Cooking Issues Transcript

Episode 114: The Hammer Joins Twitter


Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves. We're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

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Hello and welcome to cooking issues. Is it Dave on your host of cookies coming to you live every tuesday in Bushwick Brooklyn, and Roberta's pizzeria, America's Radio Network. How you doing? guys doing?

Good. You're right on time. It's like 12 on the dot. How about that?

Yeah, man. What do you know? What do you know? So listen, big news. The Stasha has joined the social media seen? No, I don't believe that. Believe it back. No way. Yeah. Yeah. So anyone that can hear this. I want you to go out. And I want you to follow Natasha on Twitter here. Yes. Wow. Hammer BDS no underscore because that would prevent that's like a barrier between the hammer and you. So there's no underscore. Yeah, right. Yeah. Do you Has anyone followed you yet? No. Really? At hammer that can't be at hammer, edX,

edX. Okay. edX. I don't know if that matters.

So BDS is what we shorthand call Booker index the bar. Right. So So BDS is like Booker index. And the equipment the equipment company on foot before Eldridge. We call BDS EQ. Fairness. So that's it. That's it, folks. Follow me.

I'll answer you, but I won't promote

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.

Yeah. Have you met her? Have you met Natasha? It's like once she's gonna do it. She's like, she's like, No, no, I don't want to do it now. People can do it now. That's bad. What she's gonna do it she's gonna 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 gonna be the vicious. So if you friend me, or whatever you call it. I'll be vicious. Right. Yeah, right.

So it's back there

except for the fact that I think also you will be able to tweet in radio questions to nest it was one of the reasons she decided to do it was you were getting all them and then yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. In some other non cooking oh, by the way, calling your questions five to 718497213 that's 718-497-2128 but in some non cooking related news while Natasha was non cooking related news, but you will not know this unless you know us personally, but we are kind of Konya shanties of, of tabloid headlines. And you know, We flatter ourselves that we could someday be good tabloid headline writers, but I saw in the subway today, oh my god the best, it's the best. It's like it's right up there where it's one of the great headlines you've never told that one just tell which one, the one that's real. Which one the one that you love the best? 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 when we're reading from 911 When we first bombed Afghanistan and the headline was cut bull's eye combos I you know that there's just some dude or dudette whatever sitting in a hole somewhere that they throw raw meat at? And they're like we just bombed Afghanistan. Oh my god. But so like it three in the morning or whatever someone wakes the headline writer and they're like I said listen to Pope's advocating the Pope's advocating says he's too tired to you know, mentally tired. To pooped to Pope. Boom, I was like, Oh my God, you know, when 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 to come up with a headline that's so genius. Daily News,

or?

I don't even know it's one of those. It was probably one of the papers. No, but it was it was one of the ones that they handled the subway so I don't know who doesn't 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 a genius. You love that too pooped to Pope. Genius.

I've got bad news though. The Stasi your Twitter account doesn't work. What hammer? Hammer BDS I'm looking at it. Why can't we get it Ellie's just wrote into he said he can't can't get you

to activate it.

