The Science of Food

Slimy soy, decomposed shark, and maggot cheese

Food is a marvelous window through which to examine the multifaceted emotion of disgust. Food is a great passion, but it can also inspire terrible repulsion. Strangely, as with almost all facets of disgust, it is in our nature to be attracted to this repulsion. Who, uninitiated to the actual foodstuff, isn't at least a little curious about tasting some soft and stinky hákarl or a wormy morsel of casu marzu?

What human beings find disgusting varies greatly not just from place to place but across time. It cannot be separated from what the object of our repulsion means to us. [MORE ]

Penn State's creamery: From the cow to the cone

Penn State ice cream from the Creamery! It's a tradition for generations of Penn Staters and their guests. But there's more than meets the eye, or the mouth, for that matter. Every cone of "Peachy Paterno" or cup of "Death by Chocolate" begins with cream provided by cows at Penn State's dairy barns only a mile north of the creamery store. [Video]

The Physics of Wine Swirling

Meet the new flavor of wine: fruity with a hint of fluid dynamics. Oenophiles have long gotten the best out of their reds by giving their glasses a swirl before sipping. A new study has revealed the physics behind that sloshing, showing that three factors may determine whether your merlot arcs smoothly or starts to splash.

Twirling a wineglass gently creates smooth arcs in the liquid that then circle, coating the sides of the glass. The gesture isn't just for appearances, says study co-author Martino Reclari, who studies fluid dynamics at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Scientists and enthusiasts alike have long known that the swirling motion mixes oxygen into a red, enhancing its flavor. [MORE]

Spam in a Can A brief history of meat in orbit

WHEN THE MERCURY ASTRONAUTS went into space, strapped down in capsules set atop primitive ICBMs originally designed to carry warheads, they were famously derided by their fellow test pilots as “SPAM in a Can.”

Today, SPAM’s legacy as a term for junk mail drowns out any other association, but in the case of the astronauts, we are talking about ur-Spam, the meat product squeezed into a can — a name provided by the winner of a write-in contest, Kenneth Gaidneau (who had considered it “a good, memorable trade-name for some time, [and] had only waited for a product to attach it to”).

John Glenn and his fellow Mercury astronauts were squeezed into a metal enclosure only slightly bigger than themselves — half the size, for comparison, of a contemporaneous VW beetle. But tight quarters — common for test pilots in prototype craft — were not the catalyst for the Spam-in-a-can taunt. Rather, the Mercury crew members were mocked by their brethren (Chuck Yeager is said to have coined the phrase) for their relative impotence. Unlike more earthly pilots — but, presumably, much like their namesake processed pork product — the Mercury astronauts were mere passengers in their steel capsule, with no control over its historic trajectory. [MORE]

MREs get a new kick with caffeinated jerky and Zapplesauce

By Christian Davenport, October 29 2001

Natick, Mass. — And now, from the folks who developed the atomic bomb, Kevlar underwear and the Humvee, presenting the latest in war-fighting technology:

Caffeinated meat.

That’s right, an Army lab here is testing a beef jerky stick that looks and tastes just like your average Slim Jim but contains an equivalent of a cup of coffee’s worth of caffeine to give even the sleepiest soldier that up-and-at-’em boost.

After a decade of war, military food scientists have been hard at work at a little-known research facility outside Boston transforming the field ration — known as the Meal, Ready to Eat, and perhaps the most complained about food in the world — into something not just good-tasting but full of energy-enhancing ingredients. [MORE]

How the Potato Changed the World

Smithsonian magazine, November 2011. By Charles C. Mann

Brought to Europe from the New World by Spanish explorers, the lowly potato gave rise to modern industrial agriculture.

Today the potato is the fifth most important crop worldwide, after wheat, corn, rice and sugar cane. But in the 18th century the tuber was a startling novelty, frightening to some, bewildering to others—part of a global ecological convulsion set off by Christopher Columbus.

Read more at smithsonianmag.com

Who Invented the Oreo? The Unsung Heroes of Cookie Design

The Oreo. "Ubiquitous, overlooked, and yet embodying the highest design standards in both form and function—are worthy of recognition as "humble" masterpieces." Compared to its lesser and now former competitor, the Hydrox cookie, the design "is the more American-looking of the two -- its even pattern, however dowdy, has an industrial, stamped-out quality. It might be said to combine homelike decoration with an American love of machine imagery, and in that combination lies a triumph of design." {MORE}

Old Ketchup Packet Heads for Trash

The ketchup packet has been around for more than 40 years but many people struggle to open it or skip it to avoid the mess. To solve this, Heinz spent three years designing a better ketchup packet. More from the Christian Science Monitor

See also a previous post on this blog "Today's Packages Make Customers Twist and Shout"

Growing Meat in the Lab: Scientists Initiate Action Plan to Advance Cultured Meat

ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2011) — Late last week, an international group of scientists took a step closer to their goal to produce cultured meat. They agreed on important common positions about how to bring the research forward during a workshop in Gothenburg, Sweden, arranged by Chalmers University of Technology and the European Science Foundation. [MORE]

See an earilier post on this topic [LINK]

Seniors, rejoice, there are cool jobs

By Samantha Kramer
Penn State Collegian Columnist

I have a secret to reveal. A very old secret, one that’s happened every year at Penn State — long before Graham Spanier ever picked up a washboard and even before JoePa’s specs were in style.

We, the seniors, the next graduating class at Penn State, are old.

Alas, ’tis true, and it’s something that 21-year-olds all over the nation are beginning to realize. Some turn to friends in their time of need. Some refuse to believe their fate, and try to deny their inevitable old-ness.

But it’s too late. We’re already doing our own laundry, making our own food, washing our own dishes, or paying other people to do all the above.

So before we become the next Van Wilder sequel, I have good news: Having a job is cool. It’s the next big thing, and everybody’s doing it. Plus, hello, it’s 2011 — they have jobs for everything now.

So while we say goodbye to our summer tans (or in my case, burns and freckles) here’s a few refreshing ideas to remind you that you don’t always have to stick to a 9-5 office job.

Food Scientist

Okay, I’m a little biased here because my mom works as a food scientist at M&M Mars. But come on, you’re getting paid to make candy. Not to mention the freebies that come along with it (all the free company food you want, plus the newest goods that’s not in stores yet).

Whether you go into research and development and create new recipes, or into sensory and get paid to eat and drink (if you’re really thinking, you’ll go into the brewery business as a beer taster) a degree in AgSci will get you far.

Fortune Cookie Writer

Yep, those bad boys don’t write ............etc, etc.