“I say smoke is the sixth sense,” says Edward Lee, a Korean-American-Southern chef in his 2013 cookbook. For all of us who are immediately drawn to barbecues as soon as the sun comes out, we’re likely to agree. That unmistakable smell and then, during that first bite, that irreplaceable and utterly comforting smoky flavour permeates from the meat and produce and lingers on the tongue.
But, those pesky scientists have other ideas with their empirical evidence and whatnot. Flavour, is different to taste and comprises of three elements: taste, physical stimulation and smell – and most of the flavour of smoke comes from smell.
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We all have our particular favourites when it comes to dining. For example this writer is fond of lamb dishes; always look out for shellfish options at restaurants and counts bread and butter pudding as (probably) the best thing created since sliced bread. Conversely, aubergines and overly green dishes are given a wide berth
It is the same for everybody, and now, as it transpires, the likes and dislikes of some of the most powerful and influential people in the world have slipped out and now the world knows their dining secrets. As it turns out, there is little culinary common ground between myself and Queen Elizabeth II.
“Whilst politics can divide people, good food always brings them back together.” [ Read More ]
They call it the disease of Kings and though it is traditionally associated with Victorian excess, gout is slowly becoming more and more common.
According to the latest figures released by the NHS, cases of gout have doubled within the past five years. And it isn’t just gout that is making a comeback; the amount of people diagnosed with suffering from scurvy – traditionally the bane of sailors – has increased as well.
The reason for these conditions returning is believed to be down to people consuming uniform diets consisting of large quantities of red meats and seafoods and more modern ills such as fast food and cheap alcohol. Just under 90,000 people were admitted to hospital with the disease in the year to April. [ Read More ]
It has been the worst news possible for a group of German sausage manufacturers who have been handed a £268m fine after being found to have formed an illegal cartel that worked together to fix costs.
The Federal Cartel Authority (FCA), who oversee and ensure that competition in the German market is fair and legal, announced that over twenty different groups formed the cartel and have been manipulating prices for a number of years.
Dubbed as the Atlantic Group after the Hamburg hotel where they are alleged to have originally met, many of the implicated producers such as Zur Muhlen Gruppe have denied any involvement in the illicit activity, though eleven had admitted wrongdoing and worked alongside the relevant authorities during the investigation.
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You may have seen the click-baiting headlines flying around social media. “Smelling farts cure cancer,” “Fart smells have big health benefits,” and the like. Admittedly, it’s been hard to resist reading some of those sensational headlines and making the odd joke about it, giggling like school children.
But if you cut through the playground humour of it all, there is actually some science behind the story, though potentially not as much as you may have been led to believe.
In the most recent issue of the Medicinal Chemistry Communications journal, Sophie Le Trionnaire and other researchers at the University of Exeter looked into the impact of hydrogen sulphide gas on cells’ mitochondria. [ Read More ]
Previous studies have suggested that keeping your alcohol consumption somewhere between 12 and 25 units per week could be good be relatively good for your health, but a new piece of research that has been published in the BMJ has brought some opposing evidence to light.
After gathering data from over 250,000 participants across 56 studies, it was concluded that light drinkers can reduce their risk of contracting coronary heart disease by cutting down their alcohol consumption even further.
The message is clear, said the professors who led the study, that the less you drink the better.
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A quick post-work nip out to the shops last night left me with a particularly peculiar choice to make. Whilst browsing through the whiskeys, beer and birthday cards I came upon a conundrum: what to have for tea?
It was there that some devilish thoughts appeared; kidneys would be on the menu.
Devilling foodstuffs was especially popular during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the practice may have gone out of fashion in recent years, but there is good reason why it is considered – in some circles at least – as a bona fide classic, with Devilled Kidneys being the crème de la crème.
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“Bringing people together on the neutral ground of [the] potato salad is a beautiful thing,” one commenter wrote about Zack Brown’s endeavour. For somebody with the middle name ‘Danger’ (or so he claims, we haven’t seen his birth certificate to prove or disprove this rather moot point) Brown’s Kickstarter campaign is rather benign: all he wants to do is create a potato salad.
Over 3,000 people have backed his dream, donating anything between $1 and $50 in order to help Brown fulfil his life-long dream of making his first ever batch of potato salad. [ Read More ]
We have often wondered if it’s actually a fact that the better the food looks, the better it tastes.
Sadly, a group of scientists got around to factually determining whether or not this was the case before we did.
Backing the long-held assumptions touted by chefs, restaurateurs and food critics alike, a number of researchers have served up some evidence that finds people really do prefer food that looks good.
A number of psychologists worked together and gave volunteers the chance to eat a salad that had been prepared.
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More than one million cases of food poisoning were reported in the United Kingdom last year, with poorly cooked chicken the most common cause of complaint.
Last week the Food Standards Agency published a report into food poisoning and it made for some very interesting reading.
Officials highlighted the importance of their own findings, suggesting that official data significantly underestimate the risk as only the most serious cases get reported when patients seek medical help.
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Author
Damien Wilde