(incomplete) notes from the Food Pairing seminar held in Brugge 2008.01.05 > http://www.theflemishprimitives.com/

• cooking as a src of inspiration fr the physical sciences
• importance of 'questions of why?'
• cooking pots → ceramics → materials science
• boiling pot → steam engine
• split between science and cookery ~1900
• rewoven with n.kurit ~1960
• vegetables & salt
  • myth of 'keeping greens green'
  • myths of boiling point changes
• heat & meat
  • heat denatures protein in meat and softens connective tissue
  • possible to establish a series of temperature intervals for optimal cooking
• gels
  • what can be used beyond pectin & 'jelly'?
  • currently 15-30 known gelling agents that are edible, with various characteristics
• glass
  • anything 'crisp' or 'crunchy' eg. toffee, isomalt(?)
• ice cream
  • what makes it taste creamy or smooth?
  • extremely small particles (less than 0.1mm)
  • can be made by very rapid (eg. liquid nitrogen icecream, or very even cooling (traditional)
• what is flavour?
  • flavour is a mental construct, composed of sensory input from ALL senses as well as memory
  • sight, esp. colour affects flavour →
    • eg. adding 'tasteless' red/blue food colouring to white wine & compare with uncoloured sample of same wine.
  • sound →
    • affects the 'mechanical' actions and perceived texture of what we are eating
    • 'crunchy' sounds will cause slower, more careful mastication, louder noises will increase 'crunchiness'
    • people tend to chew in time with music
    • experiments with playback (& amplification,damping and delay) of eating noises while eating. (x.ref)
  • touch →
    • what we are touching while we eat, as well as the textures of the food affects what we taste.
    • eg. feeling sand paper while eating crème brûlée