Molekylær gastronomi-workshop 27. april: Mjød

Det sies at mjød var vikingenes drikk, deres utgave av øl. Dermed må det vel være noe rotekte norsk? Er det ikke da litt paradoksalt at de færreste nordmenn har et forhold til mjød, og at det først den aller siste tida er blitt tilgjengelig i handelen? Og hvordan smaker egentlig mjød?

Finsk mjød, Sima, og frityrstekt traktkake, tippaleipä, er en
tradisjonell kombinasjon på Valborgsmesse (foto: Wikimedia)

Og enda mer overraskende er det kanskje at mjød, i en nær alkoholfri variant, har solid fotefeste i den Valborgsmesseaften?
finske kulturen og lages i de tusen finske hjem hvert eneste år fram mot kvelden før 1. mai,

Molekylær gastronomi-workshopen denne måneden handler om prøvesmakingsteknikk. Grunnen til at vi har dette temaet er å forberede den påfølgende, og sesongens siste workshop (25. mai) der vi skal bidra med data til et forskningsprosjekt ved Københavns Universitet om whisky (mer informasjon om dette blir kunngjort 18. mai).

Skal vi prøvesmake må vi nødvendigvis ha noe å smake på, og da har valget falt på mjød siden våre finske venner nettopp i disse dager brygger denne drikken i stor og liten skala. Mest sannsynlig blir det smaking av tre ulike typer mjød der to er hjemmelaget med røtter i nyere finsk og norsk tradisjon. Samtidig vil det bli gitt en kort innføring i temaet mjød.

Ingen forkunnskaper en nødvendig, og workshopen er åpen for alle som er interessert. NB: begrenset antall plasser (ca. 20 personer).

Vel møtt!

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Tid: Onsdag 27. april kl. 18.00-20.00
Sted: Fru Svendsen kunst kulturkafé i Ørsta. Adresse: Kyrkjegata 25 (kart her).
Påmelding: Meld deg på med e-post til ef(at)hivolda.no. Da får du beskjed ved eventuelle endringer
Som vanlig: deltakelse er gratis

The Kitchen Stories project - Interdisciplinary network of culinary claims

The text below is an attempt at drawing up a new programme/collaboration/network for exploring claims about food and cooking. Hereby, we make an effort to start a new international and interdisciplinary network to explore such claims from various angles. If you are a researcher (from any field), teacher at any level, chef or something else and find this interesting, read on and feel free to contact us. The programme is drawn out by researchers from Finland (here and here) and myself.

Update 2nd June 2015: This is also described in a paper in the scientific journal Flavour. Fooladi & Hopia (2013). Culinary precisions as a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue. Flavour, 2(6). (open access)

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Is it true that you mustn't rinse, but rather brush, mushrooms? Should a steak be seared to keep the juices inside? Can you prevent fruit salad from turning brown by sprinkling it with lemon juice? Such apparently mundane questions have been source of inspiration for food geeks at least since “The Curious cook” by Harold McGee (1990) was published, but most likely much earlier. A closer analysis of such questions reveal an abundance of intriguing, surprisingly complex and unexplored questions which might be vehicles for education and even subject for research within natural and social sciences.

The world of food and cooking is full of statements on how to do things and occasionally why one should adhere to these advices. Many are rooted in tradition or are created today by us all and sometimes appear to us like modern urban stories. Some are rooted in long experience of kitchen professionals or home cooks, and some even in science. When tradition and science meet interesting things might happen. In some cases the phenomenon in question (see examples in the introduction) is well described within one field of science but is less so in another discipline, laying questions open for research. Secondly, such culinary claims, which we have termed “Kitchen stories”, provide valuable opportunities in education at various levels (see below). Thirdly, interesting questions might be revealed by laypeople, craftsmen (chefs, artisans) or even school children which in turn could end up as relevant research topics to be studied within various sciences. Finally, such kitchen stories are valuable parts of our cultural heritage and provide rich research material for scientific fields such as cultural history and sociology (see figure).

Food Culture Centre for Children Opened in Oslo

First day of September this year Norway saw a new centre for children's food culture located in an old renaissance farm in the middle of Oslo. This is to be a national resource for helping schools and pre-schools to focus on good food and food culture.

