[0:00] You're listening to the Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live to the Cosmos from the backyard at Roberta's in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

[0:14] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from approximately 12 to 1245 every Tuesday on the Heritage Radio

[0:24] Network in the back of Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Nastasia the Hammer Lopez, not here today, but we are currently joined in the studio with Brooks

[0:35] Headley, the master pastry chef, Del Posto Restaurant. And some of you, uh, might not know a uh, longtime hardcore musician. True. Uh, yeah, yeah. It's a very checkered pass, so... Well, I mean, and present. You still play occasionally, right? Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, you like, you know, Austin, the whole nine. What's your current band? Or Banza. It's called Crash. Crash? You've had names that were a little more less safe for work, haven't you, in the past or no? No, I mean, they're all pretty safe. Yeah, it's just worse. Yeah, yeah. what are you, what are you, just words. I like that. And what are you what are you playing in the band? I've always played drums. It's the only thing I know how to do. People that can play multiple instruments piss me off, so. I like that. You know what pisses me off is people who do like more than one thing at a time. It's like, what the hell, you know, it's like, uh, I mean, I was never, uh, I was never much of a hardcore guy. hardcore or just like, what do you think? classify yourself as hardcore? I don't know. I mean, you hate classification like every band member ever? No, it's I don't know. I don't even know anymore, so. people you play with, what are they categorized as? I don't think they know either, so. All right, all right. Anywho, uh, yeah. People who play multiple instruments, especially in any genre of music where kind of like how good you

[1:54] are, depends on how much physical energy you throw into the performance, right? I don't know about your music. That's the way I was. If you do more than one thing, it's like you're just not spending enough energy doing the one thing that you're doing. You're not paying enough attention, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, to a certain, yeah. I go with that. All right. Ariel Johnson, our favorite PhD candidate at University of California Davis. Here, uh, Ariel, grab a, grab a mic over here. I don't really know what department she's in. Yeah, she's going to climb over me, folks, so you're going to hear a pause. Oh she's going back to me. strong, strong. Uh, I really don't know what department she's in, but uh, she deals, we deal with her mainly in the in the area of uh, flavor and uh, studies of flavor. And her speciality on her piece of equipment is a very nice gas chromatograph that can do small volumes for food. describe this crap. Okay, so my home department is viticulture and analogy, but I do all kinds of flavor chemistry.

[2:53] But the GC that we have lets us separate complex mixtures of aromas and combine any amount that we

[3:01] want and then analyze their smell. That's gas chromatograph for all you fools out there. Oh sorry. And so basically, what correct me when I'm wrong, but this piece of equipment does, and it's something that we all want, none of us own, what this basically does, you take a sample, and it's slowly kind of, I guess the word is eluded or drawn through a long

[3:20] column. And the rate at which things are drawn through is characteristic for each compound. So you will separate it based on how fast it goes through this column, true or

[3:33] false. True, definitely true. Right. Yeah, so you start with a complex mixture and each component interacts differently with a column and then eludes in a nice order. Right. And then how do how does it, how do you check then? Is it for people out there? How do you then check how much of that compound is there as it goes through? Well, we have a detector called a mass spectrometer. Yeah, that shows the amount of each compound as a peak and the area under the peak is related to

[3:59] concentration. All right, so now all you folks who don't already know this, which most of our listeners probably do, but if you don't, when you're watching the CSI

[4:06] Miami and they say, uh, do they still have that show? I don't have a TV. I don't know. Anyway. So anyway, so when they do that, they're like, ah, GC Mass Spec, that's what they're talking about. Gas chromatograph and then through a mass spectrometer. But the cool thing about Ariel's one is that you can, true or false, you can bottle the crap and sniff it yourself when you're done, right? Yeah, we use liquid CO2 to condense everything down and remix it and then smell it. Me, me, me, me, me, liquid CO2. CO2 for liquid CO2 for all of you guys out there is like one of the world's great

[4:37] solvents, and it's also relatively nice and clean,

[4:43] simple, and friendly to use in a lab, assuming you have the equipment. Yes? Yes, yeah. Also, does very little to... It's fairly neutral and that doesn't degrade most of the things you're working with, right? Okay. I mean, I don't know whether, I mean, I'm sure most of the solvents they use don't degrade things otherwise. wouldn't use them. That's true Yeah, okay. All right, so call in all of your questions either about flavor chemistry or about world's greatest pastries or about any random

[5:11] bull crap you choose. Two, 718-4972128. 718-4972128. And while we're at it. Last week, we made the horrible mistake of not talking about our sponsors modernist pantry. Have any of you guys used the modernist pantry? I've seen the website. You've seen the website, but you know, you've already you've had your suppliers for years, so you probably like, you know, have you ever

[5:33] used? I never have. I have an order. I keep meaning to buy from them. Yeah. Maybe now is the time. I haven't either. I'm ashamed to say, but I have sent many people to them and

[5:43] have heard only good things. So here is this week's, what do you call it, plug, plug? Plug? Okay. Okay. Today's show is sponsored by modernist pantry, supplying innovative ingredients for the modern cook. Do you love to experiment with new cooking techniques and ingredients, but hate to overspend for pounds