You know what we're gonna get? You know, figure it out Jack and Joe Jack and Joe know how to do the social media. I'm gonna pass you my computer. Yeah. And so we'll get to so another banner thing this time she won't be typing shopping for shoes during the show. This is like, people this is an incredible show. Anyway, Chinese New Year I'm turning over. Okay, dear 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 two very differently shaped glasses, does it taste difference is so is there any science to why keep bringing the awesome from John riper, and it's because it's spelled rip er. So there's a question and as everyone knows, I'm horrible at pronouncing names. So he helpfully added in parentheses pronounced like the adjective a riper Apple beats an unripe one. And you are so right John about the right brand before I answer your question, let me just add she's putting her her her dumbass face on, but she is the face that we you see when she's talking sitting next to me anyway. A, which is a little different from the vegan face, because it's like some liking and it just you know. Anyway, so here's the problem with with apples that aren't aren't ripe. So I've actually I've said this before, probably on the show a million times. But just in case I want everyone to go to their local farmers markets 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. And one of the things I hate most about Americans in 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 bed or hyper crunchy 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 desert 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 were 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 under ripe. And when you pick an incredibly under ripe 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 right And even though those ripe apples aren't going to last very long, the old ones, especially the early risers, anyway, so yes, I riper Apple is better, John now to your question. As an aside, yeah. Anyway, oh, my Twitter account works. Oh, okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna follow you at the end of the show. So two questions, too. So, we read it all. And it's, it's readable. Actually, it's not readable. I refuse to call it but it's readable. I spoke to Maximilian Riedel once it's Riedel glassware. Yeah, Riedel. So even though everyone says, Read out, right, everyone, well, if you took some joy in, you know, it's readable anyway. So the, you know, they've made an incredible business off of the shape of the glass being incredibly important to the way you experience particular drinks. I, in fact, went to a seminar, I can't remember who's who there's the the older Riedel and the younger one. I've met both of them. But the older one gets one of them's 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's doing a pilot, this is like 15 years ago or something. And he takes two of his expensive ones. And he goes, and he knocks them together, you know what he said? This is the sound of money. It's what he said, he literally said that, to me, this is the sound of money. And the younger ones, kind of an Australian Playboy skills, excuse around in the absence of you'd like them. She loves the ABS anyway. So the one thing she loves, she hates biscuits, but loves the ABS who figured go figure anyway. So um, so you know, Riedel goes around, gives us seminars and makes a huge, you know, thing about how the glass shape is extremely important. And does he's incredibly compelling seminars, where you'll be, you'll be there and there'll be nine glasses. So like, no more 333333333. That's, what does that last night? Yeah, anyway, and so you'll, you'll, you'll sit there and he'll do a grid. So he'll have the same spirit going across, right with three different glasses, and then the same glass going down. So you'll taste three different spirits in their correct glasses and two 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 the only the particular glass shows off that particular spirit properly. And it is quite a compelling presentation. However, I will say this, he himself is a great salesperson, and He guides you through the tasting. So it's not triangle testing, where you're testing to see which one mean you can tell the difference. There's no doubt at least we you know, I've never done it in an unguided way. But when he did it in a guided way, you definitely tell the difference. There is some be ESRI will say some kind of BS around it, where you know, the the needles are still talking about the tongue. And they show a picture of the tongue and they bring out the widely discredited incorrect view that you taste only certain things in certain areas. Now, the when you're growing up, they show you that map of the tongue. 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 table if you start just saying that your teachers are crazy and wrong, and what they're teaching you in school is incorrect. Because apparently you're not supposed to do that. I think that's fine. But 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, what your teacher, I'm just not a bad person, but they're just wrong, you know what I mean? But whatever, and then whatever going back so that the tongue thing is incorrect. In other words, the old map of where you taste salty and sweet and all that's incorrect. And Riedel used, although you do have different densities of receptors, you know, over your tongue, me your tongue does differ it is it does have a map, but it's not the way it worked. You know, like we were talking, we were kids. So Riedel makes a big thing about the shape of the glass directing, especially the shape of the lip directing certain things towards certain parts of your tongue. And I think that in 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 bowl, versus how much is poured in it, that makes a huge difference because that determines the airspace to liquid volume ratio is extremely important. Also, the shape of the bowl and how it holds and or concentrates and or dissipates the aroma molecules I think is vitally important to the way that we enjoy wine or any any liquids. So I think it's, you know, for instance, I'll give you a for instance, so in when we do the red hot poker drinks at the bar, we hit him with the red hot poker and if you stick any Have those red hot poker drinks into a normal glass and put your nose anywhere near the alcohol vapor is so concentrated, that is literally unpleasant, you can't bring it to your nose to drink, because you just can't you know what I mean? It's 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 things 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 the your nose just fits into the rim of it. And then you're you're sticking your your hotbox in your nose with the wine. So you're you know, it's, it's mean that 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 there is one particular glass shape for each particular wine is true, although I have to say, from personal experience, the guy's Spiel is compelling when done in person. Yeah, yeah, right. She's like, Yeah, whatever.

Whatever. Okay. Are you gonna announce have people calling for Jack? Oh, yeah.

This is the Valentine's Day,

by the way, cleared up the Twitter issue. You're not at hammer. VTX. That's your display name. You're still at Booker. Index bar. No, no, no.

