An industry dedicated to making foods crispy • Hacker News Board

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#71

Post by fma » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 1:44 AM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #44

GuiA wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they require an immense amount of skill to make, which means you can only find really good bread in communities where a baker artisan can run a sustainable business. In the age of home grocery delivery, it's an uphill battle. The number of bakers in France has steadily gone down over the past half century or so. It's been going up a bit recently due to the new phenomenon of upper class white collar workers who qu…

It's funny you'd say that, one of the thing that has been killing bakeries for the past 5 years is the broad adoption of bread making appliances. Small home appliances where you poor the ingredients, mostly half of water and half of flour, then it does the whole mixing and cooking by itself in a few hours. The bread always comes out warm and perfect. Making bread has never been easier. top sellers on amazon France: h…

More like mass produced bread from the grocery store is good enough for busy lives.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/france-bakery-bread...

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#72

Post by uhhyeahdude » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

Xcelerate wrote: post #19

Food science is really interesting; I've kind of gotten into it as a hobby lately (having a background in chemical engineering and an obsessive interest in cooking). Last night I was making some melted cheese for nachos and used sodium citrate to emulsify the cheese sauce and sodium hexametaphosphate to sequester the calcium (weird aside: the non-numeric chemical formula for sodium citrate is NaCHO). It's fascinating…

I would happily contribute to the Patreon of anyone writing up their experiments in practical food science at home...

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#73

Post by perl4ever » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 3:17 AM UTC

Kuinox wrote: post #33

sjf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, since the 90s in Ireland every convenience store big enough to have a deli counter has been selling Cuisine de France baguettes. Usually as the popular breakfast roll or chicken fillet roll. They are mass produced and crispy, they are cooked in store by staff with no special training.

I didn't saw yet a single industrial baguette that was better than what my local baker does. Industrial one may be crispy but have nothing like a good one.

You can take any random supermarket bread and say it happens to not be as good as your standard, but the process that makes it mass market, making the dough and freezing it in the factory, and baking it in a store, I don't believe has to meaningfully compromise the quality.

I don't know how it would be better, but I don't think it has to be worse.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#74

Post by perl4ever » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 3:20 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #57

brians wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think they have only those five ingredients? I’d bet on more gluten, malt, potato starch, a couple exotic salts, and more.

There is nothing wrong with most additives. Even so-called 'artisanal' bakers add 'bread improvers', which contain things like 'ascorbic acid' (ooohh scary! except that its common name is... vitamin C), enzymes or some fast sugars that are entirely converted to alcohol and CO2 by the yeast (i.e. they're just used as yeast feed, no extra sweetness to the final product). My mother used to work with a woman who later op…

"some American sogginess"

The equation of American bread with Wonder Bread is really tired and offensive. Maybe you should spin some tale about how American flour is so, so, different that making bread with flour, salt, yeast and water is so different than in Europe and it comes out completely inedible to those of refined palate.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#75

Post by perl4ever » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 3:25 AM UTC

Xcelerate wrote: post #19

Food science is really interesting; I've kind of gotten into it as a hobby lately (having a background in chemical engineering and an obsessive interest in cooking). Last night I was making some melted cheese for nachos and used sodium citrate to emulsify the cheese sauce and sodium hexametaphosphate to sequester the calcium (weird aside: the non-numeric chemical formula for sodium citrate is NaCHO). It's fascinating…

"Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that processed foods don't taste dramatically better than restaurant food"

1. Don't restaurants serve processed food, not to mention with fewer constraints since they don't shove the ingredient list in your face?

2. Who says the reason for a zillion weird ingredients is optimizing the consumer experience? Maybe it's actually a traditional way of trying to prevent competitors from duplicating a product? Recently, I've noticed an increasing number of products in mainstream US grocery stores that are more or less "processed food", but they have a small number of normal food-type ingredients, in dramatic contrast to those that are full of additives and weird stuff. Yet they aren't marketed as "organic" or otherwise suggestive of orthorexia.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#76

Post by fvncc » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 3:37 AM UTC

wisty wrote: post #41

marmaduke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair the best French baguettes are crunchy and soft at the same time and have only water, flour, salt, sugar? and yeast, so nothing much to be afraid of there.