[5:59] of supplies when only a few grams are needed per application? Modernist pantry has a solution. They offer a wide range of modern ingredients in packages that make sense for the home cook and enthusiast. And most cost only around 5 bucks. Same you time, money and storage space, presumably they just size, whatever it is they're using to a $5 size, right? I mean, you know, it's like you could say that crack only costs 5 bucks, but then they keep making the size of the crack vial smaller and smaller. True? Uh, I'll take that. Like with Coca-Cola moving to a 20 ounce bottle. What? Well, they used to only have small bottles and then they moved to 20 ounce, but charge the same price. Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, so you're talking about, like, the leader went down to a 20 because I always bought 20s to pound, like a 20 is a nice, I'm going to pound this right now size. Yeah, in like a vending machine. Oh, and a vending machine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't purchased Coca-Cola from vending machine a long time. My wife will not let me purchase soda for the children, even though I grew up. I only drank carbonated beverages growing up, except for a very short kind of crystal light phase that I went through where I only drink crystal light. And for those of you out there. Crystal light is actually a huge influence on me Really? For real? You also grew up drinking the crystal light or just later? No, I always hated it, and I thought it tasted terrible, but it's hugely influential in how I look at food for sure. Really? And now, is true or false, you only use aspartam in all of your recipes. That's it. Yeah, only ask for tape. We're lying, by the way. That was a joke for all of you who are very concrete thinkers out there. That is not the case. Wait, the problem is, is if you drink diet, sodas, and or diet, lemonade mixes, or whatever. They have horrible new fake mocktails, by the way, crystal. I haven't tried them, but the idea is horrible. They have a powder that they label mojito, which is that's an impossibility to have a mojito powder. That sounds gross. Yeah, it's horrible. Especially, you know, I'm sure they don't use aspartam anymore. I detest Stevia by the way. Anyone out there who tries to call me up and say that yours, Stevie, is better than anyone else's. The freaking plant tastes bad. I've tasted it like directly, like grown. I've walked up to the plant, picked the leaf off and be like, yes, that awful, metallic, bitter, crappy aftertaste is inherent to the product.

[8:10] And not, I mean, unless, and what I freaking love about this is that there are companies who sit there working around how to mask the incredibly awful taste.

[8:19] Anyway, it's pretty gross. Yeah. So for those of you that are like, well, why don't you just drink the regular one, it's because those of us who drink predominantly diet liquids don't like to drink flat water for our hydration. We don't enjoy the flat water. We are throwbacks, some sort of Lamarckian genetic throwback to the days when water was poisonous, and none of us like to drink that. And so the issue is, if you were to drink regular soda or regular lemonade as your sole source of hydration, that would be absurd.

[8:52] Like who wants to drink a jug of maple syrup every day? Very few of us, right? So where diet soda drinkers are coming from is we inure ourselves to the horrible aftertaste, and eventually you learn to like it, right? If you haven't done it in a long time, you know, it's hard sometimes to go back, but you kind of get over that taste hump. And then all of a sudden, it doesn't bother you anymore. And we pound, we pound liter after liter of this crap every day. Now, that is why when you are shopping for somebody's party, uh, and you are a regular soda drinker, you make the uh, the horrible error of purchasing equal amounts of diet soda and regular soda.

[9:25] When anybody knows, if even 2 diet soda drinkers show up to your party. They will pound every amount of diet soda that you have provided. You all know this to be true. Anyway, my recommendation to do is instead of getting on these crappy, like, you know, mojito powder, 1st of all, first, if you're

[9:41] going to put alcohol into it, just making a real drink. Otherwise, you're a bad person. But, uh, I mean, that strongly, maybe, but kind of close, right? No, you should you should stand by that for sure. Yeah, all right, okay. Uh, but uh, my my big suggestion is learn to like seltzer. When I was a kid, I always drank soda. So I was bubbles all the way back. all the way back, bubbles, bubbles, bubbles, my whole life, bubbles. I started on tab in the 70s, all right? Bubbles. But, uh, but I didn't like Seltzer for a long time. And then when I was going to the college, I realized that I was going to be cheaper for me to drink seltzer water. And I'm really, I'm a cheap, cheap, cheap man. And so at that time, a cheap, cheap, cheap boy. And so what I did was I, uh, uh, I trained myself over the course of a couple of weeks to, uh, like the

[10:29] self-ser, and then much like diet soda flavors in general, aspertain at the time, uh, you

[10:34] learn to love it, and now, uh, I'll never go back. I'm a social man forever. Back to the monitor's pantry. This all came from the 5 bucks thing. that's where I was. Okay. Whether you are looking for hydrocolloids, pH buffers or even meat glue, you'll find it at modernist pantry. And if you need something that they don't carry, just ask, Chris Anderson and his team will be happy to source it for you with inexpensive shipping to any country in the world. Modernist pantry is your one stop shop for innovative cooking ingredients. Modernist pantry carries 3 types of spray dried vinegar powder, white, malt and balsamic. By the way, if you use vinegar powder, you got to realize acetic acid is volatile, right? It's one of the few acids that we use in cooking that is extremely volatile. A lot of organic acids are volatile. But this gives a lot of characteristic flavor, you know, aroma flavors to certain alcoholic

[11:20] beverages, distilled beverages. But the majority of acids that we deal with on a daily basis. In the kitchen, citric acid, malic acid, tartaric acid, non-volatile. Acetic acid is. So if you get sprayed dried vinegar powder, it has the flavor, like a taste of a vinegar, but there's almost no acidity. And so when you're adding a vinegar powder or something to make it acidic, you will have to cheat it with another

[11:42] acid. So a typical cheater acid would be citric acid because it's the most neutral of the dry powdered acids that you can buy.

