50 Fun Facts About Food Science

The browning reaction between amino acids and sugars that flavours seared steak is named after which chemist?

The reaction races along at roughly 140 to 165 °C, which is why dry heat browns food and boiling never does.

When sucrose caramelizes, it breaks down into which two simple sugars?

Unlike the Maillard reaction, caramelization needs no protein at all, just sugar and heat.

Which Japanese chemist identified umami as a distinct taste in 1908 after noticing the flavour of kombu?

He went on to patent monosodium glutamate, the compound behind the taste.

Umami receptors respond mainly to glutamates and which other class of compounds found in meat broths?

Researchers at the University of Miami identified umami receptors on the tongue in 2000.

Which two wheat proteins form the elastic network we call gluten?

Gluten makes up 75 to 85 percent of the protein in bread wheat.

Which everyday sauce is an emulsion of oil, egg yolk and an acid?

Most origin stories trace it to Mahón in Menorca during the Seven Years' War.

The word 'emulsion' comes from a Latin verb meaning what?

Milk itself is an emulsion of fat droplets in water.

Louis Pasteur's 1860s research that gave pasteurization its name was originally aimed at preserving what?

The process kills most bacteria but leaves most bacterial spores intact.

Georges Pralus devised sous vide in 1974 to improve which dish?

The name is French for 'under vacuum'; low-temperature cooking itself was described by Count Rumford in 1799.

Which two scientists coined the term 'molecular and physical gastronomy' in 1988?

Kurti had hosted a 1969 BBC show called The Physicist in the Kitchen, injecting brandy into mince pies with a syringe.

Spherification uses sodium alginate together with which salt?

Unilever documented the technique in the 1950s long before elBulli made it famous.

Which restaurant, run by Ferran and Albert Adrià, brought spherification to modernist cuisine?

It sat on the Costa Brava at Roses; Ferran Adrià had joined it as a line cook aged 22.

Why can birds eat chilli peppers without feeling the burn?

That suits the plant: birds spread the seeds intact while mammals' molars would grind them up.

In which part of a chilli pepper is capsaicin most concentrated?

The seeds get the blame because they sit in the hottest part of the fruit.

Wilbur Scoville, whose scale measures chilli heat, worked in what profession?

His original test diluted pepper extract until a panel of five tasters could no longer detect heat.

How many trained tasters sat on the panel in Scoville's original organoleptic test?

Sweet peppers score 500 or less; Pepper X tops 2.6 million Scoville heat units.

Pectin, the gelling agent that sets jam, takes its name from a Greek word meaning what?

Apples, quince and citrus are rich in it; strawberries and cherries are not, which is why they need help to set.

Which Harvard professor developed the first double-acting baking powder in the 1860s?

English pharmacist Alfred Bird had made a single-acting version in 1843.

Nicolas Appert, the 'father of food science', preserved food by sealing it in what and boiling it?

The French government paid him 12,000 francs in 1810 on condition he publish the method.

Which civilisation was freeze-drying potatoes into chuño as early as the 13th century?

The modern process took off in the Second World War to preserve blood plasma and penicillin.

Nixtamalization, soaking maize in an alkaline lime solution, helps prevent which deficiency disease?

The alkali also loosens the hulls and softens the kernels for making masa.

Contrary to popular belief, storing bread where makes it go stale faster?

Staling is mostly starch molecules recrystallising, not the bread drying out.

When you boil an egg, what happens to its proteins to make the white turn firm and opaque?

Heat, acid and salt can all unfold proteins, which is how ceviche 'cooks' fish without heat.

Egg white is roughly what percentage water?

Even so, the whites hold about 56 percent of the egg's total protein.

The term 'supertaster' was coined by which experimental psychologist?

It was first identified through heightened bitterness from the compound PROP.

Miraculin, from the West African miracle fruit, makes sour foods taste how?

The protein itself is not sweet, and the effect lasts an hour or two.

At roughly what temperature does a popcorn kernel's hull finally rupture?

The kernel then expands to 20 to 50 times its size as the steam puffs the starch into foam.

A popcorn kernel needs about what moisture content inside its hull to pop?

The pressure inside reaches roughly 135 psi before the hull gives way.

Besides its high sugar concentration, which property helps honey resist spoiling?

Bees add glucose oxidase to nectar, producing gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide; despite the legend, no edible honey has actually been found in Egyptian tombs.

Which gas, also a plant hormone, is used commercially to ripen fruit?

Scrubbing it out of storage air delays ripening, which is how apples last all year.

Cutting an onion releases enzymes called alliinases that lead to which tear-inducing compound?

It is a volatile lachrymatory agent, so it drifts up from the board straight into your eyes.

Roughly what proportion of adults worldwide have lactose malabsorption?

As few as 5 percent of northern Europeans are affected, versus up to 90 percent in parts of Asia.

Chymosin, the key enzyme in rennet, curdles milk by acting on which protein?

Most cheese today uses chymosin produced by bacteria rather than calf stomachs.

Sourdough starter is a partnership between wild yeast and which kind of bacteria?

French bakers carried the technique to California in the Gold Rush, hence San Francisco sourdough.

Which yeast species converts sugars into carbon dioxide and alcohol in bread and beer?

The name is often used as a synonym for yeast in general, though yeasts span two whole phyla.

Adding salt to ice around an ice-cream churn works because it does what?

Writers noted the refrigerant effect of salt on ice as far back as the 16th century.

Which 19th-century process makes chocolate smoother by prolonged mixing and grinding?

Tempering, developed in the 20th century, gives chocolate its snap and gloss.

Coenraad van Houten's 1828 hydraulic press separated chocolate liquor into a defatted powder and what?

White chocolate is made from cocoa butter and milk with no cocoa solids at all.

Table salt is often fortified with which element to prevent goitre?

Deficiency causes hypothyroidism and an enlarged thyroid in adults.

Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck became famous for which unusual dish?

The Bray restaurant was named the world's best in 2005.

Harold McGee's landmark 1984 book on kitchen science is titled what?

He later wrote a New York Times column, The Curious Cook, debunking kitchen folklore.

Modernist Cuisine author Nathan Myhrvold was formerly CTO of which company?

He spent 13 years at Microsoft and became its first CTO in 1996.

In what year did Louis Camille Maillard first publish his description of the browning reaction?

He was actually trying to reproduce biological protein synthesis; USDA chemist John E. Hodge worked out the reaction's mechanism in 1953.

Which probable carcinogen can form as a by-product of the Maillard reaction at high temperatures?

It forms from reducing sugars and the amino acid asparagine; heating at lower temperatures or adding asparaginase discourages it.

Applying lye to pretzels darkens them faster because the Maillard reaction speeds up in what environment?

Deprotonated amino groups become more nucleophilic, so the sugars and amino acids react more readily.

Which volatile compound with an intense butter-like taste is released during caramelization?

Unlike Maillard browning, caramelization is pyrolytic and involves no amino acids; the brown colour comes from polymers called caramelans, caramelens and caramelins.

At roughly what pH is the rate of caramelization slowest?

Both strongly acidic and strongly basic conditions accelerate the reactions, as do impurities such as the molasses in brown sugar.

Butter is unusual among food emulsions because it is which type?

Most kitchen emulsions, such as mayonnaise, hollandaise and homogenised milk, are oil-in-water; butter and margarine are the reverse.

The milky cloud that forms when water is added to pastis or absinthe is known as what?

Anise compounds dissolved in the alcohol form nano-sized droplets in the water, a spontaneous nanoemulsion.

In which US city is the Institute of Food Technologists headquartered?

The IFT's definition of food science covers everything from the causes of food deterioration to the principles of processing.