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[0:30] Cooking issues.

[0:55] Calling your questions, too. Cooking issues. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live every Tuesday in Bushwick, Brooklyn, at Roberta's

[1:09] Pizzeria, on the Heritage Radio Network. How you doing? How you guys doing? Good. You're right on time. It's like 12 on the dot. You like that? How about that? Yeah, man, what do you know? What do you know? So listen, big news. Nastasia has joined the social media scene. No, I don't believe it, though. Believe it, Jack. No way. Yeah. Yeah. So anyone that can hear this, I want you to go out and I want you to follow Nastasia on the Twitter.

[1:40] It's Hammer, BDX. No underscore because that would prevent, that's like a barrier between the hammer and you. So there's no underscore. Right? has anyone followed you yet? No. Really, just at Hammer? That can't be. No, at Hammer BDX. Oh, BDX, okay, okay. Capital BDX. I don't know if that matters in that. So BDX is what we shorthand call Booker Index, the bar. Right. So and so BDX is like Booker Index. And the equipment, the equipment company on 54 Eldridge, we call BDXEQ. So anyway, so that's it. That's it, folks. Please follow me. I'll answer you, but I won't. provoke you. Not only are you on social media, you're asking people to interact with you? Well, if she's gonna do it, she's gonna do it. all the way, yeah. you met her? Have you met Nastasia? It's like once she's going to do it, She's like, no, no, I don't want to do it. No, people do it. No, that's bad. What she's going to do it. She going to do it. But listen, like, I want her to be like the vicious one. Like, I answer nicely, but if you Twitter her, it's going to be the vicious. So if you friend me or whatever you call it. I'll be vicious. Right. Yeah. So expect it. Except for the fact that I think also you will be able to tweet in radio questions to nostalgia. Well, what's one of the reasons she decided to do it was...

[2:59] Blah, blah, blah, blah. In some other non-cooking. Oh, by the way, calling your questions, love, too, 718-497-2128. 718-497-2128. But in some non-cooking related news. Uh, well, Nastasia was non-cooking related news, but uh, you will not know this unless you know us personally, but we are kind of Kanye Shantis

[3:17] of uh, of uh, tabloid headlines. And, you know, we flatter ourselves that we could someday be good tabloid headline writers, but I

[3:24] saw in the subway today. Oh my god, the best. It's the best. It's like, it's right up there with, it's one of the great headlines. You've never told that one. Just sit toe. Which one? That's real. which one The one that you love, the best one. Oh, my favorite all-time tabloid headline. And like, you know, there should be awards for this because it's like such a genius art was uh, when right after 911 when we 1st bombed uh,

[3:47] Afghanistan, and the headline was Cabulzai, Cabulzai. And you know that there's just some dude or dude at, whatever, sitting in a hole somewhere that they throw raw meat at. And they're like, we just bombed Afghanistan. Kabul's eye. they're like, 0 my god, you know what I mean? But so, so like, you know, like at 3 in the morning or whatever, someone wakes the headline writer and they're like, listen, listen, the

[4:08] pope's advocating. The pope's advocating. Says he's too tired to, you know, mentally tired. too pooped to pope. Boom. I was like, oh my god, you know what? It's like, I almost just like quit my job right then. It was like, you know what? I need to study at the feet of this person. who could come up with a headline that's so genius.

[4:30] LA news or post? I don't know. It was one of those, it was probably in one of the real papers. But it was in one of the ones that they hand you at the subway. So I don't know who does that. like the metro, yeah. I was like, you know what? It's like, it's like hilarious and like not offensive, but you know that the person meant it as

[4:46] a genius. You love that. To poop, to pope. Genius. I've got bad news though. Nastasia, your Twitter account doesn't work. What the? Hammer BDX? Hammer BDX? I'm looking at it right now. Why can't we get it? Elliot just wrote in too. He said he can't get you. Do you have to activate it? You know what? We're going to get, you know, Jack and Joe, Jack and Joe know how to do the social

[5:12] media. I'm going to pass you my computer, Jack. And so we'll get, you know, so ooh, another banner thing. This Tasha won't be typing, stopping for shoes during the show. This is like, this is people, this is an incredible show. Anyway. Chinese New Year. turning over a new league. Okay. Deer cooking issues, peeps. What are your thoughts on glassware shape affecting the taste experience? If a diner sips the same wine or spirit out of 2 very differently shaped glasses? Does it taste different? If so, is there any science to why? Keep bringing the awesome from John Riper. and it's, because, you know, it's spelled RIPER. there's a question. As everyone knows, I'm horrible at pronouncing names. So he hopefully added in parentheses, pronounced like the adjective, a riper apple beats an unripe one. And you are so right, John, about the right brow. Before I answer your question, let me... I was just putting her dumbass face on, but she has to face it, you see when she's talking sitting next to me. Anyway, uh, a, which is a little different from the vegan face because it's like some liking in it, just, you know,

[6:15] anyway, so here's the problem with apples that aren't aren't ripe. So, have I said it? I said this before, probably on the show a 1000000 times, but just in case I want everyone to go to their local farmer's market. too late now. Don't worry about it. But like next season, when it comes around, for apples, I'm a huge encourager of new of using old Apple varieties, getting farmers to bring old Apple varieties into the market. The problem with a lot of old Apple varieties is they lose their crunchiness very quickly. They're, in fact, not intended to be crunchy. One of the things I hate most about Americans and the way we eat apples is that we refuse to eat apples that aren't like just like hard like rocks. We think that there's only mealy and bad or hypercrunchy. And so we tend to go after apples, like Granny Smith, even though it's an Australian apple, that are extremely crunchy. Mistake, because not all apples are supposed to be crunchy. But the problem is, a lot of the older varieties, especially the dessert or the early season varieties, are crumbly, which is the way you want a good Apple of that type to be. And in order to have it be crunchy instead of crumbly because consumers, we're too stupid to try and bend our heads around what that Apple wants to be instead of what we think every Apple should be, that the growers pick them when they're incredibly

[7:32] underripe. And when you pick an incredibly underripe apple, it is just monotonically acidic. And there are some people out there who will like that thing because what they really want to do is suck on a warhead. But if you want the flavor of an apple, you want to let it ripen, even though those ripe apples aren't going to last very long. Uh, the old ones that, especially the early rippers. anyway. So yes, a riper apple is better, John. Now, to your question. As an aside. Anyway. Oh, my Twitter account works. Okay, I'm going to follow you at the end of the show. So to your question. So, so, the redo, uh, and it's, it's, it's redo, actually. Redo. I refuse to call it, but it's readal. I spoke to Maximilian Riedel ones. It's readal glassware. Oh, really? Yeah, readal. So, even though everyone says Riddell, right? Everyone. Well, if you took some join me, you'd know it's real. Anyway, so the, uh, uh, you know, they've made an incredible business off of the shape of the glass being incredibly important to the way

