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There has been some talk in the secular/humanist blogosphere about the need for bringing the two great "magisteria" of human culture, namely the arts and sciences closer in the 21st century. I am not sure how possible this will be, especially after the usurpation of scientific methods by racist/fascist ideologies in the first half of the 20th century and the the reactionary "post-modern" zeitgeist prevailing in the arts world. What I know is possible is that an alternative set of two great "magisteria" can be brought together. I am talking about the culinary art and science. The French Chemist Hervé This has already taken few big steps in this direction. It all started one day when he was preparing cheese suffle. The recipe told one should add 4 eggs one by one. The Chemist in him told him that putting all at one should not be a problem. In the end, his hastiness spoiled the suffle. As a scientist, he set out to discover the scientific explanations for suc...

When it comes to cooking, there are two things one should be very careful with. Deserts and simple recipes. While you can pretty much play around with the ingredients during cooking for other types of food, this is impossible for deserts. And the importance of ratios becomes more important if you have only a handful of them that define the taste. So a simple desert is actually the hardest to cook. Being nothing more than milk, cream, sugar and gelatin the Piemontese delicacy Panna Cotta is an example of such desert, which I have been trying to cook lately. The trick, which I could not master yet is to get the consistency right. This has got to do with the ratios, the temperature, as well as the sequence of mixing the ingredients. Some restaurants employ the cheap trick of putting flour to get more consistency, but in the end kills the taste completely. The Panna Cotta should taste no more than sweet cold milk which happens to come in a solid form. Flour is a no go for Panna Cotta. Here...

I'll start with a question, a very basic question. How many basic tastes are there? Until last week I could come up with 4: Salty Sour Sweet Hot Which was not complete and also wrong. Hotness associated with chili is not a basic taste by definition. The complete taste list looks like this. Salty Sour Sweet Bitter Umami I am not joking. Umami is a relatively newly discovered tasting capability with humans, and associated with the amino acid glutamic acid, which is the building block of many proteins. however taste comes from the free form or the salt of glutamic acids. It literally means the "delicious taste" in Japanese. It is associated with fermented protein containing products, such as cheese, ham, East Asian Fish Sauce, and as well as vegetables like aspargus, sea weed and tomatoes. I came across this flavor, when I got interested in Old Roman Cooking. Back in the days, the Romans stored fish in salt, to prevent them from roting. After 4 months the fermenting bacte...