[11:52] And people are used to associating the kind of lemony acid hit of citric acid in

[12:02] general. And so apparently there are cheater acids out there that are specifically meant to give the acidic kick to things like potato

[12:08] chips. I don't have. I had a guy who slipped me his card once. He's like, I make them call me, but Nastasia, I don't know whether she ever called the guy. So I don't have the source for them yet, and I can't tell you what they are. So if you buy it, I would also suggest buying from them some citric acid powder. The one gripe I have with the commercial citric acid powders is the

[12:28] granual size is relatively large. It's somewhere in between US granulated sugar and a US superfine sugar. So it's a little bit too granular for me for the compared to the spray dried powders, which are very, very powdery because of the method in which they're made. So there's no ideal solution yet. Maybe buy some citric acid, pulse it in a spice grinder for a little while to try and get it a little more

[12:48] powdered so that it integrates better with the vinegar powder. Anyway, okay. We carry 3 types of spray dried vinegar powders, white, malt, and balsamic. Fans of cooking issues. It plays an order of $25 or more before next week's show, we'll get a free package of malt vinegar powder. choice. powder, good stuff. Uh, which is perfect for making modernist fish and chips. Do they use that in the fish and chip recipe in the modernist cuisine? Anyone? Anyone? Should have had that crap on last week when Maxine was here. Simply use the promo code CI 80 when placing your order online at modernestpantry.com. Visit modernistpantry.com today for all of your modernist cooking needs. Okay. So, uh, by the way, you know, I have no idea whether these guys are pissed off or not that I constantly like stop in the middle of their promos and

[13:30] like make comments and whatnot. I think that's why they keep coming back. I think they like it Really? Yeah, who knows? All right. So, hey, Brooks, I don't know you haven't, because by the way, folks, if you don't know me, I'm a jerk, and I haven't

[13:42] given Brooks any of the information that we're going to talk about before the show. So he has no idea what the hell's going on. I plan to be completely sandbagged here. That's how it goes. So we're going to start, though, with the reason Ariel, I hadn't planned on having her on the show today, but she wrote in a comment based on the kind of flavor pairings, question we had last

[14:04] week and the paper on flavor pairings. By the way, I'm going to buy that book by that Somoye is very interested in this. Oh, the taste buds and molecules? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have no judgment on it because I have not read it yet. I refuse to make comments on things I haven't read yet either pro or negative. The reviews are mixed on Amazon, but mainly about the graphics presentation of it, which some people really

[14:24] like and some people really hate, but I'm going to check it. So for those of you that don't know what in the hell we're talking about, flavor pairing is this concept, I think, largely bunk, and by bunk, I

[14:35] mean crap, that you should be able to pick out the different flavors that you

[14:40] use based on their underlying chemical composition. In other words, if parrot meat shares a specific flavor compound with donkey

[14:55] poo, that you might want to put the parrot and the donkey poo together in a dish. Obviously, I don't really mean, but whatever. don't kill parrots. But eat donkey poo? Well, that's up to you. I mean, you're not hurting it. like no one's going to get angry at you for it. True, yeah, yeah. And, you know, my family's had parrots, please. I have no comments on how I'm anti-par-. I' prepared. I wanna get a parrot action. My wife doesn't like birds, but I want a bird because my kids want a pet, but we have no room for a dog. We can't have cats because we're allergic to the cats and my decision laws allergic to the cats, but I want a pet that they will give a crap about people and parrots are like the other pet that cares about people, even though they're weird about

[15:33] it. Like they're weird about it because they're birds, but anyway, whatever anyway. So we're talking about this concept. There's this paper that came out recently that actually what they did is they did a mass database, data mining study of recipes. And then those recipes, they look to see whether or not they shared

[15:49] chemical, the hammer just walked in. Nastasia. Uh, they compared those recipes to see whether or not there was any actual, uh, whether it's true that recipes that we tend to make over the course of decades, years, centuries actually share more flavor components than would be if you just chose recipes at random, which is the horrible idea that

[16:08] Erveitis actually espouses it. We should make sauces on randomly based on a computer, have them generated, and then see whether or not they taste good, which seems to me to be the monkey typing Shakespeare way of making food, which is preposterous and horrible.

[16:22] So, Brooks, you familiar with this taste pairing hypothesis crap? Um, not entirely now. But so far, I mean, I know I presented it in a rather biased jaundice light. Does this sound like a good idea or would you prefer to base flavor combinations on the years you've spent tasting and cooking?

[16:39] Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's like, um, it's all, it's repetition, you know? Like repetition of making things or tasting things. Um, like you kind of like build your palate, I guess. Yeah, that's the way I think about it. So area. That just seems just like normal, so... Yeah, and of course, like, you know, now, like, it's very rare that I'm in the position of being like the old codger son of a bitch who's like, just modern stuff. You know what I mean? But, like, it seems to me that, look, in the end, anything that helps you make better food, good idea. Like, I don't care what your inspiration is. If your inspiration is, you know, looking at constellations and somehow looking at constellations and you have some sort of matrix that

[17:20] then like gets your creative juices flowing and your food ends up tasting good. Bueno. But you know what I mean? The crystal light logo. Yeah, sure. Like, sure, Brooks. Yeah, that that splash. Brooks, the splash on the crystolite logo. Apparently, Brooks is now telling me true or false, inspiration for all of your cooking. Not all of it, but a lot of the fruit-based things for sure. What about the celery sorbet? your amazing celery sorbet. No, I don't think that had anything to do with the crystal light logo. Please, please. For those of you that don't know, by the way, before, I'm going to get Ariel on this in a 2nd about the what she thinks about it. And I want her to give me her unvarnished opinion, pro or negative, because nothing I like better than a good argument. But Brooks, and we've said this a 1000000 times on the show, you know, whenever you try and say that he's doing innovative work, he'll say he's not, but the fact of the matter is makes delicious desserts that you aren't expecting.

