Month: February 2016

by Josh Evans At the end of the year in 2014, a month or so after moving into our new space, we had a Julefrokost to celebrate the year. I made a simple experiment with a few of my favourite items in the lab at the time: Jason’s fermented giant puffball, quince balsamic/elder vinegar ‘lees’, and fireweed tea. In some way it was quite old-school, banal even: a blade of raw endive with accoutrements. The endive provided fresh bitter snap for what made it, for me, other than an entirely predictable hors d’oeuvre. I was inspired by Jason’s fermented giant puffball mushrooms—nondescript yet potent gems of unsuspecting umami. Shaved thinly, it provided the savoury horsepower. In the winter of 2013, we were making a new batch of quince wine to top up our balsamic vinegar barrels just around the time we were also bottling the ‘older elder’ vinegar begun in the summer … Read more

by Johnny Drain This series is about oxidation, rancidity, and aging butter. Part 1 gave some background about butter, rancidity and the cultural context for eating aged butter. Part 2 explored the science of oxidation in fats and the safety of eating them. Part 3 was on culturing butters with unusual sources of bacteria. This part (finally!) is all about aging butter. The primary aim of the project was to see if we could, by controlling the extent and pathways of aging, create butters with novel and desirable flavour profiles. Having settled on a flavoursome cultured butter, we started to carry out tests to control the conditions that lead to rancidification (as were laid out in part 2). My hope at the start of the project was that, by letting the butter age and therefore develop mild rancid characteristics, the delicious butter cultured with our unique combination of LAB could … Read more

by Anna Sigrithur Ruminants chewing and re-chewing their cud has shaped human civilization. By grace of their unique four-chambered stomach and its microbiome, plant material indigestible to humans is transformed into food for the animal and for others. Yet the rumen itself, the chamber of the stomach responsible for this microbial breakdown of plant matter, also contains a nutrient-dense slurry known as ‘green soup’ that has been eaten as a last-minute supplement by herders and hunters around the world. Roberto and I wondered if we could interact with this process in vitro to create new dishes, or to render edible new ingredients. But a question began to gnaw at us, forcing us to some rumination of our own: When it comes to food traditions, is there a line between surviving and thriving? Or is it less a line than a loop? And what is the value in trying to translate ephemeral, in-the-field food experiences into dishes in … Read more

by Johnny Drain This series is about oxidation, rancidity, and aging butter. Part 1 gave some background about butter, rancidity and the cultural context for eating aged butter. Part 2 explored the science of oxidation in fats and the safety of eating them. In this part I’ll describe the results of my work on culturing butters with unusual sources of bacteria, and on aging butters in Part 4. Found in the biome of healthy intestines, vaginas and faeces, Lactobacillus brevis might not strike you as the best thing to make butter with. However, as I found out, this pervasive bacteria, which is, reassuringly, also used in beer-making and pickling, can be used in conjunction with Finnish viili to make some top-notch cultured butter. Cultured butter Butter churned from fresh cream, irrespective of the quality of the cream, is somewhat bland. To unleash the full flavour potential of butter, the cream used … Read more