[8:32] uh, you experience particular drinks. Um, I, in fact, went to a seminar. I can't remember who's who. There's the, the older Ridel and the younger one. I've met both of them, but the older one gives, and one of them is Maximilian, I forget what the other one is. But I was with the younger one, and we were in a, we were shooting something for a friend of mine who was doing a pilot. This is like 15 years ago or something. And, uh, he takes 2 of his expensive ones and he goes, ting, and he knocks them together. You know what he said? This is the sound of money. That's what he said. He literally said that to me. This is the sound of money And the younger one's kind of an Australian Playboy skills skis around in the Alps and stuff. You'd like them. She loves the Alps. anyway. So the, uh, it's one thing she likes. She hates biscuits but loves the Alps, who figure, you know, go figure. anyway. So, um, so, you know, Ridel uh, goes around, gives his seminars and makes a huge, uh, you know, the thing about how the glass uh, shape uh, is extremely important and does, he's incredibly compelling seminars, where you'll

[9:34] be, uh, you'll be there and there'll be uh, 9 glasses. So like, uh, no, more. Three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three. That's, what is that? Uh, 27.? Yeah. Anyway. And so you'll you'll sit there and he'll do a grid. So he'll have the same spirit going across, right, with 3 different

[9:55] glasses, and then the same glass going down. So you'll taste 3 different spirits in their correct glasses and in 2 wrong glasses in a grid. Not being very clear, but it makes sense if you think about it a little bit. And then he'll describe how only the particular glass shows off that particular

[10:10] spirit properly. And it is quite a compelling presentation. However, I will say this. Uh, uh, he himself is a great salesperson, and he guides you through the the tasting. So it's not a triangle testing where you're testing to see which one. mean, you can tell the difference. There's no doubt. At least, you know, I've never done it in an unguided way, but when he did it in a guided way, you definitely tell the

[10:35] difference. There is some, uh, BSR, we'll say, some kind of BS around it, where, you know, the the

[10:43] Ridles are still talking about the, um, the tongue, and they show a picture of the tongue, and they bring out the widely discredited, incorrect view that you taste

[10:53] only uh, certain things in certain areas. You know, the old, when you're growing up, they show you that map of the tongue. And in fact, they still show that freaking map. The kids brought it home. And did you know for those of you out there that you're not allowed to tell your kids that your parents are wrong, your wife starts punching you under the

[11:09] table. If you start just saying that your teachers are crazy and wrong and what they're teaching you in school is incorrect.

[11:13] Because apparently you're not supposed to do that. I think that's fine. Well, it has to be. If what they're teaching is incorrect, you know? Like the nutrition that they teach kids is insane. It's insane. I get in so much trouble because I'm like, well, your teacher is not a bad person, but they're just wrong. You know what I mean? But whatever. And then, uh, whatever. going back. So the tongue thing is incorrect. In other words, the old map of where you taste salty and sweet and all that is incorrect. And Reedel used, although you do have different densities of receptors, you know, over your tongue.

[11:42] I mean, your tongue does differ. It does have a map, but it's not the way it worked, you know, like we were taught when we were kids. So Reedle makes a big thing about the shape of the glass directing, especially the shape of the

[11:53] lip directing certain things towards certain parts of your tongue. And I think that in general is horse hockey. Now, it is true that things taste different to you depending on where they're delivered in your mouth and the shape of the glass does make a difference. I think the majority of the difference in the glassware is the bowl, the actual size of the

[12:12] bowl, versus how much is poured in it. That makes a huge difference because that determines the airspace to liquid volume ratio, which is extremely important. Also, the shape of the bowl and how it holds and or concentrates and or dissipates

[12:27] the aroma molecules, I think, is vitally important to the way that we enjoy wine. Uh, or any any liquid. So I think it's, you know, for instance, I'll give you, for instance, So in, um, when we do the red hot poker drinks at the bar, um, we, we hit them with the red hot poker, and if you stick any of those red hot poker drinks into a normal glass and put your nose anywhere near it, the alcohol vapor is so concentrated that is literally unpleasant, you can't bring it to your nose to

[12:58] drink because, uh, you just can't. You know what I mean? just the alcohol vapor just blows your head off. So we always put those into coffee cups and, you know, not tall wall mugs, but wide coffee cups because it dissipates more of that alcohol vapor as you bring it to your nose. Similarly, a very small glass that you can't even stick your nose into is going to de-emphasize aromas and

[13:22] things that have strong aromas. For instance, you know, those little tiny tasting glasses versus the ones that are like have those giant bowls and then like your nose just fits into the rim of

[13:30] it. And then you're, you know, you're sticking your hot box and your nose with the wine. So you're, you know, it's, it's, uh, I mean, you can make a huge difference. And obviously there is science behind it, but I don't, you know, I wouldn't go so far as to say that

[13:43] there is one particular glass shape for each particular wine is true, although I have to

[13:48] say, from personal experience, the guy's spiel is compelling when done in person.

[13:53] Yeah? Uh-huh. Yeah. She's like, yeah, whatever. whatever. Don't care. Okay. You got to announce, have people call in for Jack. Oh, yeah, this is the Valentine's Day. Hey, by the way, cleared up the Twitter issue. You're not at Hammer BDX. That's your display name. You are still at booker index bar. No, no, no, don't worry, I changed that. Nope. She messed it up. Look her yet. Just now? Wait, like right now? Oh my goodness. I'm learning. Wow. Let's not learn on other people's time, shall we? Okay. Well, not talk about Jack. Oh yeah. So Jack, still dateless for the Valentine's Day, very disappointed. Maybe Nastasia is right. Do we have any? I mean, look, Jack, look, the picture I tweeted out of Jack? Not necessarily. He's the one that's not the stuffed boarhead. Yeah. In that picture I tweeted out. But he's looking for the valentine. And this is the Valentine's Day. We got a call coming in. Who knows? Maybe this is it. Ooh, fingers crossed. Call her. on the air. Hold on, screw it. They hung up when they knew. All right.