[18:13] So for me, that's innovation right there. What do you think? Nastache, what do you think? You have to you have to speak up. You're not by a microphone. Yeah, okay. So, Ariel, what are your thoughts on what are your thoughts on this flavor pairing stuff? On flavor pairing around this paper? First, give me flavor pairing, nutshell, and then this paper in, you know, another

[18:31] separate nutshell. Well, I would imagine that shared compounds and shared volatiles may play some role in a novel flavor pairing, whether or not someone eating it likes it or not, but it's not going to be a

[18:44] deterministic guarantee that a parent will work. And it might have to do more with the non-shared compounds on how those go together when you make a

[18:52] pairing out of things. So what you're saying is that it may or may not have any relevance at all. Yes. Do you find it an interest, like, is it interesting to you as a as a starting point or as a framework in which to

[19:05] work? Do you have you seen any dishes that have come out of it that would otherwise not have come into the world that you think are going to be here for a long time because they're so freaking

[19:15] awesome? Well, I don't know that I could comment on longevity, but I have had some interesting, like, uh, orange and beetroot type things that Heston Blumenthal made. That makes sense to me. Well, it makes sense to you, but would it make sense to anybody? Otherwise, orange and beets don't sound like they're so, they're not so far off. I mean, they make it makes sense to me from a cook's perspective, right? Yeah, no, that doesn't sound weird, huh? Yeah. Like liver and jasmine sounds weird. So then, well, yeah. That sounds weird. I've never had that. Yeah, but I mean, that's one of the classic. Yeah, yeah. I haven't had the white chocolate and caviar before. Yeah, yeah, Maxine was talking about that lessing concept. Yeah, I just tasted it. It depends on the proportion between white chocolate and caviar, but it can be kind of cool. Also, caviar is such a wide ranging flavor. That's true. And white chocolate is evil. Yeah, it's true. Also true. Thank God we have Brooks here. awesome. Okay, so what? Wait a minute, we're not done talking about this paper yet. They won't take a break. All right. So, uh, and by the way, while we're taking a break, you better call in your freaking questions, so 71, 84, and 72,

[20:21] 128, 718, 497, 2128. Okay. Now, about the paper. Well, by the way, paper, yeah, describe the paper very quickly. Okay, so what the paper did, they took a gigantic set of recipes, I think, from all recipes, and some Korean sight. But yeah, did a Korean site to see whether or not Western perception of Korean food was the same as Korean perception of Korean food,

[20:39] right? So they took this gigantic online recipe database and took each recipe and looked at the ingredients in each and then from some handbook of essential oils and a couple of other things determined what compounds were in each ingredient. Which is a horseshit technique, right? Well, considering that the, uh, aroma character, if any given compound is dependent on

[20:57] concentration, I'm not sure how relatable to flavor their data set, actually. Wildly dependent, right? Oh, extremely. I'm told what I meant to say was horse poop. Yeah, so in other words, you'll know off the tip of your tongue, but like certain things can go from being like pleasantly grassy to vomit, like depending on

[21:15] concentration, right? Yeah, ethyl buterate is a good example of that. That at a nice medium concentration smells like green apple. Um, as you increase the concentration, it starts smelling like rotten apples and then finally like feet or really, really stinky cheese. Wasn't that the name of your last band? Come on, man. Like Ethel Merman buterate. That's your next band. FM rum and biterate. You know, Brooke sometimes will have like nano bands that like, you know, are only there. Maybe one of them could be... like a pop-up? Yeah, it's a micro band. Micro band. A nanob band? Yeah, nanob band. Okay. So was that the only gripe you had about the paper? I think the site was at all recipes. I think it was all recipes. I think it was all recipes. Every recipe on that is one of Brooks's, by the way. Oh, every single one. Okay, so I won't hit on it too much. Um, I don't know actually what recipes went into their data set. They didn't give a list, but if you look at the primary ingredients for what they call North American recipes, it's all butter, eggs, wheat, sugar, and cream, which adjusts to

[22:11] me that, uh, the recipes they use to represent North American cuisine are desserts. And there's so much more to North American cuisine than just desserts. I mean desserts. Although it is what we are, is this what we're best at as opposed to what other people are good at? But I don't think all of North American flavor pairing in a

[22:27] cultural context can be described just by cake recipes on all recipes. The other problem is, is that the cooked aroma of those is vastly different from the, I mean, no one thinks that if you were to gather the ingredients for a pie, they do

[22:41] not the smell of a cooked pie make. is true. In fact, the compounds aren't even there yet. They're all in precursor form. So, but what's interesting about it, the, the, the findings of the study are basically, if you remove a certain subset of things, like these very basic ingredients from either Asian cuisine or, uh, you know,

[23:03] West, what they call Western, who the hell knows because we don't have the recipes. Turns out that they don't share any more than would be statistically randomly associated.

[23:14] You know, once you take out the top 6 ingredients or something. So, but you say you would be loath to take this study on to accept either a positive or negative finding because you think the methodology is poor. Yeah, I think large data driven studies like this are valuable and interesting, but they're only as good as the data sets that they use.

[23:35] And I think that their data set and their approach are flawed to make the too flawed to make the broad conclusions that they do. Yeah, pretty pictures though. Did I mention that? Oh, yeah, cool, cool. Really, really pretty pictures. I think that's the problem because the study is getting a lot of traction. And so people are paying a lot of attention to it, but as one of my many gripes in the world is that someone makes a

[23:53] study, puts a big splashy, like, you know, statement in the abstract or conclusion, and then it gets a lot of traction because no one goes back and reads

[24:01] the damn study. Exactly. All right. And with that, calling your questions two, 718-497-2128. 7184972128 take a break. cooking issues.

[25:09] That had to have been Nastasia to Downton Abbey. Cooking issues down to Abbey Edition. That's the most used break song of 2012 on this stage. People love this. Really? Do they think that we're going to come back with British accents and be kind of like lords and ladies? I always hope that I want to be the servant. Do your accent, man. I want to be. do the accent. Okay, Carrot in here, the bartender do it. I'm going to come back as Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates, you know, never gets what he wants, that poor son of a bitch. All right, call her, you are on the air. Hi, this is Drilling. I guess we just have a question of whether you think of the problems with this, what's it called?

