A Pinch of Culinary Science

by Anu Inkeri Hopia

  Myosin: Muscle protein involved in contraction of muscle cells. Consequently, it is also a component of meat, and plays an important role in the structure and texture of meat before and during cooking, and when enjoying (or not enjoying) meat.

  Non-polar: Used about substances and molecules. Most easily explained as an opposition to polar, in which a molecule has a charge (is an ion) or has an uneven distribution of electrical charge. A non-polar compound will normally not be miscible with or soluble in water. Non-polar compounds are often fat soluble. A good pair for association is water colors (containing polar pigments) and oil paint (containing non-polar pigments).

  Octahedron: A geometric structure, a polyhedron, with eight faces. For reference, a cube is also a polyhedron, but with six faces.

  Olfaction: Formal term for the sense of smell.

  Pectin: Long-chain molecule (polymer) that acts as one of the building blocks in the structure of plants. Metaphorically, one may say that pectin is the glue that holds the cells in the plant together. It is also present in cell walls, and if the cellulose molecules are seen as the reinforcing bars in the cell wall, the pectin can be seen as the cement. Pectin is abundant in the peel from apples and citrus fruits. It is also found in berries but is broken down during ripening. Pectin is used in food and cooking as a gelling agent.

  pH: A quantitative measure of how acidic or basic/alkaline a water solution is. A neutral solution has a pH of 7, an acidic solution has a pH below 7 and a base has a pH above 7. The pH scale ranges from 0-14, although it is possible to have solutions with a negative pH and pH greater than 14.

  Phase/State of matter: See state of matter.

  Plastic: A property described as a material being irreversibly deformed upon pressure. Often seen in relation with the term elastic. An example of a plastic material that is not elastic is clay or play dough. A good bread dough is both plastic and elastic.

  Polarity: A property of molecules that describes how charge is distributed as a result of the distribution of electrons and electrical charges within the molecule. For example, water is a polar molecule: the area around the oxygen atom is partially negatively charged and the area around the hydrogen atoms is partially positively charged. Ions and salts are by nature highly polar. By contrast, charge and electrons in non-polar molecules are more evenly distributed. Polarity is a fundamentally important notion in chemistry, and the foundation (among others) for substances being hydrophilic and hydrophobic.

  Precipitation: When a substance is converted from water-soluble to insoluble, or when two water-soluble substances react to form an insoluble product. Examples are the coagulation of proteins (a substance is converted from water soluble to insoluble) or the reaction between tannins and proteins to give a precipitate during cooking of stock (reaction between two soluble substances to give a third, insoluble one).

  Protease: Common designation for enzymes that break down, or cleave, proteins.

  Protein: An organic compound consisting of a long chain of amino acids. Proteins can also be composed of more than one chain that are more loosely bound to each other. Proteins, together with fats and carbohydrates, are among the basic nutrients.

  Radiation: See thermal radiation.

  State of matter/Phase: A concept describing the physical state of substances. Common states of matter, or phases, are gas, liquid, and solid. Some other states of matter also exist, like plasma and supercritical phase, but these are not commonly encountered in food (although the former can actually be achieved in a an ordinary microwave oven and the latter is used in food industry when supercritical CO2 is used to remove caffeine from coffee to produce decaffeinated coffee).

  Solution/dissolve: Mixture of substances in a liquid phase. The dissolved substance may be a gas, another liquid, or a solid. Examples are sugar or salt dissolved in water, vinegar in water, color or flavorings in oil, carbon dioxide in water (e.g. sparkling). If the substance is completely dissolved, the solution will be completely transparent, but it may still have color. A cloudy or misty solution indicates that it contains some undissolved material, but it can still be a solution since some substances may be dissolved while others are not. To dissolve is not the same as to melt (which is the phase transition between solid and liquid).

  Surface tension: A physical surface phenomenon that causes a water surface to behave like a flexible membrane. It is the reason why a needle can float on water or insects may walk on water. Surface tension is also the phenomenon behind capillary forces, that plants (including tall trees) can draw up water through thin capillaries so that the water reaches the whole plant. The reason for the surface tension is weak chemical bonds between water molecules, and between water molecules and other surfaces.

  Suspension: An even mixture of two non-miscible substances in which the distributed phase is a solid and the continuous phase is a liquid. One example is orange juice (as opposed to transparent apple juice, which is a solution). Suspension is a special case of dispersions. There also exist solid–solid suspensions, where a solid is distributed in another solid, such as solid chocolate where cocoa and sugar particles are dispersed in solid cocoa fat.

  Tannin: Chemical substances (polyphenols) in plants. Tannins react with proteins in precipitation reactions (forming precipitates), during cooking as well as in the mouth. In food and drinks, tannins can give the mouthfeel experience called astringency by reacting and binding proteins in the saliva. This is the dry feeling experienced when drinking certain red wines, strong tea, or biting into a grape stone or skin. Also, tannins may react with proteins during cooking, e.g. when heating meat stock with red wine. In plants, the presence of tannins functions as a protection, as it prevents the plant from being eaten by certain animals and insects.

  Taste: One of the five senses (the others are olfaction/smell, sight, audition/hearing, and touch). Taste is, as olfaction, among the chemical senses where the signals to the brain occur as result of chemical substances interacting with taste receptors on the tongue and elsewhere in the mouth.

  Thermal energy: The energy of a substance, system or object possesses due to its temperature.

  Thermal radiation: In cooking contexts, electromagnetic radiation, usually in the form of infrared radiation, is one of the three basic forms of heat transfer (in addition to conduction and convection). Heat can also be transferred via microwave radiation, which has a somewhat different mechanism from infrared radiation.

  Umami: One of the “basic tastes,” together with sweet, salty, bitter, and sour (there are probably a number of other such tastes as well). Umami is often referred to as the fifth taste and can be described as rich and brothy. MSG, monosodium glutamate, is among the substances with a distinctive taste of umami. Umami can be experienced as a naturally present taste in many foods, or can be introduced or enhanced by addition of e.g. MSG.

  Viscosity: A property of a substance (usually liquid or gas) that describes its ability to withstand flow. It can be associated with how “thick” a fluid is or how easily it flows. Low viscosity means that the substance flows more easily (gases have very low viscosity, water has low viscosity among liquids) while high viscosity means that it flows slowly (honey has high viscosity compared to water).

  Water Activity: A numerical value between 0 and 1 that indicates the amount of water in a food that is is not chemically bound to any ingredient, and thus available to microorganisms. For example, the use of salt and sugar for preserving food is based on the fact that these ingredients result in reduced water activity, and thus making the food a “dry desert” for microorganisms that will consequently not thrive and multiply.

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  2 Boiling an Egg from the Inside Out

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  3 In the Beginning There Was an Egg

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  4 Mussels on Acid

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  5 Sausage Engineering

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  7 The Potatoes that Refused to Become Tender

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  8 Gravlax and a Pinch of Salt Chemistry

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  9 The Art of Heating

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  11 Tempering the Meat Before Cooking, …Or Maybe Not

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  14 Taking Stock of Broth

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  15 Salt Shapes the Pasta

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  16 You Can See It, Hear It, Taste It and Feel It – What Is It? It Is the Taste of Food!

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