Baguettes are not really healthier than chips. The same can be said for sushi (well sushi got some other stuff that's good for you, but let's just think weight loss). They're mostly just carbs. If Americans had sushi and baguettes they wouldn't be slim like the French and Japanese, they'd eat sushi till they are 110% full (the Japanese aim to not stuff themselves at meals) and then carry around a bag of baguettes for…

This is another factor to consider regarding carbs/starches, in addition to the more commonly known ones like GI:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#77

Post by phonypc » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 3:49 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #58

Xcelerate wrote: post #19

Food science is really interesting; I've kind of gotten into it as a hobby lately (having a background in chemical engineering and an obsessive interest in cooking). Last night I was making some melted cheese for nachos and used sodium citrate to emulsify the cheese sauce and sodium hexametaphosphate to sequester the calcium (weird aside: the non-numeric chemical formula for sodium citrate is NaCHO). It's fascinating…

" Last night I was making some melted cheese for nachos and used sodium citrate to emulsify the cheese sauce and sodium hexametaphosphate to sequester the calcium " Can you expand on this for a non-chemist? What's the effect, flavor- or texture wise, of sequestering calcium?

Smooth texture, that doesn't break (separate into oil and protein) with heat. Those ingredients and/or similar ones are principally responsible for what makes "processed cheese" processed. So think Velveeta or Kraft Singles, but potentially made with higher quality cheese.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#78

Post by 0xff00ffee » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 4:04 AM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #44

GuiA wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they require an immense amount of skill to make, which means you can only find really good bread in communities where a baker artisan can run a sustainable business. In the age of home grocery delivery, it's an uphill battle. The number of bakers in France has steadily gone down over the past half century or so. It's been going up a bit recently due to the new phenomenon of upper class white collar workers who qu…

It's funny you'd say that, one of the thing that has been killing bakeries for the past 5 years is the broad adoption of bread making appliances. Small home appliances where you poor the ingredients, mostly half of water and half of flour, then it does the whole mixing and cooking by itself in a few hours. The bread always comes out warm and perfect. Making bread has never been easier. top sellers on amazon France: h…

I find it amusing that bread machines and the NYT "no knead bread recipe" differ essentially by a few trivial steps.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#79

Post by 0xff00ffee » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

jbay808 wrote: post #10

spectramax wrote: post #2

When I was in college, I had a roomate who interned at Frito Lay. We got a lot of "beta" samples of new stacks that weren't public - the amount of engineering that goes into making snacks on ultra high volume scale is insane. I tested a bunch of snacks and provided feedback - which goes back into the engineering iteration loop before the snack is perfected, optimized for cost and manufacturability. It was indeed fasc…

I know that these things are optimized like crazy, but I often feel like the focus groups must just not include people like me. Most of the processed food industry makes foods that I find sickly sweet or absurdly oily, among other issues. Soda for example. I wouldn't describe as a failing of the Coca-cola company the fact that I don't like coke. Everyone has preferences. I would describe as their utter failure the fa…

One can of coke can be turned into 3x as much coke by watering it down. I do this at BBQs or parties, and people look at me funny, but it turns the sweetness down to a manageable level.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#80

Post by roel_v » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 4:40 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #74

roel_v wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with most additives. Even so-called 'artisanal' bakers add 'bread improvers', which contain things like 'ascorbic acid' (ooohh scary! except that its common name is... vitamin C), enzymes or some fast sugars that are entirely converted to alcohol and CO2 by the yeast (i.e. they're just used as yeast feed, no extra sweetness to the final product). My mother used to work with a woman who later op…

"some American sogginess" The equation of American bread with Wonder Bread is really tired and offensive. Maybe you should spin some tale about how American flour is so, so, different that making bread with flour, salt, yeast and water is so different than in Europe and it comes out completely inedible to those of refined palate.

Eh, I don't think using "American bread" as an expression for bad bread is all that horrible, just like "being on Italian time" (or Brazilian or whatever) or for people who are habitually late or "going Dutch" for splitting a bill is all that bad - even when I do know Italians and Brazilians who are always on time, and Dutch people who will pay for their table. Then again, it's 2020, so I guess I should change colloquialisms like this.