[25:50] The flavor, uh, flavor pairings, whether that's, uh... Flavor pairings, that is based on these specific studies, or is it based on the fact that you don't think that

[26:00] that's a, an interesting way of, of finding new, new flavor compounds at all? I'll give you my perspective really quickly. I'm not going to talk about the study. I'll let Ariel do that. My feeling is that it's going to be both, look, here's here's my thing. I think, um, I think it's scientifically flawed. In other words, look, I don't think that there's any reason, a priori, to believe that because 2 ingredients share chemical

[26:29] compounds that they go well together, right? But that said, if it's not an invalid source of inspiration for somebody, if you find it interesting and inspirational, and if you get good ideas from it, any more than reading a book can give you ideas for a dish or, you know, being out in

[26:49] a, in a field in the middle of spring and like thinking about things can give you inspiration.

[26:54] So I don't, there's no such thing as an invalid source of inspiration. It's just, I think that there's no reason for me to believe

[27:02] that that things should go together just because they share compounds. That's my gripe. Now in the study, what do you think? Well, I think, if we can go back to flavor pairing really quickly, the takeaway from that is that, um, there are a huge number of fascinating and interactive perceptual things that are going on between chemistry and flavor when we mix ingredients

[27:23] together. We just have no idea how they work yet. So what are your thoughts? You think we're full of crap or do you agree, disagree? What's your take? Me? Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I think that a lot of the things you would get would be, uh, you know, you've

[27:42] got, you've got your base flavors in different cuisines, right? And so if you were to look, if you were just, take a bunch of, in this case, Korean recipes or, you know, high recipes or anything like that, right, you're going to get all these compounds that are most commonly coming up in

[27:58] those, in those recipes, you know? So, whether that's, that's based spices or uh, based, or, you know,

[28:05] or, or some spices that are used a lot in those, in those cuisines, they're

[28:09] going to keep coming up. So I think what you would get then is just a repetitive kind of pairing that. Oh, you know, uh, I can't even, you know, just, you know, an Indian cuisine, you know, uh, curries, you know,

[28:23] all the spices that go into there, right? Well, they're in practically everything. So every, you know, you keep going through these dishes and that's what you're going to get. So I don't, I don't really see how you would get new things because I, I, I guess it would only come together when you're crossing

[28:39] cuisines and then it was like some random ingredient from one cuisine and another random ingredient now in the cuisine and they share flavor

[28:47] compound. And so then you would just assume that they could be swapped out with each other. And then I think it would

[28:52] be, I just, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I kind of see what you're saying. I kind of disagree that you can't get new flavors by going into, look, the genius of kind of American cuisine,

[29:05] right? We started with kind of the now much maligned kind of fusion stuff, right? Which everyone now is, oh, fusion. Well, you know, that's an old gripe. Maybe people are profusion again, but, you know, back when I was a kid, like fusion was the passé thing. No one wanted to be labeled with a fusion label. But what we are at base here in the

[29:23] US and certainly abroad in the modernist kind of thinking if you take that as an actual movement, which, you know, we can have a debate, is we steal things,

[29:31] right? So we steal things from industry. We steal things from, uh, we steal things from anything. And so we steal things from other cultures. And so I think that the best way to steal something is to use their flavor

[29:44] components straight up for a while to kind of get a feel for it. And then you can take bits and pieces because you know how they work together. And so you can get, you know, really kind of new and different flavors without doing straight fusion,

[29:57] right? You know, flavor of India with French technique or what would be more interesting the other way around. Indian technique with French ingredients. But, uh, what do you guys think about this is a motive of

[30:13] innovation. In other words, I don't I don't think it's this flavor pairing thing isn't, obviously, is not necessary for innovation. I mean, it could be interesting. It could be interesting to kind of trip your mind into new things, but again, anything could do that. You know what I mean? I don't know. anyone? Brooks? I mean, as a, as like a, a form of inspiration or whatever,

[30:36] then sure, that's, that's cool, but I mean, like, you know, when it comes down to it, it's just, like, tasting

[30:43] and and putting the things together and and doing it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until you have something

[30:50] that, that kind of works, you know? So. Right, I mean, I mean, I mean, certainly, uh, chemistry is not as ripe a a place for inspiration as the crystal light splash. But you want to talk about that for a second? The splash? Again? Yeah. What do you like about it? I'm hoping that we can have a small commercial break and that we can get the, I believe, in Crystal Light

[31:11] song. It just looks so refreshing that that's what you want to sort of aspire

[31:19] to. I mean, I believe that. You know, that's the thing. not all food is meant to be refreshing, but I really like refreshing things.

[31:26] Like, I really like, you know, refreshing is always good. No one's like, oh, my God. I went and I had a, you know, I had this dessert. I had this sorbet and it was refreshing. You know what I mean? No one's ever, no one's ever anti-refreshing. No one ever wants to, you know, I want the, I want the heavy mental beat down, like for my, that's what you know. I guess, you know, ponderous. Who wants a ponderous meal? refreshing. I think I've got the ad if you want. Yeah, all right, let's go to a tiny micro commercial break where we're going to do some crystal light. I believe that because I should be as fun as can be. I've been leaving it right, and to debris. I believe in crystal light, 'cause I'm believe in me. Crystal like drink makes a sweeten with 100% nutrisweet, so there's no sugar, no saccharine, and no saccharine aftertaste. All these natural flavors taste so terrific. It's hard to believe there's only four calories of glass. Leave in crystal light, 'cause I believe in me. Oh, yeah. Refreshing crystal light. Only 4 calories per serving. No, yeah, I mean, like, what's not to love about that? It's not even, it's everything about that is refreshing and exciting and the guitar line and the

