Nordic Food Lab

by Josh Evans 4 October 2012—the day before Ben and I departed on a research trip to the Netherlands, we took a bunch of kojis we had made from different nuts, seeds, and grains, cooked up a bunch of pulses, raided our dry store for aromatic things, boiled a big pot of brine and bashed together a bunch of sauces to start fermenting. The method was deliberate madness, mixing and matching kojis, cooked pulses, aromatics and brine in ratios that seemed to work based on similar previous trials and tasting as we went. Textbook shotgun approach. Three months later, in January, we had a tasting. Of the twelve trials, we kept seven that had further potential and tossed five that were horrid. One of the former was particularly exciting—it was unmistakably reminiscent of foie gras, with that fatty, nutty taste and rich mouthfeel, and made only of plant-based ingredients. We … Read more

by Josh Evans and Arielle Johnson ‘2% salt’. How many times has this phrase passed our lips? By the summer of 2013 we were realising that this simple edict, the core of many lacto-fermentation recipes, contained a crucial ambiguity. This post is an attempt to explore and clarify how different cultures—namely, those of the kitchen and the laboratory—measure things differently, and why it matters. The problem Many of the recipes and processes we talk about on this blog scale according to ratios. For example, for a typical lacto-fermentation, rather than starting with 1000 grams of vegetables and 20 grams of salt, it is simpler to weigh the vegetables you have and add 2% salt to them.  But what do we mean when we say “2% salt” or “25% sugar”? A chef might, when presented with 1000 grams of something to which they need to add 25% sugar, add 250 grams of … Read more

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