No. She messed it up.

Just now. Yeah. Wait, like right now? Oh, my goodness.

I'm learning. Wow.

Well, let's not learn on other people's time, shall we? Okay, not talking about deck. Oh, yeah. So Jack, still dateless for the Valentine's Day. Very disappointed. Maybe Mr. Rush is right. Do we have any? I mean, Jack, I looked at picture I tweeted out of Jack. Not necessarily. He's he's the one that's not the stuffed boar head. Yeah. In that picture. I tweeted out. Yeah. But he's looking for the balance. And this is the Valentine's

Day got a call coming in. Who knows? Maybe this is it. Oh, fingers crossed.

Caller you're on the air. Oh, hold on.

hang up on me.

All right. Thank you. Hey, how you doing? Hi.

Hi, this is Judy from Maryland. I love your show. I have a question regarding gelatin and bloom strength. Okay. So I keep kosher myself and like so many other things aren't very many kosher products on the market were in certain areas. And gelatin is one of them. There is one company that produces a powder gelatin, which they say is similar to Knox brand, right? But it doesn't have anything you know, indicating the blue strength on the package. And I've tried to get in touch with them and I tried to call email whatever. No response. I was wondering if there was any way to you know, short of getting some fancy lab equipment to determine that myself. Whether or not it's I know you mentioned in one of the past issues like an over under test the numbers game I think was with the beet powder. If I did that comparing that to the KNOX gelatin what what characteristics should I look for?

Yeah, well the the bloom strength is a you know, it's not like you're stretching my memory a little bit it's been a while since I looked at the technical thing was 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 I think I believe that's what it is. But I have to go back and look it up or Anastacia you can look up the definition of bloom strength while we're talking Oh computer useful. So what I would do though from from your standpoint of what actually makes it useful, is I would by the way, Knox gelatin is extremely high bloom strength compared to a lot of KNOX is a pretty strong gel as opposed to 20 or something right? Yeah, it's pretty it's like in the gold it's in the Gold or Platinum range. If you are dealing with leaf you know what I mean? It's 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 read a recipe for NOx because I'm you know I'm depending on that bloom strength and my guess is it the bloom strength is pretty much you know, directly related to the chain length of the gelatin things I'll read you what the Wikipedia says. Bloom test is a measure of the strength of a gelatin originally developed by guy named bloom that I knew the weight in grams needed by a probe to deflect the surface of the gel four millimeters without breaking it. So it's also a measure of its of its inability, ability. Resilience, correct. Good. Thank you. So what I would simply do is you know, these things are fairly easy to tell by what was the concentration and said interested in you Yeah, oh, six No 6.6 When they're doing bloom tests they do at 6.6 which is very high 6.6%. So what I would do is I would just make out Just make the two jokes side by side and then just test that you'll be able to tell with your finger you don't need a, you know, a four six millimeter probe or whatever it is. If you just take the two 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 KNOX because do they see what it's made out of? They don't make from from bovine skins. Okay, so it isn't well, okay, so good is not one of the kosher fish. gelatins No, it's not official. 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 mean, they're not bad. You know, they're not bad. They're not bad. That's not what to say it. But like, they're not a good replacement for Knox. But yeah, so it's made by cow, you actually, it has a good shot, if they you know, depending on how it's done depends on how they extract it. And at what point in the extraction, you get your stuff. Like I think the first stuff that comes off is the higher chain, or Yeah, I think anyway, so like the stuff that's easier anything to extract is the higher chain, like it's been a long time since I've looked it up. So it's in two possible just make the two 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 you know, I would, then it's going to be a little more important exactly what it is. But if it feels fairly similar to the NOx in reasonable concentrations, then I think it's probably going to act pretty much like the NOx, especially if it's a cow bass gelatin, and not a you know, not some sort of a fish based gelatin.