In the Norwegian curriculum the subject home economics ("Food and health") is given throughout primary and lower secondary school. Many would say that this subject does not enjoy much credit of being a "serious" subject in competition with mathematics, language, science etc. There does not even exist school books in this subject for primary school pupils(!) and the subject has not enjoyed the benefits of having its own "national centre for education" to support schools and teachers the same way as many other school subjects (e.g. Norwegian Centre for Science Education).

Food accepted as cultural heritage - food is surely culture

Recently, UNESCO inscribed two food-related traditions/cultures in their list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. One might say that finally food has officially received status as a true part of our common cultural heritage.

Of course, food is culture and very few would not accept this as a fact. However, since numerous other cultural heritages are accepted as world heritage, it is important that food culture is not passed over. The UNESCO World heritage list is probably well known to most, but there is also another list called the Intangible Cultural Heritage list intended to safeguard immaterial cultural heritage. In this list, at least four entries relate closely to food and food culture.

Why are some considered food lovers whereas others are considered food geeks?

Often, when I talk about food I'm met with an attitude that I'm talking chemistry and for that reason whatever I say is incomprehensible. The blinds go down and I see the eyes of the person I talk with go all shifty. Probably, he or she considers me being a food geek...

Whereas "food lover" has mostly positive connotations, "food geek" has this mixed flavour to it. Could it be that the "food geek" (whoever that might be) holds some concepts which he applies in considering the food and which sets him apart from the food lover?

One reason that food geeks are considered as, simply geeks, might perhaps find it's reason in what has by pedagogics researchers Meyers & Land (2003, 2005) been coined "threshold concepts". Take any stereotypical notion of a geek, and you'll probably find that one important reason that you consider him a geek is because he holds some knowledge or a world view that lies beyond your grasp (for simplicity I'll use "he" for the geek, but it could of course be a "she" as well. Likewise, I'll use "you" for the non-geek). This could e.g. be a view coloured by mathematical insight (maths/physics geek) or chemical insight (chemistry geek). Often he sees things using his mathematical or chemical spectacles that you normally would consider everyday matters. Accordingly, for many "food geeks" food is not only food but an assembly of plant/animal cells, molecules or even "chemicals" that can be manipulated. The result is a gap between his way of seeing things and your way of seeing things, in this case food and cooking; he becomes the geek.

Culinary precisions, part 3:3. Students as "culinary mythbusters"

Among the challenges in science education are creating quality inquiry-based teaching methods as well as promoting students' argumentation skills. Both these topics might be seen as parts of what goes as "the nature of science". In this last post of three, I argue that statements about food and cooking might be an excellent starting point for learning argumentation as well as inquiry, as well as content knowledge, while dealing with real-life problems with meaningful purposes.

The two first posts:

• Culinary precisions part 1:3. Collecting statements about food and cooking
• Culinary precisions part 2:3. Analysing statements about food and cooking

In part 1, I suggest that there might be a good idea to collect statements about food and cooking (culinary precisions) in an open database, whereas part 2 argues for the use of argumentation patterns in the analysis of such statements. For explanation of the term "culinary precisions", see part 1.

Background; challenges in science education

There is abundant literature, as well as political signals, that point to the need for development of fresh approaches to science education, not the least because of an alarmingly low interest in science and mathematics. Furthermore, the last years have seen a need to shift towards a science education in which "the nature of science" is taught as well as content knowledge; students at all levels should gain experience with scientific inquiry, argumentation etc. There are of course numerous ways this challenge might be taken on.

One problem when it comes to inquiry and argumentation is to find experiments, topics and investigations which are open-ended real-life problems. It's not very exciting to do "inquiry" if you know that the teacher has got the answer in his/her drawer. But what if the thing you were analysing, discussing and experimenting was a real problem? And even more, that others, such as a scientist or the general public, would be interested in the result you came up with? Such scenarios do exist (such as sustain.no, which in fact is a database), but I feel pretty confident that there is need for a range of such approaches, covering various topics.

Culinary precisions, part 2:3. Analysing statements about food and cooking

Statements on what to do, how to do it, and occasionally why to do so, are abundant in the world of food and cooking. This is the second post of three, and deals with a rationale for analysing such statements. The third post will deal with the potential of using this for educational purposes, both in science and food disciplines.

