fry a sausage by connecting it to the mains, or an arc welder. It was in the internet, it must be true!

• Cheap cooking: For all the students out there (maybe a contest again?). What’s the cheapest eating? Ramen?

Chinese Cookery, if you dare. ;)

to Boris: distillation is strictly and explicitly illegal, with savage penalties, unless you pay lots of money.

To Hugh: I have just started cheese making… it isn’t quick, but it is very relaxing :)

I’m pretty sure you’ve got a better idea of how many domestic versus foreign readers you’ve got (particulary after The Great Boing, which is when I tuned in)…

I read a lot of British authors, and not a small amount of imported tv. Some tend to talk about local foods.

Americans don’t really grok what a kabab shop is (unless it is just a place that serves meat on a stick). Having consulted wikipedia, I’ve learned that you don’t mean quite the same thing by “baked beans” as we do (which is a good thing, otherwise the thought of someone injesting them for breakfast would be a bit sickening.)

(There is also the small matter of “someone” getting the great idea to infect all of our food with high fructose corn syrup.)

Until recently, I was under the impression that Tikki Massala was an Indian dish (I’d only had it at Indian Resturaunts.)

Any possibility of “a guide to British foods for dumb yanks?”

I’m with Boris on cheap cooking ideas. I’d nominate risotto as a candidate, though you do need to cook it properly.

How about something on the effects of refrigeration? Recently a friend told me he’d discovered his roast potatoes tasted much better when he’d used some previously cooked potatoes from the fridge. I read last week that there’s some scientific basis for this – when refrigerated the starches begin to turn into sugars. That set me thinking about how some foods do taste better when cold rather than hot – cold sausages seem more flavoursome than hot. Is there some science behind that? It would be interesting to know.

Me, too! I’d like to see more normal person vs episodes.

Also, I second whoever suggested Chinese cooking. Asian cooking in general is a mystery to me, and I like to know more about its techniques, flavors, and methods.

Plus, I think playing around with the Scoville scale would be entertaining. I saw Paul’s post about eating chilis and just had to laugh.

I enjoy your blog articles about convenience food. A review of some convenience foods wouldn’t be a bad idea, considering you guys are all about the FUTURE. You also have a bunch of knowledge about preservatives and what not.

This might be a long term thing, but (for science) one of you could go on a total health diet and try and completely tank up / lose weight. You could try and disprove the “no pain no gain” thing?

I’m also with Boris Re. herbs. They seem like arbitrary choices until you taste something friggin fantastic using em.

Other convention-challenging food ideas might be a good thing. Ideas around measuring what you eat? Nutrition advice? Experiments with food? This is science, after all!

1. It may seem boring, but how about just presenting some cool recipes and how to make them (with SCIENCE)? What are your favourites?

2. Normal Person VS Mr. T

3. I second the ice cream idea.

4. My girlfriend would like to know how to make perfect pizza dough. There’s a lot of recipes out there, not all of them necessarily good.

@Louise:

That’s bound to make the KK crew happy, since a beautiful crust is all about the Maillard reactions. :-)

Recently spit roasted a pig for my 21st birthday. Was quite expensive (£1 per lb for a full size pig – 140lb ish) but a great way to feed a whole party, and a good excuse for a party if you don’t have another.
Anyway, in my research I found out lots of tv chefs have recently also roasted whole pigs: Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall, Ray Mears…
It’s a also a good way of testing out different cooking ideas – as you can try different marinades/bastings/whatever to different parts of the animal.
Afterwards you could use all the bits left over to do an “offal for the masses” thing – as offal seems to be fashionable at the moment, but for most people still feels like eating somethings entrails.

I saw a recipe on the internet about making cake with cake mix and diet soft drink. Give that a whirl!

http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=51337

How about some kind of semi endangered or exotic animal cook-off?

You could also could do some kind of episode about tomato sauces and how adding different ingredients changes the chemical makeup when stewed. For example, many store brands have added sweeteners in the sauce.

@Evangeline Whittaker: sawdust cannot be assimilated by the human body, so putting it into food may not be a good idea.

Getting flavour out of sawdust, on the other hand, may be something that can be attempted. Wood tar is used as a flavouring in candies in Northen Europe countries, but getting your hands on food-grade tar may be tricky (when I tried to make tar ice cream, I dissolved tar-flavoured gum drops into the hot milk, which made it curdle).

Now, since someone earlier mentioned distillation, may I suggest distillating something else than alcohol? Hervé This mentioned this several times, adding that distillation is forbidden only for alcohol, but you can for example distillate herbs in order to produce essential oils (thyme, rosmary and such; beware that estragon essential oil is highly carcinogenic). This of course requires several kilograms of fresh herbs, which can be tricky to obtain at a reasonable price in winter.