[14:52] Hey, how you doing? Hello? Hi. Hi, this is Judah from Maryland. I love your show. I have a question regarding gelatin and bloom strength. Okay. Uh, so I keep codes for myself and um, like so many other things aren't very many uh, kosher products on the market

[15:12] uh, in certain areas. And gelatin is one of them. There is one company that produces powder gelatin, which they say is similar to Knox brand. But, uh, it doesn't have anything, uh, you know, indicating the bloom strength on the package. And I've tried to get in touch with them, I've tried to call, email, whatever. No response. I was wondering if there was any way to, you know,

[15:37] uh, short of getting some fancy, uh, lab equipment to determine that myself. Um, whether or not it's, I know you mentioned uh, in one of the past issues, like an over under test, the numbers game, I think

[15:49] was with the beep powder. Um, if I did that comparing that to the Knox gelatin, what what characteristics should I look for? Yeah, well, the bloom, you know, the bloom strength is, um, you know, it's not like, you're stretching my memory a little

[16:04] bit. It's been a while since I looked at the technical thing, but it's basically how I believe the bloom test is a penetration test based on a certain percentage of gelatin after the gelatin has been aged for a certain length of time on a certain test block.

[16:16] I think. Um, I believe that's what it is, but I have to go back and look it up. Or Nastasia, you can look up the definition of bloom strength while we're talking. Oh, computer useful. So, um, what I would do, though, from uh, from your standpoint of what actually makes it useful is, uh, I would,

[16:33] by the way, Knox gelatin is extremely high bloom strength compared to a lot

[16:36] of Knox is a pretty strong gelatin. It's like 220 or something, right? Yeah, it's pretty high. like in the gold. It's in the gold or platinum range, if you are dealing with leaf. You know what I mean? Right. So, and this is another thing, by the way, that I encourage everyone to pay attention. So like when I write a recipe, I write a recipe for Knox because I'm, you know, I'm depending on that bloom strength.

[16:58] Uh, and my guess is that the bloom strength is pretty much, uh, you know, directly related to the um, chain length of the uh, gelatin uh, things. I'll read you what the Wikipedia says. Bloom test is a measure of the strength of a gelatin, originally developed by a guy named Bloom,

[17:14] that I knew. The weight in grams needed by a probe to deflect the service of the gel, 4 millimeters without breaking it. So it's also a measure of its, uh, yeah, of its, you know,

[17:24] inability ability. Yeah, resilience. Correct. good Thank you. Um, so what I would simply do is, you know, these things are fairly easy to tell

[17:32] by, uh, what was the concentration it said to test it at? Oh, yeah. For the product... No, 6.6. When they're doing bloom test, they do it 6.6, which is very high. 6.6%. So what I would do is I would just make, I would just make the 2 gel side by side and then just test them. You'll be able to tell with your finger. You don't need a, you know, a 4 or 6 millimeter probe or whatever it is. If you just take the 2 and make them side by side, you'll be able to see exactly what's happening. I have my doubts that the kosher gelatin is going to be anywhere near as strong as the knocks. Um, because, I mean, do they say what it's made out of? They don't. Made from bovine skins. Okay, so it is a, well, okay, so good. It's not one of the kosher fish gelatins. No, it's not. Yeah, the fish gelatins are horrible. Everyone knows they're horrible. They're not as strong. They have a low melting point. They're just they're bad. I mean, they're not bad. You know, they're not bad. They not bad. not way to say it, but like, they're not a good replacement for Knox. But, yeah, so if it's made by cow, you actually, it has a good shot if they, you know, depending on how it's, it all depends on how they extract it. And at what point in the extraction, you get your stuff. Like, I think the 1st stuff that comes off is the higher

[18:39] chain or, yeah. I think anyway, so like the, the, the stuff that's, you know, easier, I can think, to extract is the higher chain. It's been a long time since I've looked it up. So it's too possible. Just make the 2 side by side and push on them and you'll see what's going on. I mean, if you're going to use it for a more technical recipe. Like if you're going to use it for gelatin clarification, for instance, then, um, you know, I would, uh, then it's going to be a little more important exactly what it is, but if it feels fairly similar to the

[19:03] knocks in reasonable concentrations, then I think it's probably going to act pretty much like the Knox, especially if it's a cow-based gelatin, uh, and not a, you know, not some sort of a fish-based gelatin.

[19:14] Right. And let's say, let's say do the test, and it is pretty far off from my perception of it. Um, there would be really no other good way of determining, know, what it's comparable to. No, I mean, you know, short of getting, short of getting, um, you know, a bunch of

[19:30] different uh, gelatins together that you... Like the leaf string. Right. Right. And then you can figure out, excuse me, sorry, you can figure out where it is in relation to the other standard leaf strengths, you know, the silver or the gold or the, you know,

[19:42] the... But, you know, if the, the person, you literally spoke to a person and they said that it was comparable to Knox and Bloom strength? No, it says that on the package, actually, but I can't I can't get through to a human being. Yeah, you know, I would be careful. There was a big thing with, you know, vegetarian marshmallows back in the day, someone was using a supposed vegetarian gelatin that was also kosher, and the people who were making it were just

[20:08] liars. They were just liars. Yeah, yeah. They just lied on the package. straight up lied. And then, and you can actually, it's an interesting Google search to dig down into is the case of these, all these people who were really excited that they could all of a sudden make these really spot on vegetarian marshmallows using this supposed kosher vegetarian gelatin replacer, when in

[20:30] fact, they were just using Jell-O. Um, Yeah. But I'm not saying these people are liars. I don't even know who you're talking about. I'm not calling them liars. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah. Nastasia is looking at me like, you're calling these people liars. I'm like, I'm not. I'm not. But I would, you know, it has, look, if it's from cows, it has a good shot of being a high quality, I mean, high bloom strength gelatin. So I would just make them and hope that they are the same. And if not, you can always, you know, make, like you were saying, over under, uh, you know, make a, make

[20:58] a, like a 2%, uh, a 2%, um, knocks, right? And then make like a 2%, a 3%, and a 4% of the unknown one, and then see where it falls, right? And then if it's in between, and just from a, you can tell just by, you know, seeing how far it bans for brakes, pushing through it, seeing how much force stakes to push through. And then you could probably hone it down to within a couple of tenths of a percent of how to adjust the recipes. Okay. Make sense? And then what I would do as a final thing is I would take it down after you think you know what the answer is in a firmer