In the first post, I wished for, and tried to give good reasons for building a database of statements on food and cooking (culinary precisions). For an introduction and definition of culinary precisions, see part 1.

The two other posts:

• Culinary precisions part 1:3. Collecting statements about food and cooking
• Culinary precisions part 3:3. Students as "culinary mythbusters"

Culinary precision = claim
A culinary presicion is a statement about something related to food or cooking, such as

• "sprinkle lemon juice on sliced apples/pears, and the fruit will not go brown"
• "you should avoid piercing meat as the juice will flow out resulting in a drier piece of meat"
• "you should cut off the ends of a roast before putting it in the oven"
• "when canning fruit in glass jars, the jar must be stored upside down"

Some precisions contain reason(s) for why one should follow them, others give a consequence that might occur if you don't follow the advice given. During a course on argumentation in science education, I realised that culinary precisions might indeed be considered to be claims. Occasionally, these claims have some data or warrants to explain why you should follow the advice given, and sometimes they don't (first case: "if you do A, B will happen", second case: "do this"). Hence, we are in the domain of arguments.

A system for analysing statements, claims and arguments
For analysis, understanding and testing such culinary precisions, it'd be good to have some coherent system or scheme to fit it into. Argumentation theory has struggled with the analysis of claims and arguments all the way back to Aristotle (and probably earlier). However, the "traditional" (syllogistic / syllogism) way of analysing an argument does only work for a certain type of arguments, and often fail to incorporate all aspects of real-life problems and discussions. Hence, other perspectives on logical arguments have appeared. Among these is the one presented by philosopher Stephen Toulmin. The Toulmin argumentation pattern is a way of organising, analysing and visualising practical real-life arguments, and is often shown in a diagram:

Toulmin's argumentation pattern (click for larger image)

Culinary precisions, part 1:3. Collecting statements about food and cooking

Is it really true that you shouldn't rinse, but rather brush, mushrooms? Should a steak be seared to keep the juices inside? The world of food is full of statements on how to do things, many of which are rooted in tradition. When tradition and science meet, interesting things might happen. This is the first post of three on the topic. This first part argues for an open database of such statements, including analysis. The second will deal with a rationale for analysing such statements using argumentation patterns. In the third post, I discuss the potential of using this for educational purposes, both in science and food disciplines.

The two other posts:

• Culinary precisions part 2:3. Analysing statements about food and cooking
• Culinary precisions part 3:3. Students as "culinary mythbusters"

A short introduction for newcomers: Dealing with statements on food and cooking is among the major objectives of molecular gastronomy (MG for short, a term and field which enjoys quite a lot of debate, both in terms of its name and also because it is a field in it's infancy. There is a debate running in various channels, but discussing MG in general is not the topic in this post). As defined by Hervé This, such statements are called culinary precisions. You might just as well say "old wives' tales", "culinary proverbs", "cooking rules/advice", "know-how", "adages" or "maxims". I have no strong preferences on what words to use for this, but thus far I think "culinary precisions" does the trick and will adhere to that.

There are a few publications speaking of culinary precisions (such as these four). To my knowledge most publications are focussed on speaking of this phenomenon rather than doing a real analysis. For several reasons, this would be very interesting to follow up. I've found only one collection on the www, by Hervé This, which is in French (unfortunately I don't speak French and have to rely on automated translations). However, this collection lacks the analysis aspect.

The INRA web page of culinary precisions (English google transl.)

The food timeline

A visit by The Food Geek made me aware of this treasure of a web site. The food timeline gives a comprehensive overview on the history of various foods and dishes. When teaching food topics, historic facts (or myths) are often excellent starting points. The problem is that such information isn't really very easy to get to. Here, loads of fascinating information is organised in a straightforward and highly effective way.


The site is far more than a timeline with information on foods and dishes, though:

• historic cookbooks
• economics & historic prices
• Christmas food
• meal times
• references to various literature
• free e-mail answer service promising answer withing 24 hours! (I haven't tested it yet, however)
• tips and strategies in searching for historic information on food
  

Finally, citing the pages: "Information is checked against standard reference tools for accuracy". Also their book shelf is quite impressive.

Highly recommended


Late addition: I submitted a question (on hartshorn) and received an answer less than two days later. Not bad at all, taken that the service is free and done by a professional