Curious Cook

In salts, a pinch of Bali or a dash of Spain (New York Times)

WHENEVER I’m flying home and the plane passes over the south end of San Francisco Bay, my eyes can’t linger long enough over its startling patches of orange and red.

They’re sea salt ponds, cultivated to produce pure snow-white sodium chloride for industry and for the table. The colors in the ponds come from unusual microbes that thrive in the evaporating brine and produce pigments to cope with the intense sunlight.

A few months ago I finally encountered the colors of that briny life up close, in a jar of salt from the Murray River region in southeastern Australia. The remains of salt-loving bacteria and algae give the crystals a beautiful pink blush and a faint, pleasant aroma.

These days, salts come from all over the world, in many hues and crystal forms and textures. But this welcome blizzard is borne on a whirlwind of obfuscatory hype.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: The tastes of salts

In my first column of 2011 I write about the blizzard of specialty salts that now come our way from all over the world, and describe two recent academic studies that examine whether different salts actually do have distinctive tastes.

A few additional points for which there wasn't room in the column:

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Making Candies in the Microwave

In my last Curious Cook column for 2010, I write about the advantages of cooking down candy mixes in the microwave oven, which is more forgiving in several ways than the stovetop. I also give recipes for nut brittle, New-Orleans-style pralines, and saffron-flavored Turkish delight.

 For any home cook who enjoys candy-making or would like to give it a try, I strongly recommend Peter Greweling's recent book Chocolates and Confections, in the Culinary Institute of America's "At Home" series (John Wiley & Sons, 2010).  His Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner (Wiley, 2007) delves deeper into the technical details.

And for an eye-opening review of just how complex the chemistry of candy syrups is, take a look at the review cited below.

 

Curious Cook in the New York Times: What heat does to the flavors of cooking oils

In today's Curious Cook column I write about what happens to the flavors of cooking oils when they're heated, and about the value of paying attention to oil flavor. It turns out that delicious and pricey extra-virgin olive oils lose much of their  aroma in the pan. And stale, rancid oils are less healthful than fresh oils. I also mention the dismaying finding of researchers at the University of California at Davis that many American consumers prefer the flavors of defective olive oils to the flavors of high-quality oils--probably because they seldom get the chance to taste good oils!

Due to an editing error, the print edition of the column misstates the identity of the taste panel that tested the set of olive oils before and after cooking. It was the research panel of the University of California Cooperative Extension program, not a taste panel at U.C. Davis or its Olive Center. The web edition of the column has been corrected.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Smoky ribs without the fire

In my June 30 Curious Cook column, I write about the challenges of genuinely low and slow cooking on home grills, and provide a recipe for reliably moist ribs cooked in the oven, with smokiness provided by pimentón chilli powder.

Many readers have pointed out that simple rib racks help keep more than one slab suitably distant from the hot flames or coals. This is true, and the column would have been better for having included that option.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: The pungent chemistry of garlic and onions

In my June 9 Curious Cook column I present the culinary highlights from a new and surprisingly readable treatise on Garlic and Other Alliums written by Eric Block, the world's leading authority on the chemistry of the onion family and a professor at SUNY Albany. In addition to many fascinating cultural and botanical details, the book describes the several Allium flavor tribes, explains how to control their pungency, notes the source and treatment of garlic breath, and warns of the hazard posed by garlic and onions to household pets.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Cooking pasta in minimal water

In today's Curious Cook column, I write about a different way to cook pasta: starting in cups of cold water instead of quarts at a rolling boil. The pasta comes out fine, and the small amount of leftover cooking water is thick, delicious, and useful.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Heating with microwaves

In this month's Curious Cook column I write about the peculiarities and powers of the microwave oven.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Heat

In today's Curious Cook column, I write about the ins and outs of an important but invisible ingredient in most cooking: heat energy.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Potato chips

In today's Dining section of the Times I write about potato chips: the sounds they make, the music that has been made from them, and the forces that shape them.

My source for those shaping forces was Paul Green, a professor of plant biology at Stanford, and a friend. Paul died in 1998. In the column he became "Mr. Green." When I find a near-perfect chip and think of him, I don't think of Mr. Green, I think of Paul.

For helping me understand and explain the physics of chip shape, I thank two people who worked with Paul as postdoctoral fellows: Jacques Dumais of Harvard University and Sidney Shaw of Indiana University. Of course the simplifications and approximations are my doing, not theirs.

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Kim, S.-E. et al. Development of a method for the musical expression of cognitive food taste. Food Sci. Biotechnology 2005, 14, 738-42. 

Zampini, M. and C. Spence. The role of auditory cues in modulating the perceived crispness and staleness of potato chips. Journal of Sensory Studies 2004, 19, 347-63.

Green, P. Transductions to generate plant form and pattern: An essay on cause and effect. Annals of Botany 1996, 78, 269-81.