[21:35] gel, I would take it down until just a point where it doesn't gel, like a very, very light aspect, because that's going to be where the numbers are more critical. And if you can if you can make it mimic that on a light, light, uh, gel aspect kind of situation, you'll be able to do it pretty much at all the ranges. All righty? All right, great. Thank you so much. Thanks. good luck with it Okay. Okay. So, wait, did I answer, I answered the, I answered the glass question, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, wrong password. Oh my gosh, we're just breaking up today. Okay. Uh, question in from Zach in Pittsburgh. How Ewan's doing? I like you ins. You't like Eelens? Yelens? Yelens, are you in? you, you ones, you, you, you plurals. Okay. Like use. Like we would say use here. Pay use. Uh, although here in like the Jersey, New York situation, use can just be one person. That's a complete anomaly. It shouldn't be. What are you doing? You know what I mean? But it should be used, meaning like you plural? You know what I mean? Like y'all, like that's our y'all. Like, the people in the south are like, we have y'all. What do you have? You, hey, you guys, what the hell? Anyway, I've recently, this is Zach talking now. I've recently improved the quality of the cheese. I keep around the house, which has been a very pleasurable experience. My only problem is as the prices good cheese go for in Pittsburgh and everywhere, by the way, Zach, although you can get some decent cheese prices in New York for certain

[22:57] things. You know, I'm always a, um, what's the word? shy or not shy. Beware of cheap, inexpensive cheese, because usually it means that it was stored crappily, and then the people who are

[23:12] going to sell it for a lot of money, didn't want to buy it. And the bargain, basement. People decided that they could push a higher end cheese that isn't necessarily in peak condition. So they get it at a bargain basement rate and sell it out. And, you know, I'd rather not even, I'd rather not even buy that cheese. And let's just delicious, but, you know, usually a lot of that stuff's really busted up. you know what I'm talking about stuff? Yeah. So in other words, be weird, cheap. You know, inexpensive is one thing, but beware, like, you know, cut rate cheese emporiums. I had a friend who brought cheese recently to a dinner party that had a big red sales sticker on it. You know who that friend is. Yes, yes. Nastasia. Nastasia has the negative houseguest Olympics. Like, so like the Houseguest Olympics are where you keep a track of your houseguests as they come and you see you like, oh, they bought a nice bottle of wine.

[24:00] They're good. It's got these people back or, you know, oh, they brought a cake. Oh, it's nice. You know, they brought, you know, bupkis. special Olympics. Yeah, she has the reverse Olympics, like to see who can bring the crappiest thing to her house. If you're invited to Nastasia's house and you really want to make an impression. Bring the crappiest thing you can find. be invited back all the time. Yeah, Boones, Boones, Farms. You know. I bring Pillsbury biscuits. Hey, you know what? You would like, you know, that's like the nicest thing anyone's ever brought her in her house. crazy. because I don't like biscuits. Oh, because you hate biscuits. Boom. See, no, and I wasn't even thinking because even though I know that she doesn't, in my

[24:41] head, knows she doesn't like biscuits, my heart can't believe that I work with someone who doesn't like biscuits.

[24:45] It's like, you know, whatever. Okay. So, wait, where was I? You want to take a quick break? Sure. Wait, answer the question or not? Did I even say the question yet? I didn't say the question. All right, we'll take a break. come back. Cookie. I'll see you in my dreams You are listening to Plexophonic. I'll see you in my dreams on cooking issues on heritageradionetwork.org. Still, I feel the thrill of your drums. Lips that once were mine. Tender eyes that shine. They will light my way tonight. I'll see you in my dreams.

[25:39] Yeah. Yeah. All right, Jack has tested Nastasia's new email and it works. I mean, new Twitter. Okay, it works, yeah. Where are we last? Oh, by the way, where we going to get still going to get our fish's fish later? Oh yeah. Okay, okay. Always got to get it. So where we last left off, Zach was buying cheese in, um, where was he, in Pittsburgh? Yeah, Zach was buying cheese in Pittsburgh and he was having some problems because the cheese is expensive. So let's get back to his question because I wasn't able to finish it because as usual, I spun off into some crazy BS. Okay. Zach's only problem is at the Price is good cheese go for in Pittsburgh. I want to use every gram of the good stuff, is using the rinds to make stock viable. I've seen it described online, but have my doubts as to how well it would work, that cheese seems to be so non-porous that I'm not going to get much out of it.

[26:35] I do most of my stock making the old-fashioned way. I know you like using the pressure cooker method. Would there be much difference in results using a pressure cooker for cheese stock versus the traditional stock

[26:44] pot. Thanks for the great show, Zach, in Pittsburgh. Oh, yeah, it works. It works great. I mean, uh, you know, uh, Wiley for a long time has been making uh,

[26:53] Parmesan Ryan, uh, Parmigiano. You're like Parmesan, what are you, an idiot? That's what Nastasia said. Look, she's giving me the idiot. of course. So, uh, no, but like the rinds of hard cheeses make uh, fantastic, um, stocks, assuming that, you know, obviously if you put something that's been,

[27:10] like, waxed, then I wouldn't do it because, um, well, you could skim the wax off the top, I guess.

[27:15] Or, you know, I wouldn't do it with something that's extremely, it works well with rubbed, hard rind cheeses. And, um, they, it's not that they melt out, but you remember, it was originally like a porous, uh, an agglomeration of the, uh,

[27:32] solids and milk solids and stuff comes out. You leak fat out, you leak flavor out. So you do get a really good amount of flavor out of the rinds. Stay away from rinds that are disgusting. So when you eat a Parmigano rind, the rind is hard to get flavor out of when you chew on it because it's so freaking hard and dry and

[27:50] dense, but it is not literally disgusting. You know what I mean? Whereas certain rhymes are literally gross. Like, you know, I wouldn't, I can eat a little bit of it, but the outside of a cloth bound cheddar isn't a rind that I would sit there and make a stock out

[28:05] of because it's, you know, musty and mighty, you know, and I'm fine with mites. In fact, you know, there's a cheese. I've really been wanting to try from, I think, the north of Italy on the border in Austria and in Austria, that's all mites. They make a clark-like thing. Like, put it in tubes and stick it in drawers and let cheese mites, eat it until it's mites all the way through and you break

[28:25] it and it's just a big brown, mighty mass. They're alive? Well, kind of, some of them are. Mighty mess. Well, there's this famous Italian cheese with the maggots, the maggot cheese. Where the flies lay the eggs and then they make the maggots in it and you break the cheese open and it's all wriggling. And, you know, it's not so common anymore. I don't even know if it's still legal in Italy, but it was very common back in the

[28:46] day. And, you know, and they would break them open and some cheeses would have them in some wooden, but it was considered a good thing and people would mop up the maggots with the with the bread. Wow. Yeah, yeah. real deal. Um, so yes, uh, yes, and it works without a uh, without a pressure cooker, although I would highly recommend moving to pressure cooked stocks in general, uh, based on flavor and