[32:39] drums. It's just plain awesome. Yeah, and the word nutra sweet is cool too. Yeah, yeah. Because it gives you nutrients without giving you calories and it's sweet. That's awesome. Awesome. No wonder I drank buckets of that stuff growing up. Man. All right. I got a question that hopefully Brooks will enjoy from last week. Angela, our one of our favorite interns from Nebraska, land of endless possibilities, wants to make fluffy butterscotch. Can she do it? She's using it to build a cake, but she doesn't just want to do butterscotch buttercream. What's up, white tap meat? Nothing. The lady was trying to get your attention. Well, we're doing a show right now. Okay. So, okay, so Brooks, you're going to be good at this. So the butterscotch, for those of you that don't know what the hell we're talking about is butterscotch. And basically, you know, it's like brown sugar cooked with butter, and then usually some cream is added in, and it's turned into a sauce, right? Yes. Right, salt. So, yeah, super important. Yes, thank you. So the question is, without just using that as a basis for a buttercream. If you want to make it fluffy, what would you do? Would you make a moose out of it? For a cake, but you don't want... Um, yeah, I mean, you could easily take, take, like, say, like make a butterscotch sauce

[33:45] and and, you know, whip egg whites into it to make it sort of light and moosey or whatever. Um, but... You need to add gel it. No, so the egg whites don't break down after it sets, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's like, I'm, I'm not, that's, I wouldn't do that. So, um, What would you do? If I wanted like a butterscotch flavor. But fluff, yes. But fluffy? But fluffy, but not like a butter, not like a buttercream. Um, Honestly, I would, uh, I think like really perfect butterscotch sauce made with the best possible butter and

[34:20] and, uh, dark brown sugar and salt and, um, Like, I would just use that. and use that as a garnishing agent rather than try to make it something different because perfect butterscotch sauce is just perfect and it doesn't need to be

[34:38] fluffy, so. All right, so basically, Brooks, you're avoiding the question. Let's say you wanted that son of a gun to be fluffy. I mean, in other words, like, could you take something like that and make a fondant and then beat it? Or would the fat interfere? I mean, I think like, yeah, there's there's ways that it could be done. I just, like, my, for something like that, my brain doesn't really work that way. I mean, obviously you could make something with the texture of a chocolate mousse, just, you know, treat it like a chocolate mousse, lower the liquid base a little bit because you already have

[35:16] a little bit more liquid in the butterscotch, but it should work. So that's egg whites, like you said, gelatin folded together and set. Can you spread a moose and have it not break? Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. But you wouldn't do it. I wouldn't, no, not personally. I'm actually, I'm actually trying to eliminate all of the use of gelatin period in

[35:34] any, in all of my... No, no, no. Just, I think it's, it's a crutch that people use too much. Um, and, uh, just not for any real reason other than just to say I did it. Right. So, in other words, like here's another source of inspiration, kind of self-limitation. A lot of really good dishes come out of self- limitation. Whole cuisines are based on self- limitation. And so when you've already achieved a certain level, the question is how do you branch out or get some new stuff, give yourself a limit, and then see what happens? Is this why you did it or just for the hell of it? Um, I just, I just, I don't know. I think gelatin's kind of creepy. and, um, I just, I like pig hooves. No, no. I'm totally into pig hooves. It's just the, like, it's just the... I just think it's used a lot overly so, and, um, yeah, that's all. Yeah, all right. Nastasia. Do you remember the recipe for the inside of gets caramel creams, which are like God's candy? Yeah, no, I don't remember it off the top of me. Man, that stuff's good. You like caramel cream? Of course. Absolutely. For those of you that don't live in the United States of America. I think are they west coast or are they only east coast? I mean, they're a Pennsylvania Dutch style of thing. Getz is a Pennsylvania company. It's pronounced, it's written like Gertz, G-O-E, like TZ. pronounced gets. And what it is, it's caramel with the little bull's eye of that kind of like whipped fat crap in the middle, which is delicious. Brooks, you're gonna... Yeah, it's kind of dry. And like, yeah, it's like, it's like, it's like somewhere between like Oreo filling and something else where it's just like dry, almost

[37:03] like, like it crumbles in your mouth. Yeah, that would be a good bit of butterscotch flavor, right? Yeah, sure. I don't know how to make that stuff. I think it's powdered sugar and... Well, you tried. Yeah. What we were trying to make a coconut base one. We wanted like a coconut caramel cream. We were trying to do something else with it. That is delicious. Carol cream is delicious candy. Saw some of the economy candy, which is like one of the local big candy shops here in New York. By the way, speaking of Oreos, Brooks makes a delicious freaking Oreo. Delicious. Oreo. So much better than Nabisco's Oreo makes him wish that he had made the Oreo instead. Anyway, uh, guy was like, what candy should I take back? Uh, you know, to England because he was English. He's like, you know, that really says America. I was like, hey, take the caramel creams. They delicious. Okay. So anyways, maybe we've milked this. Brooks is not going to, Angela Brooks will not tell you how to do it. That's just, that's all there is to it. He's not going to tell you. Sorry. Uh, okay. So, 0 my god, I had to put a password on my iPad. So when it goes down, because my kids were invading my iPad. So now it takes me an extra 10 seconds to come up. Okay. I had a question in from, and I can't seem to get to it. Okay, Jack, someone's having problems with the Heritage radio live feed. We fix that crap? Right now? No, no, before. Oh, yeah, that's working. No, all right. Very good. Okay, dear Dave and Co, Josh and Somerset, UK says, I have to keep buying new cooking pros. The one with the cable to a device so that I can put it in the oven because either the probe and or the device keep breaking. Can you please suggest a reliable make, something with good reaction speed? Good range, up to 200 C. That's 400 Fahrenheit for you Fahrenheit folk. And if possible, but not essential, a probe that's mildly resistant to water, so cleaning is made easier. Uh, no. They all suck. I've broken many of them. I've broken tailors, I've broken polders. Ive broken every single one of them I've ever used. They've all crapped out. I used them to try and do a roasted side of a pot. The steam gets inside of that crimp around the probe, around that cable, and they break and they die on me. Has anyone in this room had a good experience with one of those something guns? They suck. what do you recommend then? Well, either just keep buying a crap to a ton of them, which is not a good solution, or I would suggest getting an industrial thermocouple. They're they're ruggedized. The actual cases are rugged eyes. You can get like, basically they look like multimeters with like a rubberized outside and they're pretty much impervious to whatever ails

