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An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

bonappetit.com

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Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#91

Post by asveikau »

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.

My complaint about bread here in the states (I am American) is not that it's soggy so much as Americans have very high tolerance for stale bread, which means stores will often leave stale bread to fill the shelves completely, and I guess less "artisanal" brands will make their bread much less appealing when fresh because the market tolerates bland, hard textured, flavorless goods.

This varies a lot with the store and in what town you buy the bread. I didn't have this complaint as much in the Northeast as I did out west. But out west, you can find the good stuff if you are more selective and pay more.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#92

Post by JoeAltmaier »

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.

There's a whole aisle in my American grocery filled with wonder bread and its equivalent. I grew up on it.

I've been ruined by learning about bakeries and good crusty loaves with texture and flavor. Won't eat anything else now.

So I don't know about 'tired', its a real thing.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#93

Post by dwild »

curuinor wrote: post #4

If you read the papers on palatants and food processes destined for animals, they'll increase consumption by 20, 30% easily. Check out this patent for a horse nugget, for example: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/63/5b/ef/5e6b6bd... So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations.…

> So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations.

You realize that by definition there will always be more money in human food than animals? The only reason to feed animals, is to feed human, thus any cost related to animals food will be included in human food.

An industry also has much clearer cost to benefit, it's quantitative, it's clear that if you can get the same benefit for 1$ less or if you can get 1$ more out of something that cost less than that, again it makes sense. In the consumer world though, it much less clear, marketing has a much greater power there for example. Most people won't do the math on what's will feed them the most efficiently, they go by taste, they go by packaging, they go by brand awareness.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#94

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

phonypc wrote: post #77
roel_v wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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.

Good quality hard and semi-hard cheese made with rennet should melt and not separate. E.g. gruyere, cheddar, gouda or emmental, particularly the protected varieties.

If good cheese didn't melt it would probably not be considered an attractive characteristic and it would not be something people bother to try and simulate with additives.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#95

Post by phonypc »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #94
phonypc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good quality hard and semi-hard cheese made with rennet should melt and not separate. E.g. gruyere, cheddar, gouda or emmental, particularly the protected varieties. If good cheese didn't melt it would probably not be considered an attractive characteristic and it would not be something people bother to try and simulate with additives.

You can of course melt almost any unprocessed cheese without separating it, but they all split if overheated and don't behave well with added liquid (e.g. in sauces) without assistance from some additive. Processed cheeses with these "melting salts" have categorically different melting characteristics, they aren't trying to merely simulate regular cheese; they start as out as regular cheese after all.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#96

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

phonypc wrote: post #95
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good quality hard and semi-hard cheese made with rennet should melt and not separate. E.g. gruyere, cheddar, gouda or emmental, particularly the protected varieties. If good cheese didn't melt it would probably not be considered an attractive characteristic and it would not be something people bother to try and simulate with additives.

You can of course melt almost any unprocessed cheese without separating it, but they all split if overheated and don't behave well with added liquid (e.g. in sauces) without assistance from some additive. Processed cheeses with these "melting salts" have categorically different melting characteristics, they aren't trying to merely simulate regular cheese; they start as out as regular cheese after all.

>> You can of course melt almost any unprocessed cheese without separating it, but they all split if overheated and don't behave well with added liquid (e.g. in sauces) without assistance from some additive.

That is really not my experience. Are we both talking about good to high quality European hard and semi-hard cheeses, especially PDO varieties?

Edit: come to think of it, I should probably also check what you mean by "overheated". E.g. in Greece, where I come from, saganaki [1] is a signature dish that consists of a slab of graviera or kefalotyri (hard cheeses, in the alpine style) deep-fried in batter. I've had my share of sagnaki and I've never seen one break and separate in the way you say.

______________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saganaki

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#97

Post by roel_v »

phonypc wrote: post #77
roel_v wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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.

That's cool, although I do somewhat have the same reaction as the poster downthread that I don't really have the experience that cheeses in my dishes separate.

Either way, did you figure this out yourself from your chemistry background, or can you recommend a book that is "applied chemistry for dummies with a focus on cooking" without going all "modernist cuisine"? To me, cooking is applied chemistry, but the vast majority of all cook books are "here's a pretty picture, follow these exact steps to recreate".

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#98

Post by roel_v »

akhosravian wrote: post #83
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…

If you won’t, I’ll jump in. There’s evidence that it would be a positive choice to drop nitrates from ones diet entirely, but any cured meat product that claims to be nitrate free is either unrecognizable as what the label says or preying on consumer ignorance. Generally it is the second option, and celery salt is the smoking gun. Here’s an article on the subject: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/food/celery-juice-v…

Great link, thanks for that.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#99

Post by [deleted] »

bigbaguette wrote: post #84
perl4ever wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The manufacturing process makes them worse. On a mass scale, every cent counts and the first thing to take a hit is the quality of the flour and the density of the dough. Then it's machine mixed, frozen, and baked in the very same condition at all time in electric ovens and that makes for a pretty forgettable taste and texture. The end result is nowhere near what a competent baker can do, working manually and especia…

[deleted]

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#100

Post by perl4ever »

eru wrote: post #86
bigbaguette wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manufacturing process makes them worse. On a mass scale, every cent counts and the first thing to take a hit is the quality of the flour and the density of the dough. Then it's machine mixed, frozen, and baked in the very same condition at all time in electric ovens and that makes for a pretty forgettable taste and texture. The end result is nowhere near what a competent baker can do, working manually and especia…

> On a mass scale, every cent counts and the first thing to take a hit is the quality of the flour and the density of the dough. Yes, but a better product can be sold for more. That's why they are making something resembling baguettes in the first place, and not just the cheapest loaf possible. (Not saying that in practice the factory baguettes are better than what your favourite baker does. Far from it.)

Surely baguettes are always sold for way more than the cost of ingredients.
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