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What's new in food?Hugh
2009-03-20 11:51:00 UTC

As you may have noticed, we’re running a bit low on things we urgently want to blog about over here. So, in the spirit of the Web being a conversation, we thought we’d ask you:

What’s interesting that’s going on in science, food and cooking right now? What should we be learning about, experimenting with, looking into? What’s inspired you lately?


Comments

Sandra Stewart | 2009-03-20 18:47:48 UTC

I think you should talk about heirloom vegetables and the resurgence in popularity.

Tomatoes are a great example of a big boom in the interest in and consumption of varieties that were popular among home gardeners decades ago but modern folks hadn’t come across – aside from the typical varieties that you can get at the grocery.

Jennifer | 2009-03-20 18:51:38 UTC

My friend thinks she may have accidentally made a vinegar mother by leaving a jar of homemade pickles in the fridge too long. Possible?

Speaking of pickles and sous-vide, what kind of pickles can you make with a vacuum?

SpudTater | 2009-03-20 19:08:08 UTC

Hmmm… Heston’s trips through food history have been entertaining me muchly. What techniques and ingredients have been all but forgotten by modern cooking? What are due a comeback?

Jim Mulligan | 2009-03-21 05:42:41 UTC

I would like to see you guys try to cook a gourmet meal using only a toaster oven and a hotplate. Extra points if there’s critics (girlfriends? guest stars?) involved.
No, I don’t want to turn you into some god-forsaken Gordon Ramsey trifle. It would be interesting, however, to see you do a completely low-tech show. Or blog.
You could also experiment using uncharacteristic spices, to see if you can come up with something new that is palatable.
You can translate and update some historical recipes, too. Some of those Roman orgie banquet fare, perhaps, but please leave out the vomitorium. And no hummingbird tongues, they’re sooo last millenium.
One last thought, before the praise:
You can never go wrong with bacon.
I love your show. Sous-vide sounds great, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Please, consider this encouragement to keep doing whatever it actually is that you’re doing.

Victor Wong | 2009-03-22 14:44:15 UTC

Well, seeing as how we’ve got a recession on, how about this:

1. Offal meats like tongue, tripe and liver are fairly cheap. So you might have a go at trying to make a gourmet dish using offal.

2. Not sure if the weather’s nice enough over there, but if it is, here’s a myth you can try to bust: is there are real difference between cooking any stew or one-pot dish with a camp stove and cooking over an open camp fire?

3. If there’s one genre of cookbooks worse than a “slab-chef” book, it’s the celebrity non-chef cookbook — stuff like The Star Trek Cookbook or the Star Wars recipe for Yoda’s favorite stew or the Wiseguy or Sopranos cookbooks or a “lord of the rings” recipe for lembas bread. You might try one of those (personally I like the Star Trek recipe for bregit lung, which is essentially a fancy way of doing tripe with onions).

4. You might think “hi-tech” vs “low-tech” — i.e. a sous-vide machine vs. a Ziploc bag, a straw and a slow cooker, or a food processor vs. knives and graters for making a pate. After all, how hard could it be?

Matthieu Weber | 2009-03-23 08:59:23 UTC

I’ve been trying to make my own yoghourt, with my own yoghourt machine (a styrox box with a light bulb to maintain the temperature), but I don’t manage to get a firm gel, only something thick with thin lumps in it.

The other ongoing work is to make chocolate ice cream that is not rock hard when coming out of the freezer (no success yet, altough it worked well with hazelnut ice cream). I tried adding starch, k-carraghenans, glucose, egg whites, whipped cream… but without much success.

Clare | 2009-03-23 16:01:46 UTC

I heartily recommend quinoa as pretty tasty and healthy. Makes a good tabouli.

Also, any chance of the ‘science’ approach to the perfect stir fry?

Hugh | 2009-03-24 17:07:19 UTC

Ooh, scientific stir fry… First, get your VERY VERY VERY hot flame…

Yoghurt’s interesting too. And offal. And…

Oh, they’re all interesting. Thanks. Will try to get through the research in the next while.

Dougal Stanton | 2009-03-24 17:38:43 UTC

How about making effective use of work kitchens? All we have here is a microwave and a kettle but I really want to make scrambled egg on toast :-)

Unfortunately I don’t have a microwave at home on which to practise!


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