Right. And let's say I did a test and it is pretty far off from my perception of it, there would be really no other good way of determining what is comparable to

not mean, you know, you're short of getting short of getting, you know, a bunch of different gelatins together 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, but you know, if the the person leave 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'll be 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 liars. They were just liars. Yeah, they just lied on the package straight up lie. And then you can actually it's an interesting Google Search to dig down into is the 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 fact, they were just using jello. 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, but yeah, she's looking at me like you're calling these people liars. I'm not I'm not. But I would you know, it has look, if it's if it's from cows, it has a good shot of being a high quality. I mean, hi blooms 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, you know, makeup makeup, like a 2% 2%. Knox, right, and then make like a 2% or 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, you can tell just by, you know, seeing how far it bends for breaks, pushing through it, seeing how much force it takes to push through. And then you could probably hone it down to within a couple of tenths of percent of how to adjust the recipes. Okay. Makes sense? Yeah, and thank you very much. 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 gel, I would take it down until just the 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, gel aspect kind of situation, you'll be able to do it pretty much all the ranges.

Okay. All righty. All right. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks.

Good luck with it. Yeah, okay. So did I answer I answered the what answered the glass question. Yeah, okay. Oh, wrong password. Oh my gosh, we're just breaking up today. Okay. Question from Zack in Pittsburgh. how humans doing I like humans you don't like humans? Humans, humans. It's like you you want you you you plurals like us like we would say us here pay us. Although here in like the jersey in New Jersey New York situation use can just be one person but that's a that's a complete anomaly. It shouldn't be. What are you doing? You know what I mean? But it's it should be used meaning like you plural, you know I mean? Like y'all that's our y'all like 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. I've recently improved the quality of the cheese I keep around the house which is In a very pleasurable experience my only problem is as the price is good cheese go for in Pittsburgh and everywhere by the way, Zack, although you can get some decent cheese prices in, in New York for certain things, you know, I'm always a what's the word shot, don't shy beware of cheap, inexpensive cheese because usually it means that it was stored craftily and then the people who are 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 unless it's delicious. But you know, usually a lot of that stuff is really busted up. It's not that you know, I'm talking about so yeah, so in other words, beware of cheap beware, you know, inexpensive is one thing but beware like you know, cut rate cheese Emporium. I had a friend cheese recently to a dinner party that had a big red sail sticker on it.

You know who then?

Yes, yes. Then Natasha mustaches. Has the neg the negative houseguest the Olympics like so? Normally the house guests Olympics are where you keep a track of your house guests as they come. And you see like, oh, they bought a nice bottle of wine. Good. Let's get these people back or the Oh, they got a cake. Oh, nice. You know, they brought you know, buckets. Yeah, she is the reversal Olympics like to see who can bring the crappiest thing to her house. If you're invited to this Josh's house and you really want to make an impression bring the crappiest thing you can find me back all the time. Yeah. Boone's bones 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. Because I don't like biscuits. Yeah. Oh, cuz you hate Oh Cena no when I wasn't even thinking because even though I know that she doesn't in my head. No, she doesn't like biscuits. My heart can't believe that I work with someone who doesn't like biscuits. It's like you know, whatever. Okay, so where was it

you went to a quick break?

Sure wish we answered the question or not what did I even say the question Yeah, I didn't say that. Alright, we'll take a break we'll come back cookie Good to

see you in my dreams.

Oh, you are listening to Plex a phonic? I'll see you in my dreams on cooking issues on heritage radio network.org still

feel the thrill of dance that once were tender as that shine will lead my way tonight. See you in my dream