More food for thoughts: Hervé This many times complained about regular kitchen equipment having been designed 1000 years ago (except the microwave oven) and wonders why modern cooks don’t use some of the glassware that is commonly found in chemistry labs (separatory funnel for separating oil from water, Soxhlet extractor for extracting the flavour from solids into a liquid, sintered-glass funnel for clearing a broth…) or partial vacuum cooking using a pressure cooker where the valve is connected to a water aspirator for removing water from a preparation without having to boil it at 100 °C.

Yeah! More Normal Person Vs. D-Bag Celebrity Chefs

I’ve heard folks complaining about the complexity of Martha Stewart recipes— “gala goose”, meringues and spongecakes.

@Evangeline

It seems’s you’re right. At least rabbits have been fed saw dust as a source of dietary fiber:
http://grande.nal.usda.gov/ibids/index.php?mode2=detail&origin=ibids_references&therow=630865

The link however doesn’t show if it has been beneficial or harmfull to the poor bunnies.

More seriously, I don’t know how much saw dust should be processed to become an acceptable form of dietary fiber, but in its usual form it seems (that’s just my opinion) too coarse, and potentially harmfull for the intestine.

Had another idea. Extreme cooking situations.

1) Can you cook eggs on a sidewalk in a heatwave? I don’t know what your climate is like but I’ve been in hundred degree heat waves in New york. Maybe heat up the street with one of your torches…

2) Car engine cooking? Can you make an edible meal with the heat generated from a vehicle. I read an urban legend that construction workers would do this.

3) Extreme foraging challenge. Can you throw a small dinner party with only food you can scrounge?

4) Cooking with thermite? Hell its just cool to set off thermite.

5) Pensioner puppy chow challenge. How nutritious is animal feed and how long could someone survive if its their staple food source? This maybe extremely useful as the economic collapse continues. Extra points if you can make it palatable.

Hugh,
It has to be explaining the regional differences in breakfasts across the UK. Everyone’s heard of the full English, but it rarely, if ever contains haggis, fruit pudding, lorne sausage or potato scones. Irish breakfasts do, but for some reason you don’t get beans quite as frequently.

Also, myth-busting the Galswegian ‘munchie box’, deep fried pizza and the hellish association Scotland has with the deep fried [chocolate bar] needs looked into.

B.

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Hey guys,

just found the site – great stuff !

One suggestion: Did you ever look into this whole “molecular cooking” thing ? I mean, talking science and food, and hilarious but fun stuff. Try spheres – I had tons of fun experimenting with that stuff. Goes a bit with the “normal person vs.” idea, but is a bit more sciencey ;)

Cheers,
E

I think you need to look more into the myth that British food is crap. Grab a foreign friend to help out. Preferably french. Teach them how to cook a good traditional dish.

Can you find an australian to do a barbecue-off against in the summer?

Something about the demise of the fish’n’chippy and the rise of the curry house. Just lots more about curries, both the english versions, and the original inspirations.

Nutrition and poverty/scarcity. George Orwell had an interesting shopping list in The Road to Wigan Pier for how to feed a family cheaply and well. How much would that cost now? Is the list any good? And what about rationing? How did people make do then? Rationing-era recipes?

Science! The fat and calorie content of various fast foods. Include kebabs.

How about a show (or blog posting) about things that are worth making by hand and things that you are better off purchasing?

For example:
Mozzarella – I think you could save money by making yourself and get better results.
Bread – I think you can get great at home results but probably won’t save you money.
Pizza – Depends on where you live, I think you’d save money and get better results.
Beer – I am guessing this won’t save you much money, and you need to really be into at home brew to get better results.

I am sure there are plenty of other things too, Yogurt, Snack food or Enegery/Protein bars, Preserves/Jams or Peanut Butter (or almond, etc).

You could probably make a competition out of this some how.

Not sure if this may be too tenuous/complex, but I had an idea so I thought I’d share it.

I’ve only been backpacking once, but I found the best thing to take with me for food was Army Surplus 24 hour ration packs. These pack a reasonably balanced diet for one (very active) person into a surprisingly small space, using a minimum of extra weight. They have a good shelf life, and I’m told they’re also good for longer outdoor events like paintballing and LARP weekends.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4221838.stm

The problem is there’s only so many menus of ration pack available, they get boring after a while, and if you don’t want to spend a fortune then you’ll need to buy a pack of ten of the same meal.

One option is to make my own, but I don’t know enough about the science to do it.

How about a how-to style episode on building your own ration packs, with an emphasis on getting the best variety of flavour, perhaps by using different stock/drippings when preparing them to get one main course with several flavours? Or even the science behind them: eg if you lived on these for some time, would the lack of fresh fruit and veg’ be a problem?