[39:31] you. And then you get relatively cheap thermocouple probes that attach into

[39:36] them. You want to make sure thermocouple probes come in a wide variety of cable configurations, right? And also head configurations. So you find, um, obviously, the fatter, the thinner they are, the better their response time, but the more fragile they are, and also

[39:50] the, uh, the more expensive they are typically. You want to avoid for oven use, anything that has a complicated head or the micro, like the ones that are used in sous vide, the hypodermics, because the heads of those things aren't rated for high

[40:04] temperatures and they'll burn out. Like the epoxies they use to put everything together on the inside of those heads, not meant to withstand the oven. That said, you get a good fiberglass cable, insulated thermocouple probe, and it's good to 900 Celsius sometimes. Some of these like are 900 Fahrenheit and 9 Celsius. I can't remember. Probably whatever. Uh, but like, but you can get cables that withstand basically uh, kilms. And I've had therm a couple of cables in my oven that have been in there for years, and my oven routinely gets up to 850 Fahrenheit, tops out. My oven tops out at like 875 at this point, Fahrenheit or a little better. And I have embedded thermocouple probes that don't break, and I have air temperature probes that don't

[40:45] break, and I use industrial thermocouple. And the good news is if you find a good source, McMasterCar is a fast source, but an expensive source, you can get them for, you know, like

[40:57] 15, 20 bucks. You can get waterproof ones, just pay attention to the cable. You can make your own thermocouples, which I do. They're typically not waterproof, but they usually last for the application that you're doing. If you make your own probes, by twisting the wires together, it's on the order of a dollar per.

[41:13] You know what I mean? Because you just buy lengths of the cable, make it as long as you want, and get the connector. So that's what I recommend. But I've never had it. The ones that they're using ovens are typically RTD. They're resistance, you know, resistance temperature things. They break. They just, they just don't, they break. They break all the goddang time. They just don't seem to last. Yeah? Yeah. All right, very quickly. Tony, Tony Heron from the mixing bar in Brazil writes in. This is last week it didn't make it in. Last December, we started investing a little more in our cooking lab. We've been working with a conventional distillation of our own booze. I'm glad you can do that. I can't do that here in the US of A. They throw me in the jail. Or they won't throw me in jail. Just take away the liquor license. It's not even my liquor license. It sounds liquor license and then everyone will hate me anyways. Not that they don't already hate me. Okay. But now we have a Rotovap, sockslit, socks. interesting extraction technique, which I don't have time to talk to you about right now, maybe some other time. I like socks extraction. It's kind of old. People, I think, don't do it in lab so much anymore. Yeah we're moving away from that generally. Sometimes for pesticides, but... Delicious pesticides, I think you mean. The advantage of socks that extraction is that it allows you to reuse your solvent a bunch of times so you get fresh solvent into the thing you're extracting from on a consistent basis so you can get much higher extraction rates for a given amount of

[42:28] solvent so you can make really punchy things in socks. Theoretically, that's the advantage of the socks. What do you use instead now? Oh, we use something called solid face micro extraction? Me, me, me, me, me. Okay, we'll stick with socks. Uh, okay. One thing we don't have yet is a chamber vacuum machine. So we adapted glass jars with fast connections to make syrups and speed up infusions. You can see a few pictures on our Facebook page. We tested our jars very well, but warn people about potential dangers. We mostly use it for the barns, we're working okay. Plus, it costs nothing. We use either valves or hot pliers to melt the tubing, which they have like, they have, basically those, those push to connect fittings that you can get in a plumbing store, they push to connect to get the tubing in, which actually are vacuum

[43:05] rated. I mean, I've read the vacuum ratings and those are all right. They use it with an oil-based vacuum pump and a cold trap chilled by ice or dry ice when we have it. What are my thoughts on this setup? My thoughts on the setup. I use it. I saw their setup. It basically mason jars, not even the pickle jars, right? They're very cheap to buy. Be very, very, very cautious. Using this in front of people who aren't wearing safety glasses. Standard pickle jar. First of all, the vacuum is created when you're canning in one of those jars is much less than the vacuum that you create when you're putting an oil-based vacuum

[43:37] pump, the oil-based vacuum pumps that I use, which are refrigeration pumps, they're not even that expensive, routinely get down to 5 millibars or less absolute pressure, right? So you're talking basically a full vacuum, 15 PSI. If you are using a pickle jar like that, which is molded. There's seams in it and there's lots of places where there's additional stress involved in it. You could be setting yourself up for a violent, sudden violent implosion. So what I would recommend is putting a, and the problem with an implosion, even though it goes in, is that the pieces can pass each other. In other words, just because it's imploding doesn't mean that it's going to hit its counterpart on the other

[44:13] side. So glass goes everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean, in your eye, in your face, you know, in stuff like this, in your ice well, even worse. And, uh, so, uh, you're going to want to wrap electrical tape around it to stop like the pieces from flying too far and or get a mesh. The old lab trick, I was told by old rotovap heads for people before they purchased plastic coated glassware for everything, was to wrap, wrap everything in electrical tape, basically. Uh, so that the pieces don't go too far. The other thing I would recommend. Move to move to a polycarb uh, polycarb uh, vessels. They have pressure rated polycarp things, like, for instance, pasta click keepers that will withstand that kind of vacuum level. It doesn't cost that much more. And those when they shatter, polycarb has a much better shatter mode than glass does because it will