Jackson, by Jack has tested moustaches new email and it works I mean new Twitter. Okay, it works. Yeah, where are we lat? Oh, by the way where we're gonna get still gonna get our fishes fish later. Oh, yeah. Okay, always gotta get it. So where are we last left off. Zach was buying cheese and whereas in Pittsburgh? Yeah, Zack 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 prices good jeans cool. 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 described online, but have my doubts as to how well it would work. That cheese seems to be so non porous, and I'm not going to get much out of it. 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 GE stock versus the traditional stock pot? Thanks for the great show Zach in Pittsburgh. Oh, yeah, it works. It works great. I mean, you know, wildly for a long time has been making Parmesan Ryan parmigiana you're like what are you an idiot? That's where the stock just said look, give me the idiot Of course. So no, but like the rinds of hard cheeses make fantastic stocks assuming that you know obviously if you put something that's been waxed then I wouldn't do it because well, you could skim the wax off the top I guess. Or you know, I wouldn't do it with something that's extremely it works well with rubbed hard rind cheeses and they it's not that they melt out but you remember it was originally like a porous an agglomeration of the solids and milk solids and stuff comes out you leave fat out you leave flavor out. So you do get a really good amount of flavor out of the rinds stay away from Ryan's that are disgusting. So when you eat a parmigiano rind, the Ryan is hard to get flavor out of when you chew on it because It's so freaking hard and dry and dense, but it is not literally disgusting. You know what I mean? Whereas certain rinds are literally gross, like, you know, I wouldn't, I can eat a little bit of it but the outside of a clothbound cheddar isn't a rind that I would sit there and make a stock out 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 of really wanting to try from I think the north of Italy on the on the border in Austria and in Austria, that's all mites. They make a quark 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 it and it's just a big brown mighty mass. They're alive. Well, kind of some of them are mighty mass. 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 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 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 with the bread. Oh yeah, yeah real deal. So yes, yes, and it works without a without a pressure cooker although I would highly recommend moving to pressure cooker stocks in general based on flavor and if you get a non venting everyone knows my feelings about pressure cookers and that you should use a non venting pot to do your to do so although interest I was thinking about this before I wonder whether or not a venting pot like the figures that you know I'm not a huge fan of I wonder whether they're actually better for things like mustard seeds and sulfur things were flashing stuff off or whether they're better for remember, way back in the day when I pressured we that was when we pressure cooker durian I wasn't you were there. So we were pressure cooking durian. And it was it was pretty cool. We made a mistake and I had the dream and the but 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 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 It's like stuff at the bottom that caramelized and had no it was even for 100% Westerner with no like like of the durian smell. stuff was great. I've never been able to mimic it but you know what mine a lot of my post tests on durian have been with the Connery comic doesn't fit. I wonder whether durian requires a mounting pressure cooker. Interesting problem. I have no idea. Louis, what do you think we answered that one? Yeah.

I'm looking at the manga cheese,

of course. So she what I'm trying to figure she got her hand over her mouth because she doesn't want me to describe her face a face. I can't tell you whether or not Dan Rabinowitz writes in first I love the show. It's one of the few that both assumes

interrupt and Rabinowitz. Thanks for becoming a member.

Oh. Okay, that's it.

Thank you, Dan. Okay. First love the show is one of the few the both assumes a working knowledge of cooking and modern methods, but it's still dumbs it down enough for me an attorney by day to understand I find it the perfect complement to monitors because Thank you. Nice. So double things. I've heard you're terrific method of infusing alcohols with isI whispers. And I was wondering if it was necessary to use as a base something high in alcohol content? Or could I use wine and make a vermouth using the isi whip or infusion method? I've been making vermouth using the recipe on www dot wine mag.com. And that's a Wine Enthusiast from April 2008, which requires infusion, which I've done cvwd in 45 minutes. And then after the infusion of the additional Sherry to fortify and stabilize rent, could I infuse the herbs and botanicals via ISI and then add Sherry And then wala 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 going to us, 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. But I looked at the recipe very quickly, to try to look at it again and start you can look it up. I think there's heating involved in that in that recipe, right? Look up that go into the email, look at the recipe, there's heating involved in that recipe, then obviously, you're going to have 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 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 and this is something I come back to again and again with new new techniques in the kitchen is sometimes sometimes techniques completely replace other techniques. Like the only clarification method that I use at the bar now is centrifuge because I don't see any reason To use any other clarification technique, but when it comes to something like inless are centrifuges broken, in which case I would use one of the other techniques. But with them fusion, all the flavors are, are dependent upon exactly how they're produced. So the temperature at which something's infused the alcohol level of which something's infused, the concentration of the thing, you're infusing the length of time, the 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 that whether you've sucked a vacuum, and therefore gotten better contact by removing the air. So if you got better contact between what you're infusing, and the end 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, then isI is going to, is going to be faster. And for the same length of time, it will disfavor the bitter components in Wormwood, right, and it will preferentially pull out other elements. So when we you know, the way we want to use ISI, I like to go back to one of the ones things that I do a lot in them things like coffee, things like chocolate. And the advantage of 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 and including all the bitters and, and instead tend to favor the extraction of some of the higher notes. And you know, some of the things that pull out faster and 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 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 hidden recipe? This ossified? No, they the homemade vermouth. That one? Yeah, so go go check it out. But yes, you could do it and 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. And I would try it for me, I would try it for much longer than we do with hard liquor. And I would try it for 10s of minutes, maybe even up to an hour and see see what happens. See what kind of infusions? Yeah, it's you. 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 shear at the beginning that would also accelerate your urine fusion. It still will be different, but it could be delicious. I would let it sit longer like like maybe the length of time you're doing the SU v one like 45 minutes, see what happens if that's too strong. dial it back to him. But remember, whenever you're doing ISI and fusion, and you go back on cooking issues, blogs, it's open again. Look up the technique when you're doing it. Remember that it takes a good 1015 minutes after you've unscrewed it and let it flashed off for the flavor to stabilize. Okay. Okay. Question in from WHO? Actually know yet. We have a question in from Tony Harry and I know we do. I'm looking for it. Okay, hope you're all well, I have a couple of questions about distillation and a roadmap 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 Rota, that 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 a class magazine is quoted on difference guide was someone who was doing his own distillation in in the London and the quote is there is a dissident quote, negative activated carbon effect from distilling botanicals separately when botanicals are distilled the distilled together as in traditional gin distillation, the presence of just one single absorbing element will affect the entire gin as it will absorb flavors from its neighboring botanicals. Well, that quote is somewhat

