More than just groceries (Image: Ozzieadria/Flickr)
On a crisp Sunday morning I head to the Queen Victoria markets in Melbourne, Australia. I'm not here for my weekly groceries, but to witness an adventurous attempt to take science out of the lab and to the people.
It's for Australia's National Science Week, which runs from 13 to 21 August.
Between the strawberries and cheap clothes, there are a series of stalls explaining the science behind some our favourite foods: chocolate, bread and ice cream.
Amongst the demonstrations, and perhaps a little out of place, I see a futuristic solar car and in the distance someone is dressed as a robot.
With a strong coffee in my hand, I head to the stall offering chocolate samples and dive in for a bite. But I get a quick roasting from the stall owner, and am directed to the other side of the bench - where the less enticing raw cocoa beans are on display. It seems I have to learn the science, before I get my reward.
Cocoa beans are seeds of the football-sized fruit produced by the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao). I'm handed raw bean to taste. It's bitter and has a dirty texture, but I can still appreciate the raw essence of chocolate.
To turn these beans into one of the world's most popular junk foods, they will be fermented, dried, and then roasted. While they are roasting, 2-acetylpyrroline, dubbed "the roasting chemical", will be formed. This chemical is created when any protein and carbohydrate-rich food is roasted so it is found in freshly made toast, roasted coffee and steak. The human nose, I'm told, is incredibly sensitive to this chemical and can detect a billionth of a gram of it in the air.
The roasted beans are ground and tightly pressed creating a cake of powdered cocoa bean solids and a rich, viscous cocoa butter.
Sugar, vanilla and milk are carefully blended into the cocoa butter and the mixture is slowly heated and then cooled so that it hardens to create chocolate. I'm finally awarded a sample of some of the stuff to eat.
I head to my next stop: the "starch table". Here, market goers are encouraged to add iodine to the foodstuffs on display to test their starch content. It's not hard-hitting science but it is fun to watch as a wide-eyed girl realises the same molecule could be detected in corn, white bread and potato by merely adding some blue-looking dye.
From the corner of my eye I see smoke steaming from a mixing bowl. Turns out, Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks is making ice cream using a recipe that would make Betty Crocker cringe. He is mixing milk, cream, sugar and some freshly boiled nitrogen gas. At -196? Celsius, the gas instantly solidifies the mixture, which prevents chunky ice crystals forming and keeps the ice cream smooth.
Unfortunately, Potter is a little too fast and loose with the gas. Using an infrared thermometer he shows that his ice cream is -10? Celsius, meaning that if I tried some, my tongue would burn from the cold.
In the next hour or so, I waltz through the market hearing about sustainable fish, looking at strawberry DNA, and poking a pregnant crab.
Back at home, I tell my sister of my science adventures in the market. "What does cooking have to do with science?" she asks. I scoff.
"Cooking isn't magic, it's the denaturing of proteins," I reply, repeating a phrase of Potter's. Curiously, she looks at me for a moment, and walks away.
quran recitation consumer reports consumer reports db cooper christina perri christina perri cosmo
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.