Harold McGee writes about the chemistry and history of food science and cooking.
This clip was shown on Netflix show The Mind of Chef. McGee is the go-to guy whenever a scientific explanation is needed. He's seen around quite a lot and he has a ton of YouTube videos as well.
All the cool kids read his book end to end. Cooks, generally not being the reading type, keep his book on hand as reference. On Food and Cooking is their Bible.
Oh goodness. This book is half the cost on Amazon that I paid twenty-five years ago from Waldenbooks. And since, it's been greatly revised in 2004, its twentieth anniversary. You should buy one.
I have an acquaintance who I don't bother with speaking to anymore. He's become too obnoxious to bear. I learned that the only way to stop his continuous urgent and ridiculous political lobbying was to stop communicating altogether. Sad. But true. I never had anyone tell me that I must hate my president. Worse, he gets all his information from the most obnoxious and most virulent sites. Their sharpness resonates with him so he adopts their language. You can always tell when he learned a new word, or when something he read rang a bell in his head.
For years, literally years, it was all anti-Bush, regarding stem cells, "He must stop politicizing science." And all that he knows about stem cells is wrong. But that doesn't matter.
He must stop politicizing science.
He must stop politicizing science.
He must stop politicizing science.
He must stop politicizing science.
He must stop politicizing science.
He must stop politicizing science.
Ad nauseam.
Al Gore produced Inconvenient Truth, boom, politicized science. But that's okay because Gore is Democrat and Gore is trying to do something big to save the earth. And we're still living with weather highly politicized.
"Our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed." is another one.
Our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed.
Our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed.
Our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed.
Our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed.
Our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed.
Our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed.
Ad nauseam.
Obama is elected with both houses and media, boom, our healthcare system is changed as first step to socializing, broken further and not fixed, but hey, that's okay because at least Democrats try to improve things and Republicans are axiomatically evil.
He hops every popular bandwagon that goes creaking and tumbling by and jumps to the front of the juggernaut imagining he's leading the way on all the most up-to-date received wisdom for him to dispense wisely and so knowingly. So naturally he's foremost antiMSGite. Every Chinese restaurant our group entered received abrupt instruction, NO MSG! I mean it. NO MSG!
I asked him, "What's the dealio, Emilio? Why such a fierce no-MSG fetish."
"You have to keep telling them. I'm allergic to it."
"What happens?"
"My body rejects it. And I can always tell when they use it."
As if it's a particularly sinister trick ingredient used only by Chinese to vex us unsuspecting Americans.
"What happens exactly that makes you so adamant?"
He moved in close, nearly crawled up my arm for he's rather short, stood on his tiptoes, cupped his hand around my ear and whispered directly into my ear so that no one else could possibly hear what he said, so personal and so potentially damaging. He could not take the ridicule were anyone else to know his top secret. And they would.
"IT MAKES MY ASSHOLE ITCH."
Oops. I accidentally locked caps and bold again.
16 comments:
Over ripe tomatoes are full of MSG. We don't need to depend on the Chinese. You can make it at home! Make MSG Great Again!
The Blonde says it gives her pancreatitis because she had her gall bladder out.
There's a burger chain that specializes in MSG: Umamiburger
Science has been politicized ever since the Manhattan Project. When Government has a say in what gets funded, they get a say in what gets studied. I kinda sucks for curiosity-driven research because that isn't alway about finding cures.
I began an ambitious project a while back tracking the background of Nobel Prize winners in chemistry as to whether they were government-funded or industry-funded. It's not as easy as you might think.
I find that a plateful of gluten topped with Alar and a sprinkling of MSG gets my day off to a healthy happy start.
"IT MAKES MY ASSHOLE ITCH."
What does every pre teen say about meeting Kevin Spacey?
Perverts for 200 Alex.
I make Chinese food at home all the time. My mother in law says it tastes funny. Somethings missing.
It's the MSG.
I will admit that MSG and some nitrates in higher quantities do give me migraines. If I can cook some of the nitrates out in sufficient dilution, then it's fine, but things like Louisiana Hot Links and some bacons will trigger a migraine and it's no fun.
Meth, I have the same problem. I can eat some, but need to be prudent. Too many cold cuts sends me to the basement looking for soothing darkness. Migraines turn me into a vampire.
@Meth: Do you mean nitrites (not nitrates)? What about sulfites in wine? Are they problematic?
McGee isn't making a distinction between MSG occurring naturally in tomatoes and, say, within kombu seaweed contrasted with adding refined MSG by the teaspoon full to a bowl of minced pork.
When kombu dries MSG crystalizes on its surface. Cooks are instructed to wipe it off with a damp towel. Because that is too much and has a bitter affect. Not rinse it because that would reduce flavor too much.
The Japanese guy who named the flavor umami also refined MSG. Umami and MSG go together.
chickelit said...
@Meth: Do you mean nitrites (not nitrates)? What about sulfites in wine? Are they problematic?
Chick, I think you are right, it might be nitrites. I know some nitrates convert to nitrites when they come in contact with saliva, but it might be nitrites. And I don't drink wine, so suites aren't an issue for me in that context.
Chip, have you ever seen a show on netflix called Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories? A great little show set in a back alley japanese noodle house that opens at midnight and tells of its various patrons' stories with the owner being a sort of sensi that locks all the stories together. I think you'd like it.
Yes I have. I wrote about it here. I was bummed out when I ran out of episodes. They're great. They're touching.
I went through all the Tokyo Diner epis and am awaiting more. There better be more.
MSG causes more than an ITCH when it enters or leaves my digestive system. It wreaks INTESTINAL HAVOC.
The trouble seems to have started following a lower GI over 30 years ago, with the ingestion of MSG since causing a response that is MUCH MORE THAN A MYTH.
On a side note, MSG also enhances the flavor/odor of gas passed to the point where I can recognize its power and presence in smells left behind in public places.
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