[29:06] time, if you get a non-venting, when everyone knows my feelings about pressure cookers and that you should use a

[29:11] non-venting, um, pot to do your, um, to do yourself. Although interesting, I was thinking about this before, I wonder whether or not a venting pot, like the Fagors, that, you know,

[29:21] I'm not a huge fan of. I wonder whether they're actually better for things like mustard seeds and sulfur things where we're flashing stuff off or whether they're better for, remember, way back in the day when I pressured, we

[29:31] had this when we pressure cooked a durian? I wasn't there. You were there? So we were pressure cooking durian and um, it was, uh, it was pretty cool. We made a mistake and I had the durian in the bar. I usually put a, I usually put things like that in a bowl and put water underneath so that I'm pressure cooking it, but I'm not worried about

[29:48] scorching, and I don't know, we put the durian directly into the pressure cooker, and it was a venting kind of pressure cooker, and we cooked it for an indeterminate length of time, and I opened it. And what we had was this kind of durian candy, like stuff at the bottom that it caramelized and it had no, it

[30:04] was even for a 100% Westerner with no like of the durian smell. Stuff was great. I've never been able to mimic it. But, you know, a lot of my post tests on durian have been with the coon recon, which doesn't vent. I wonder whether durian requires venting pressure cooker. Interesting problem. I have no idea. Anyways, what do you think? You think we answered that one? Yeah, I'm looking at the manga cheese. So she, well, I'm trying to figure, she got her hand over her mouth because she doesn't want me to describe her faith, face. I can't tell you whether or not. Okay. Dan Rabinowitz writes in. First, I love the show. It's one of the few that both assumes a working... I have to interrupt. Dan Rabinowitz. Thanks for becoming a member. Oh. Okay, that's it. Thank you, Dan. Okay. First of all, the show is one of the few that both assumes a working knowledge of cooking and modern methods, but it still dumps it down enough for me, an attorney by day to understand.

[30:55] I find it the perfect compliment to monitor his cuisine. Well thank you. Nice. So double things. I've heard your terrific method of infusing alcohols with ISI whippers. And I was wondering if it was necessary to use as a base something high in alcohol

[31:07] content or couldn't I use wine and make a vermouth using the ISI whipper infusion method. I've been making vermouth using the recipe on www.winemag.com. Uh, and it's a wine enthusiast from April 2008, uh, which requires infusion, uh, which I've done sous vide in 45 minutes. And then after the infusion, the addition of sherry to fortify and stabilize, right? Could I infuse the herbs, botanicals via ISI and then add sherry and then voila, vermouth? I am kosher, and there's no good or even drinkable kosher vermouth. So this could be a godsend, pun intended. Much appreciated, Dan. Okay. First of all, if you're gonna, yes, you can do ISI infusion with water alone. It does work. It takes a lot longer. And the higher the alcohol content, the faster the infusions are. I would add the sherry before. I looked at the recipe very quickly. and I could try to look at it again, or nostalgia can look it up. I think there's heating involved in that recipe, right? Well, look up that, go into the email and look up the recipe. There is heating involved in that recipe. Then obviously you're going to add the higher stuff to fortify it later. If not, you know, I don't see any reason why you can't add the Sherry earlier and boost up the alcohol content. That might help. Also, one thing, you know, I really want to say about, it'll work. It won't be the same. It could be better, it could be worse. It will be different. So, you know, every aspect, uh, and this is, you know, something I come back to, uh, again and again with new, new techniques, um, in the kitchen is

[32:37] sometime, sometimes techniques completely replace other techniques, like the only clarification method that I use at the bar now is

[32:45] centrifuge, because I don't see any reason to use any other clarification technique.

[32:50] But when it comes to something like, um, unless our center future is broken, in which case I would use one of the other techniques. But with confusion, all the flavors are dependent upon exactly how they're produced. So the temperature at which something's infused, the alcohol level at which something's infused, the concentration of the thing you're infusing, the length of time, the

[33:12] pressure. Oh, every single one of the, in fact, also whether something's infused on its own or with other things is also dependent, whether the size of the particle is extremely important, you know, whether you've sucked aside from the actual pressure,

[33:27] whether you've sucked a vacuum, and therefore gotten better contact by removing the air, so that you got better contact between what you're infusing and the

[33:35] product. All of these things have an impact on the flavor. And it doesn't necessarily make things, better or worse, just different. So, you know, if you're using a vermouth recipe that has, you know, wormwood in it, let's say, which the recipe did have,

[33:51] then, um, ISI is going to is going to be faster, and for uh, the same length of time, it will um, disfavor the bitter components in wormwood, right? And it'll preferentially pull out other elements. So when, you know, the way when I use ISI, I like to go back to one of the ones, the things that I do a lot in them, things like coffee, things like chocolate, and the advantage of

[34:17] them in those instances is that it tends to extract less of the bitter components that you would get out by doing a longer term extraction, which favor extracting everything in, including all the bidders, and instead tend to favor the extraction of some of the higher notes and, you

[34:38] know, some of the things that pull out faster. So I like, you know, I like it for that. ISI is also obviously good for doing things that are fresh and will not infuse

[34:47] well, if you need to let them sit around for a long time. So it's not better or worse, different, right? What do you think? Was that a heated recipe? The salsa pie? No, the, the, the homemade vermouth uh... No, I'm on the other one. Yeah, so go check it out. But yes, you could do it in ISI Whipper. I would just let it sit a lot longer. You can also do oils in the ISI whipper. We've done we've done oils in it. Anyway, so yes, it will work. Um, and I would try it for, uh, I mean, I would try it for much longer than we do with hard liquor. I would try it for 10s of minutes, maybe even up to an hour and see what happens, see what kind of infusion you did. Yeah, it's heated. So that's why they add the sherry later. So you wouldn't even need to add the sherry later, if you're never going to heat it. You could add the sherry at the beginning. That would also accelerate your infusion. It still will be different. But it could be delicious. I would let it sit longer. Like, maybe the length of time you were doing the sous vide one, like 45 minutes. See what happens. If that's too strong, dial it back. Do you know what I mean? But remember, whenever you're doing ISI infusion, um, and you can go back on cooking issues blog, because it's open again, uh, look up the technique. When you're doing it, remember that it takes a good 10, 15 minutes after you've

[35:55] unscrewed it and let it flashed off for the flavor to stabilize. Okay? Okay. Um, question in from who we got? Oh, actually, no. Yep, we have a question in from Tony Harrion. I know we do. I'm looking for it. Okay. Hope you were all well. I have a couple questions about distillation in a Rota app. for Dave. Do you still vouch for the use of a peristaltic pump on the condenser side? Is it really worth it? And what is your take on distilling several botanicals together or versus separately in a

[36:23] rotav app? It is quite hard sometimes to distinguish if they create diminishing effects on each other. as described in the following quote from a magazine article, or if it is just harder to identify the specific flavors when you do distillation of multiple things together. And this is a quote from Difference Guide, class magazine, or class magazine is quoted on Difference Guide, with someone who's doing his own distillation in the London.