What's the thing? It's a bit muddled in terms of like understanding it on its own. So what their bit 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 is that the fellow that was making the gins in London, like that's something that he and 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 and situation, but they're probably talking about the effect that activated carbon has of absorbing flavors and somehow relating the effects. What they're really saying is, is that multiple things still together. They can affect the amount of flavor released by the other one and so he wants to do it a separately. So then the question is, and this is from Tony, which do I prefer to distill each individual ingredients separately and blend and blend them together, which is how this fellow makes his gin or distill it all together in the flask and do one single run. I think there's advantages to both techniques, less flexibility versus speed just to begin, but it's not always easy to reproduce a result of one method using the other Keep up the great work. Cheers Tony Harrison, okay. So we 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 can affect each other. What I think if I don't think about it in the way that I know, they're thinking about, by the way, in case people don't know what the hell they're talking about a road map is just a steal, that runs at at a lower temperature, because the entire thing is put under a vacuum. And it has a couple of advantages over a normal steal. In that we can get extremely high recapture rate of the flavors that go into it. So it's very good, very, very good at doing we distillations of 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 first time you distill a botanical to distill it by itself. In pure vodka, I don't recommend you do it in water, and I don't recommend you do it in 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 taste it, that is going to give you an idea of what that sucker does on its own right, then you can do some blending. But I would also encourage you to try a mix recipe because I find that sometimes it is much better to do a mixed recipe that the flavor you get from distilling things together is better than any mix, I can make a things on their own. However, there is no easier way to try to reach a target than to make all the botanicals 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, 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 liked the blended one or whether you think you're going to like the mixed one better. And so that's what I said, Why do you think it's good? Oh, and on the peristaltic pump, what the hell that means is wrote of apps the way they work. One of the downsides of a road map is that the distillate stays in a vessel and called a receiver and over the course of the distillation, and that causes two 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 see kind of when you should cut the distillation and then also to taste how the distillation is going during the run. And if you needed to cut the heads, which is the beginning part, which we don't typically do in Rotovac, because we're not doing we're not distilling fermented, fermented things. We're distilling lino spirits usually. So you know, it's good to taste right. So that's the one thing and so you know, I developed a thing for the role of app that you plug on. And he uses something called a peristaltic pump, which is a you know, it just it's a squeegee that squeegees the stuff out and peristaltic pumps are great because they don't contaminate your product, and they can work on a vacuum system. So Solid peristaltic pump that constantly pumps the distillate out of the vacuum system without you losing a vacuum, and let you taste exactly what the distillate tastes like at any particular point, the distillation here this is the key part, the distillation tastes different at every single point and the distillation because the boiling point of the product is different as as it as it distills and therefore what you're distilling off is different. So it's 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. 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 accurate what's going on the other situation, if you have an old road of app, it's at all leaky. The product sitting in that receiver is constantly losing flavor over the course of the distillation. Because you're you're you're losing, you're getting some air stripping through the through the system, because your roadmap is leaky. In a perfectly sealed roadmap, 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 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 roadmap. And so it 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 jump Botha you know what I'm saying? Anyway, so that's that's that so should we go to our second commercial break?