[45:05] crack, but it will not splinter into a bunch of pieces. This is why when you're when you're making potato guns and other sort of high pressure air guns with piping. PVC is actually not a great choice because the fracture, the

[45:18] fracture mode of PVC is into splintering kind of things, whereas certain other plastics, I believe like ABS or

[45:26] polycarb, when they fracture have better kind of a fracture mode. So, uh, that's just my thoughts. The other question, yeah, was, when working with a Roto app, do you guys tend to puree the products before distillation, yes. Although Tony Canayaro, our good buddy in England, does not. I got in a habit of blending stuff into a pulp and sometimes straining it to get a better extraction. It seems like the pureed plus straining method gives a smoother distillation towards the end of a run compared to just a puree. Um, okay, what do you think about pureeing versus pureeing pieces or chunks or straining

[45:58] out? Thanks very much. Here are my thoughts. Well, the reason you probably like the strained puree better is taste the stuff that you've strained out. If the stuff you strained out doesn't have as good of a flavor as the stuff that went through your shinois or whatever you're passing, that's the cause of the difference in

[46:12] the flavors. I mean, like the way I always figure how I wrote it, but I sniff it and I see what's kind of come through. I don't think that the straining itself shouldn't make it any more or less smooth. I would recommend putting things through a very light vacuum cycle before you wrote an app to get rid of foam over problems. You might be also having problems. Your straining might be getting rid of some of the air bubbles that came through when you're puréing. By getting rid of those air bubbles when you're puréing, you're causing you're getting less violent foam up on the beginning. less foam up as you start is going to give fewer kind of microparticles of crap.

[46:48] They're coming over along with your distillate as it's running. So there's a study recently on amino acids in

[46:55] unaged, in unaged distillates. Clearly, amino acids should not be in an unaged distillate. contamination of some sort because amino acids, they

[47:05] don't they don't distill, right? They're non-volatile. And so one of the explanations is microparticles of things carried over in violent distillations. And so by reducing the violent distillations by getting rid of some of the entrained air at the beginning, perhaps you are actually making a smoother distillation. But simpler way for that would just be to vacuum it. So my 2 things are, if you're actually getting smoother distillations, because A, you're getting rid of air, which is going to help you at the beginning of your distillation run, B, you are taking out products that don't have as nice an aroma as the other stuff.

[47:36] Yeah. Yeah, anyone? We've got an email question for Brooks from a Paul. You want to read it for me, Jack? I will, yeah. Says, I've seen statements Brooks has made on the creation of vegan desserts for guests. Can he comment on these desserts and keep the hammer from making her vegan face? Are these items on the menu or would one need to call ahead to let the kitchen know that vegans are

[48:00] coming? Who sent that question, by the way? That is a Paul. Paul. Paul. Um, no, we have a uh, we have a 7 course vegan tasting menu that's

[48:10] uh, always there every day. On the menu, though? It's um, if someone asks, we have it. You bring the menu with tongs? No, we haven't. It's just our way of being, uh, like proactive. Like we, if someone comes in and they have that particular dietary restriction, then we absolutely have them covered.

[48:33] So when you're working, it's a hospitality thing. When you're working on something like that, do you kind of have to make it like a catchall, like also hypoallergenic and all that other stuff or no? Um, yeah, well, actually, uh, I think we make it so it is, it can be like

[48:48] gluten-free too. Because often those 2 go together, but it can, it's, we have, we have the capabilities to do any sort of

[48:56] like, um, almost any like dietary thing just because, like I said, it's a hospitality thing. If somebody comes in, um, you know, to our restaurant, like it's our job to make sure that they leave completely psyched.

[49:09] That's great. That's great. And tell me a little bit about making it. Like, do you like working on that problem? It seems like an interesting problem. Yeah, no, it's fun because it's one of those that's like giving yourself limitations things because especially with dessert, so much of it is based on eggs and cream and butter and, you know, stuff like that.

[49:32] So to make stuff like that, but then have it still

[49:36] taste good and still be something that could be served at a, you know, at a 4 star restaurant, that's

[49:43] a, that's a big challenge and it's a really fun thing too. Hey, Nastasia, let's go to Del Posto and get the vegan... Yeah, let's do it. You want to do it? Let's do it soon. Yeah, I'm gonna do that. All right, so listen. I don't know if I'm going to get to do it before next week, but Nastasia and I are going to go to the Del Posto restaurant. Uh, you know, one of our favorite Italian joints. And we're going to get the 7 chords. That was such a jerk. We're going to get the 7 course vegan tasting menu. Super thanks to Brooks, and Ariel, for coming in, and I want, here's what I want you guys to think about over the, over the next week, uh, because I want to talk about it next week. I don't really know what I think. There's a cohort study out. Cohort means they just choose a bunch of random people, not random. They, like a group, and then they have questionnaires and they data mine it. I hate most data mining studies in general. Ariel? Oh, yeah. They suck, right? Data snooping. Yeah, it sucks. So there was a huge one that came out recently called Red Meat Consumption and Mortality came out in March on March 16th. It's one of the, it's a big data mining studies basically saying that if you eat meat, you're more likely to die, which we all die. But in other words, they mean faster. So I haven't had time to go over the data set, but I'd like all of you actual science

[50:54] folk in our listening audience to think about this study, the pros cons, whether you guys believe it or whether you think it's a load of horse hockey and just bad data or good data.

[51:04] Anyway, I'm going to leave you with that. Thanks again for Brooks. Thanks for Ariel. Cooking issues.

[51:14] Thanks for listening to this program on the Heritage Radio Network. You can find all of our archived programs on heritageradionetwork.com, as well as a schedule of upcoming live shows. You can also podcast all of our programs on iTunes by searching

[51:29] Heritage radio network in the iTunes store. You can find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-date news and information. Thanks for listening. You got my head all twisted