[36:46] And the quote is, there is a, this is in quote, negative activated carbon effect from distilling botanicals separately. When botanicals are distilled together, as in traditional gin distillation, the presence of just one single absorbing element will affect the entire

[37:01] gin, as it will absorb flavors from its neighboring botanicals. Uh, well, that quote is somewhat, um, what's the thing? It's a bit muddled in terms of like understanding it on its own. So what they're I've never heard of, by the way, a negative activated carbon effect before in my life. So I don't know exactly, I mean, what I think is that the fellow that was making the gins in London, like that's something that he and

[37:25] like, you know, his crew talk about a lot. So it probably makes more sense. They're probably referring. I don't know why it's negative activated carbon in a situation, but they're probably talking about the effect that activated carbon has of absorbing flavors and somehow relating the effect.

[37:38] What they're really saying is, is that multiple things still together. Uh, they can affect uh, the amount of flavor released by the other ones and so he wants to do it uh, separately. So then the question is, and this is from Tony, which do I prefer to distill each individual ingredient separately and

[37:55] blend and blend them together, which is how this fella makes his gin, or distill it all together in the flask and do one single run? I think there's advantages to both techniques, flexibility versus speed just to begin, but it's not always easy to reproduce the result of one method using the other. Keep up the great work. Cheers, Tony Harrion. Okay. Uh, so my feelings are this. They are entirely different. There is no doubt in my mind that flavors taste different when they are distilled together and they

[38:24] can affect each other. What I think, I don't think about it in the way that, um, you know, they're thinking about, by the way, in case people don't know what the hell we're talking about. A road of app is just as still that runs at a lower temperature because the entire thing's put under a vacuum. And it has a couple of advantages over a normal still in that we can get extremely high recapture rate of the flavors that go into it.

[38:48] So it's very good, very, very good at doing redistillations of

[38:53] botanicals, because we can do them at very low temperatures, especially fresh botanicals that you couldn't otherwise do that are very heat sensitive. And so that's what we're talking about. Here's the deal. I always recommend the 1st time you distill a botanical to distill it by

[39:09] itself in pure vodka. I don't recommend you do it in water, and I don't recommend you do it in, uh, in super high proof ethanol. I recommend you do it in vodka. And when you add 40 proof, 40%, 80 proof. And so then when you distill that down, right? That is going to intaste it, that is going to give you an idea of what that sucker does on its own,

[39:33] right? Then you can do some blending. But I would also encourage you to try a mixed recipe because I find that sometimes it is much better to do a mixed recipe

[39:45] that the flavor you get from distilling things together is better than any mix I can make of things on their

[39:53] own. However, there is no easier way to try to reach a target than to make all the botanicals

[40:01] separately and then blend them together to taste. And I think that that is a very good way. And also, by the way, if you're doing bitters, uh, or even things like vermouth, a good way to figure out what's going on, is to do them separately to figure out what's going on and then mix them together and see whether you get a good result. However, then I would also try to do, after you've done that, then do a mixed version and see whether you like the blended one or whether you think you're going to like the mixed one better.

[40:27] And so that's what I say. What do you think? Oh, and on the peristaltic pump, what the hell that means is rotovaps, the way they work. One of the downsides of a roto app is that the distillate stays in a

[40:38] vessel called a receiver and over the course of the distillation. And that causes 2 problems. One, you can't taste it. So you don't know what the hell's going on. You don't know what it tastes like as it's going. And any regular distiller knows you want to taste the stuff to

[40:53] see, kind of when you should cut the distillation and then also to taste how the distillation's going during the run. Uh, and if you needed to cut the heads, which is the beginning part, which we don't typically do in a rodivat, because we're not doing, we're not distilling uh,

[41:04] ferment fermented things or distilling, you know, spirits usually. So, you know, it's good to taste, right? So that's the one thing. And so, well, you know, I developed a thing for the rodov app that you plug

[41:15] on, and it uses something called a peristaltic pump, which is, you know, it just, it's

[41:20] like a squeegee. squeegees the stuff out. Peristaltic pumps are great because they don't contaminate your product and they can work on a vacuum system.

[41:26] So a stolid peristaltic pump that constantly pumps the distillate out of the vacuum

[41:30] system, without you losing a vacuum, and lets you taste exactly what the distillate tastes like at any particular point in the

[41:36] distillation. This is the key part. The distillation tastes different at every single point in the

[41:42] distillation because the boiling point of the product is different as it distills. And therefore, what you're distilling off is different. So I think it's vitally important to be able to taste the distillate as it's being produced to figure out what's going on.

[41:55] And in fact, certain distillates are better if you remove certain portions of them. And so you can do that only if you have a peristaltic pump attached to gauge accurately what's going on. The other situation, if you have an old road of app that's at all leaky, uh, the, the product sitting in that receiver is constantly losing flavor over the course of the distillation, uh, because

[42:15] you're, you're losing, you're getting some airstripping through the, through the system because your road of app is leaky, in a perfectly sealed road of app, assuming you knew exactly when to do your cuts, you would not need to have the peristaltic pump, but I find that in the real

[42:30] life, when it's a little bit leaky, you get a lot of flavor stripping out of that thing. And so the peristaltic pump is extremely helpful. The problem with peristaltic pump is that your tubing needs to be in top shape and you can't use the tubing recommended by the manufacturers because it's not strong enough to stand up to the vacuum levels that we're doing in the Roto app. And so, you know, it degrades very, very quickly. And once the tubing degrades, you actually get vacuum loss through the tube, and then it's just a big, just a big jambota. You know what I'm saying? Anyway. So that's that's that. So should we go to our 2nd commercial break? I think you should keep going all the way through. Keep going. Wait, just keep... I got to hear my fish is fish. All right, 2nd commercial break.

[43:18] Fish is vicious vodka by the meatballers on cooking issues,

[43:22] heritageradionetwork.org.