I think you should keep going all the way through keep going

wait just keep away I gotta hear my fishes fish. All right second commercial break

fish is vicious vodka by the meat ballers on cooking issues. Heritage radio network dot O R

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and welcome back. Dan writes in just finished listening to last week's cooking issue show and how to comment hope you can pass along the show dealt with calcium oxide, and they didn't know what to be used for in cooking in and Dhoni. enteries is recent cookbook Mugaritz. He uses calcium oxide for at least three 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 of the puree. So you get a solid with almost a liquid inside. And you can see an example called false fossilized philosophy on the website. But a better one is a beat 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 it was wonder if I could buy any calcium oxide and use it or or if it has to be food grade. Thanks again, Dan. Okay, listen, once again, that has got to be a mistranslation because it's calcium hydroxide, you know, the fossilized vegetable thing? You know, it's something we've done before calcium, calcium oxide, oh, look, I could be 100% wrong here, in which case, please write it again. But calcium oxide added to water will immediately react with the water and form calcium hydroxide and a large amount of heat. So my guess is is that you know, we're dealing with unless you read it in Spanish, that we're dealing either with a mis translation, 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 and liberate heat. That recipe should work with calcium hydroxide, which is cow or kelp, 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 oxide, but due to the calcium itself. The calcium is first of all, lowering the the calcium strengthens 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 and it only works on the things that are outside. And so the pectins don't break down, even over long periods of cooking in something like when you're doing next amount of the basicity is also useful in dissolving the seed coat on the outside. But I don't know what effect the basicity has on on something like on something like I don't know, my brain is totally fried. But the basicity has on the effect of something like like a vegetable except for this. I know that when you add baking soda to broccoli, we did this test if we ever put this on cooking issues. I can't remember if you had baking soda to broccoli water, this stuff stays green forever because it's not acidic. And so the chlorophyll doesn't get changed in format. It stays bright green. The problem is it gets mushy because in basic conditions the pectin breaks down much more rapidly, right? Yeah, yeah. However, if you use cow, right, the calcium prevents is the basic nature from the from turning it mushy and it stays stays hard. So you know, my feeling is is that if you use calcium oxide as your as your a calcium source that it would just turn to calcium hydroxide anyway but please someone who's better in chemistry call back and tell me what's going on anyway. We're in 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 and with it and put the whole mess into a fermentation pot for three weeks before straining out the liquid. The results tastes like cloudy sweaty balls. If you remember that, remember that? sweaty balls. I love that like, I love that you actually have a mental whatever and I talked about, 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 these balls you can get a monkey ever right about him. Harold McGee taught us about them is that you can go into almost any large Chinese grocery store in in 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, 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 crumble up the ball and you mix it with water and you put it into the glutinous rice. And it breaks it down and breaks into a liquid. So you can make something you know, this kind of liquid drink, Chinese style liquid rice drink or and the rice husk leftover 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 Momofuku, his lab has worked with it a bunch, because they're doing a lot work with different kinds of koji. But those things ferment relatively quickly, like when I was doing it, I've only done it like three times, I let it only go for like four days, you know what I'm saying? So I think that your your cloudy, sweaty balls, is mainly due to letting it go too long. 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 break pre breaking the rice grains 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, right. But I think your problem there is you just going too long. It's I used mine, like a day or two after it broke and I did my D I did my stuff in my dehydrator, I put it in a big bowl in my dehydrator covered so I wasn't actually dehydrating it, but so that I can keep the temperatures high. Because my temperatures I think I was running it at like one to one day, a little under 120. Maybe like one, like maybe like 100 100 degrees Fahrenheit 100 110 100 from like that covered with with plastic wrap. And it only ran like for like four days or something like that before I used it. So don't go as long Marty tasted as you go. Tasty. 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 it because what I would do whenever I do anything like this is you got to make a large enough batch so that you could taste a little bit as it goes. So you know what's happened 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 you writes in and we you know, Twitter. Literally smashed your head into the microphone. headphone. Yeah, sure. It was. Anyway. So, yeah, we talked to Kevin, on the Twitter and he writes in that he's been working on a cocktail book is 90% done, and send us a copy. So we're gonna read it, and then we'll make some comments next week on the book after we get a chance to read it, right. Yep. Yeah. No, I myself and while it's on the cocktails in science, and so I, you know, I look forward to look forward to reading it. I am also course writing a book on a similar subject. Of course, mine is six months overdue, and I'm a bad person and I'm getting threatening letters from my publisher. True or False?