[43:54] We'd like to send a special thank you to our latest business member, Amber Point of Sale. At Amber Point of Sale, their mission is to help food service business owners take control of their restaurants,

[44:08] bars, or cafes. Amber is an easy-to-use point of sales system that allows you to take orders table side, process credit cards, run reports, and manage inventory all through Apple's

[44:18] iPad, and without spending 10s of 1000s of dollars on a system too complicated to use.

[44:23] To learn more, head to amberapp.com. That's AMBURAPP.com or give them a call at 888-7702205 to discuss what Amber can do for you. To learn more about becoming a business member, email us info at heritageradionetwork.org. And welcome back. Dan writes in. Just finished listening to last week's cooking issue show and had a comment. Hope you can pass along. The show dealt with calcium oxide. And they didn't know what it'll be used for in cooking. In Andoni,

[44:53] Edari's recent cookbook, Mugarites. He uses calcium oxide for at least 3 recipes where the calcium oxide is mixed with water and then a vegetable. From what I understand, after soaking, the vegetable skin is left intact, but the entire inside is a puree, so you get a solid with almost liquid inside. And you can see an example called fossilized salsify on the website. But a better one is a beet that is soaked in calcium oxide, and then turns the color, turns the color and wrinkles like a prune or a pumpkin, and it's hard outside, but a puree inside. I too is wonder if I could buy any calcium oxide and use it or if it has to be food

[45:25] grade. Thanks again, Dan. Okay, listen, once again, that has got to be a mistranslation

[45:30] because it's calcium hydroxide. You know, the fossilized vegetable thing, you know, uh, it's something, you know, we've done uh, before calcium, calcium oxide. Look, I could be 100% wrong here, in which case, please write in again, but calcium oxide added to water will immediately react with the water and form calcium hydroxide and a large amount of heat.

[45:53] So, uh, my guess is, is that, you know, we're dealing with, unless you read it in Spanish, that we're

[45:59] dealing, either with a mistranslation, or I don't know why he is using the oxide, which is literally going to just sit there and convert into calcium hydroxide when it's added to water, uh, and

[46:10] liberate heat. That recipe should work with calcium hydroxide, which is

[46:16] cow or cal, you know, or any one of those other things, pickling lime or anything. I didn't get a chance to actually look at the, at the website to take a look or look at the recipe, but all of those stiffening things are not the result of the base nature of the calcium mox, but due to the calcium itself, the calcium, it, 1st of all, lowering

[46:38] the, um, the calcium, um, strength and the pectin, right? So what happens is the calcium goes in there and encourages the cross-linking of the pectins that are in the outside. And because it's not vacuum infused in, it only works on the things that are outside, and so the pectins don't break down, uh, even over long periods of cooking, uh, in something like uh, when you're doing

[47:00] Nixtamal, the, the basicity is also useful in dissolving the seed coat uh, on the outside. But I don't know what effect the basicity has on something

[47:12] like, on something like, I don't know, my brain is totally fried. But the basicity has on the effect of something like uh, like a vegetable, except for this. I know that when you add baking soda to broccoli. We did this test. Do we ever put this on cooking issues? I can't remember. If you add baking soda to broccoli water, the stuff stays green forever because it's not acidic and so the chlorophyll doesn't get changed

[47:36] informants stays bright green. The problem is it gets mushy because, um, in basic conditions, the pectin breaks down much more rapidly, right? Yeah. However, if you use cow, right? The calcium prevents the basic nature, uh, from turning it mushy and it stays uh, stays hard. So, you know, my feeling is, is that if you used calcium oxide as you're a calcium source, that it would just turn to calcium hydroxide anyway, but

[48:02] please someone who's better in chemistry, call back and tell me what's going on. Anyway, uh, what do you mean? enough? Okay. Okay, Marty writes in. Could you please ask Dave what his experiences have been like fermenting rice? I made a giant pot of glutinous rice, pitched a couple of Chinese yeast balls in with it, and put the whole mess into a fermentation pot for 3 weeks before straining out the liquid.

[48:22] The results taste like cloudy sweaty balls. If you remember that, remember that? sweaty balls. I love that like, I love, though, that you actually have a mental, whatever. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm thinking I didn't let it ferment long enough, any tips, thank Marty. Marty, I'm thinking you fermented it too long. So what we're talking about here is these balls, you can get, did McGee ever write about them? Harold McGee taught us about them, is that you can go into almost any, you know, large Chinese grocery store in

[48:49] Chinatown, and you get these little yeast balls, and they look like little white, almost like malted balls, you know what I mean? And then, and they're a mixture of, uh, you know, bacteria, I think. and yeast, similar to kind of Koji, but different, you know, similar to the Japanese Koji kind of thing, but different. And you cook a glutinous rice, and then you crumple up the ball and you mix it with water and you put it into the glutinous rice. and it breaks it down, it breaks into a liquid, so you can make something, you know, this kind of liquid drink,

[49:18] Chinese style liquid rice drink, or and the rice husk left over can be fried. And McGee was doing a lot of work on it. And I think he might have written about it for either for something or other because he had done a lot of work with it. And Dan Felder at Mumafuku's lab,

[49:30] worked with it a bunch because they're doing a lot of work with different kinds of Koji. Um, But those things ferment relatively quickly, like when I was doing it, I've only done it like 3 times. I let it only go for like 4 days. Do you know what I'm saying? So I think that you're you're a cloudy sweaty balls is mainly due to letting it go too long.

[49:52] Now, I wasn't getting super high yields out of it. So maybe you're trying to let it go longer because after it broke and went liquid. You didn't get enough of a yield out of the situation. I know Dan Felder has been doing some interesting work where he's pre-breaking the rice grange to try and increase the yield for stuff like that. But I don't know enough about his actual techniques because, you know, we don't actually work together,

[50:13] right? But I think your problem there is you're just going too long. I used mine like a day or 2 after it broke and I did my I did my stuff in

[50:22] my dehydrator. I put it in a big bowl, in my dehydrator covered, so I wasn't actually dehydrating it, but so I could keep the temperatures high. Because my temperatures, I think I was running it at like 120, a little under 120, maybe like one, like maybe like

[50:37] 100, 100 degrees Fahrenheit, 110, 100, something like that. covered with plastic wrap, and it only ran like 4 days or something like that before I used it. So don't go as long, Marty, and taste it as you go. Taste it. Did you forget about it, Marty? I think what happened is Marty made it, and he let it sit there, and he forgot about it. And then he came back, you know, several weeks later and so because, like, because what I would do, whenever I do anything like this, is you got to make a large enough match so that you

[51:05] can taste a little bit as it goes, so you know what's happening to it along the way. And I think you'll find that earlier in the process, it's going to be a little bit better. Right? Okay. Kevin, you writes in, and you know, Twitter... What are you doing? Natasha literally smashed her head into the microphone. Yeah. Yeah, sure, it was a headphone. anyway. So, yeah, we we talked to Kevin a lot on the

[51:32] Twitter, and he rides in that he's been working on a cocktail

[51:36] book, is 90% done, and sent us a copy. So we're going to read it and then I will make some comments next week on the book after we get a chance to read it, right?

[51:45] Yep. Yeah. You know, I myself am all, it's on the cocktails and science. Uh, and uh, so I, you know, I look forward to, look forward to reading it. I am also, of course, writing a book on a similar subject. Of course, mine is 6 months overdue and I'm a bad person and I'm getting threatening letters from my publisher, true or false. 8 months overdue. What did I? was doing June, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the moral support. Star, it's just a font of moral support. Anyway. So, uh, Penning, what? your head has been on your neck your whole life. How do you not know where it is? The best segment of the show yet. Seriously, people. I think, you know, man. Okay. So I'll leave you with this. Ken Igbert, long time listener, friend of ours, friend of the show, he's is he a member? Can a member? Not yet, but Ken, if you should be. He came to the Museum of Food and Drink event that we did a couple years ago. By the way, little... That was more expensive than the membership. Yeah, that's right. Membership is only 60 bucks, Ken. heritageradionetwork.org backslash donate. Wow. I have to. Yeah, to plug the plug. Okay. Speaking of the museum, before we go out, good news on the

[52:58] museum where we're looking at some different spaces for spaces. So look for more stuff happening in the museum, a lot of people are like, what's going on with the museum? What's going on with the museum is, and this is the museum of food and drink. For people that this is the 1st time you've ever heard what's going on. We're working on a museum of food and drink that we hope to open up in New York City in the next couple of years. We're going to start small as a gallery space, and we have a lot of really, really good, good people behind us in the food community. And there's an RFP,

[53:24] request for proposals for spaces in the Lower East Side, right near where I live. And so we're trying to work on that. If we can't get that, we're trying to find some other spaces. So anyone that wants to come help out, we have people working on the museum full-time, we have a team of 3 people working on it full-time. Anyone wants to, uh, you know, volunteer to help help them out or give any advice on that stuff. You know, please tweet us on in and I'll send you on over to the Museum of Food and Drink people. Tweet nostalgia, please, please follow her. Otherwise, I'm going to have to hear the mopingness of no one following Nastasia. Oh my god. All right. Anyway, so longtime listener and supporter of the museum, Ken Ingber, wrote in about the question we had on philosophy. Remember? Oh, before I do that, do I have time to, we had a call in real quick. I know a call in, but someone who tweeted in late. I'll do their question real quick because I'm going to be fast. Elliot writes in. Dave, Nastasia, and Crew. I thinking about making bread with a portion of the flour replaced by dehydrated vegetable powder. I would juice the vegetables, reserve the liquid to hydrate the dough, then dehydrate the

[54:24] pulp, and grind to a fine powder for use as a dry ingredient additive in the bread. Any suggestion on what to do, what to add to the dry ingredients for gluten development, thanks for the help, Elliot. Okay, so I'm assuming that you're dealing with a regular gluten bread. And then, so this is not a difficult problem. And I used to do this all the time. Just go buy vital wheat gluten in the store. And then, you know,

[54:51] whatever percentage powder you're adding, just add enough vital wheat gluten to equal the proportion of bread flour and you should

[54:57] get not 100, it's not going to be 100% similar because the product that you're adding isn't flour, but you should be able to get some of the strength involved. So let's say you were going to add 20% of the weight of, you know, of the flour, um, as this vegetable powder, right? Then what you're talking about is 20% of the weight of the

[55:16] flour, you figure you're like, you know, 14% protein or something like that, 12, you know, whatever, 12, 14% protein. So you should add, whatever, 12, 14% of that, 20%. you should add as vital wheat gluten, right? And it's not going to be 100% the same because you're adding like a pectant slurry and stuff like that. The other way to do it is not go through that trouble is, because here's what you're doing. what you say you're going to do. You say you're going to juice the vegetables, right? And then you're going to hydrate the dough with the liquid from the vegetables and then add the pulp. It seems to me that if you just figure out, go on the internets and figure out the moisture content of the vegetables to begin with, then you

[55:51] could calculate how much liquid is in the vegetables. Oh, I see what you're worried that you're worried that there's not going to be enough. I see. It's going to be hard to hide. My head is thinking, well, you're worried that it's going to be difficult to hydrate unless you actually separate it out versus just adding the

[56:06] puree to the bread. That's my guess, right? Right? Anyone else with me? Anyway. So if you think that's otherwise you can just add the puree and add gluten to make up for it, but I see what you're saying, you want to get the juice, hydrate the dough properly, then add the paste

[56:17] back, whatever. Try it that way, but just add some vital wheat gluten, it shouldn't be a problem. Okay, back to Ken. So a while ago, we had a question on why is it that there's so many chefs who, you know, have philosophy

[56:30] degrees? And, you know, I speculated maybe it's because, you know,

[56:35] chefs like useless degrees? I don't know, right? I have a philosophy degree, you know, whatever, Wiley, I think

[56:42] Chang maybe even we said there's a whole bunch of people that... Chang's religion? Hilarious. Anyway, uh, so Ken Ken had some, uh, Ken had some, uh, thoughts and I will share them with you on the way out. Ken writes, I am not a chef, so let's be clear, my answer is not from a chef's perspective. I am merely a home cook with an interest in the modernist approach and a degree in philosophy. Although Ken, I guess, putting it to good use, unlike, unlike, you know, me. Um, I think the connection is that uh, we philosophy majors are particularly interested in the essence of things. Julia Child 1st brought my generation, the platonic ideal of both French cooking and fine cooking. The long-standing movement back to ingredients, and back to authentic styles of cooking relate to the essence of food. And I believe modernist cooking and its progeny start with the notion of the essence of food. The works of chefs like Wiley are charming in both senses of that word, because both chef and customer begin with an understanding of the essence of the food and launch from there. The food challenges both chef and customer as to what is the essence of food, the nature of

[57:40] food, and the platonic ideal of food, maybe even God help me, the epistemology of food. Caning burr, cooking issues.

[57:54] Hey, what's up? Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradionetwork.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes

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