Eight months overdue.

What did I say six was due in June. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the moral support style. It's just a font of moral support. Anyway, so pending once 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, okay, so I'll leave you with this. Can a bird longtime listener friend of ours friend of the show, he says your members can remember

not yet but candidate you should be? He

came to the museum of food and drink event that we did a couple years ago, by the way a little a

little bit more expensive than the members.

That's right. Membership is only 60 bucks. Can heritage radio network.org backslash donate? Wow, I have to

plug the plug. Okay. Speaking of the museum before, before we go out good news on the museum, 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 a museum of food drink for people that this is the first 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 for we're gonna 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 request for proposals for spaces in law reside right near where I live. And so we're trying to work on on that and 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 three people working on a full time anyone wants to, 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 drink people. Did tweet moustache, please please follow her. Otherwise, I'm going to have to hear the moping Enos of no one following this dosha Oh my god. Anyway, so longtime listener and supporter of museum can can can Imbert wrote in about the question we had on philosophy, remember? Oh, before I do that, do I have I could have done that we had a call in real quick, and I'm calling about someone who tweeted in late I'll do their question real quick because I'm gonna be fast. Eliot writes in David moustache and crew, I'm thinking about making bread with a portion of the flour replaced by dehydrated vegetable powder, I would juice the vegetables reserved the liquid to hydrate the dough, then dehydrate the pulp and grind to a fine powder for use in 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 ignore whatever percentage powder you're adding, just add enough vital wheat gluten to equal the proportion of bread flour, and you should get not 100% of 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 as this vegetable powder, right? Then what you're talking about is 20% of the way to the 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 pectin slurry and stuff like that. The other way to do it is not go through that trouble is, here's what you're doing. Here's 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 seems to me that if you just figure out go on the internet and figure out the moisture content of the vegetables to begin with, then you 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 where this is going to be hard to hide. My head is thinking while you're worried this is going to be difficult to hydrate unless you actually separate it out versus just adding the puree to the bread. That's my guess. Right? Right. Anyone else would mean anyway. So if you think that's otherwise, you could just add the puree and add gluten and make up for it. But I see what you're saying you want to get the juice, hydrate the dough properly, then add the pace 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. On why is it that there's so many chefs who you know, have philosophy degrees. And you know, I speculated maybe it's because, you know, chefs like useless degrees. I don't know, right? I have a philosophy degree. You know, whatever. Wiley I think Chang maybe even we said there's a whole bunch of people that change religion. Hilarious. Anyway. So Kim can handsome Ken had some thoughts and I will share them with you on the way out. Ken writes, I'm not a chef. So let's be clear. My answer is not for chefs perspective. I am merely a home cook with an interest in the modernist approach and a degree in philosophy about can I guess putting it to good use? I'm like, I'm like you know me. I think the connection is that we philosophy majors are particularly interested in the essence of things Julia Child FIRST brought my generation the platonic ideal of both French cooking and find 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 food, and the platonic ideal of food. Maybe even God helped me the epistemology of food can Ingber cooking issues Hey, what's up?

Thanks for listening to this program on heritage Radio network.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website, or as podcasts in the iTunes store by searching heritage radio network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at Heritage underscore radio. You can email us questions at any time at info at Heritage radio network.org heritage Radio Network is a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening