Food & Gastronomy
Tasting and the brain
This post also appears on the Oxford Symposium for Food and Cookery blog A recent paper in Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13873.html) tells us for the first time how taste sensations on the tongue are transmitted to the brain. It...
Some thoughts on the importance of good food and good drink
From Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: ‘... you know, Beeblebrox. You want to meet the man who rules the Universe.’ ‘Can he cook?’ asked Zaphod. On reflection he added: ‘I doubt if he can. If he could cook a good meal he wouldn’t worry about...
77. A tale of two Watsons
There is a new cookbook out: Cognitive Cooking with chef Watson. The underlying idea is that IBM’s supercomputer “Watson” has looked at the individual flavour compounds in different foods, and created new dishes by matching up the foods that have flavour components in...
How much wine can you get into a bra?
Some years ago I presented a radio programme for BBC Radio 4 on the design of the perfect sports bra. One of our problems in preparing the programme was to work out the appropriate cup dimensions, which I was doing surreptitiously while talking to my producer by...
Meet Count Rumford III: More on gravestones
And finally, here is the historian's perspective on Rumford and his gravestone bread ovens. It seems that Rumford's reputation is on the line!
Meet Count Rumford. II: What is heat?
Following the last post, here is Rumford's own description of how he worked out the true nature of heat.
Meet Count Rumford I: Rumford’s original bread oven
Count Rumford, aka the American adventurer Benjamin Thompson, is famous in scientific circles for elucidating the nature of heat, and in food circles for his invention of the Rumford stove. But seldom do the twain meet, as I discovered when I entered into...
New Encyclopedia article: Climate change and future food supplies
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Food Issues, edited by food historian Ken Albala, has just been published (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books/Book239023?subject=W00&fs=1). It is loaded with interesting and useful material. My own contribution is an article in which I...
A machine that learns to cook by watching you
The personal touch seems to be imperative in cooking. From childhood we learn by watching and imitating, trying for ourselves. But with advances in robotics, could a machine learn to cook by watching you? The answer, in my opinion, is "probably yes". The real question...
Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets: My Article on Sugar in Cosmetics
The brilliant Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets (https://www.facebook.com/Companion2Sweets) is now out. Packed with useful and interesting information - in the latter category, my articles on unusual uses of sugar. Here's the one on cosmetics (look out for the...
How To Dunk a Biscuit
Live appearance (and demonstration) on BBC TV "One Show" by Skype from my kitchen in Australia, and went without a hitch!
Podcast: “How to Bake Bread in a Microwave Oven”
(with Jeremy Cherfas) It CAN be done – so long as the dough is held in a suitable earthenware or ceramic vessel. Watch the podcast on "Eat This Podcast"
Shaken, not Stirred: The Story of Mixers and Mixing
Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, St Catherine's College, Oxford, July 5-7 (2013) A talk in which I dressed up as James Bond to deliver a stirring message, with co-author Janet Clarkson playing the part of "M", and third author Alan Parker staying safely away in...
All Wrapped Up – A History of Mummy Eating
Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, St. Catherine's College Oxford, July 6-8 (2012) (with Janet Clarkson) Now published in the proceedings of the symposium, and also available as a video showing me delivering part of the talk dressed as a mummy. From the abstract:...
Letter: How Should You Cook Boxer Shorts?
Guardian Physicist and U.K. Guardian correspondent Jim Al-Khalili has offered to eat his boxer shorts if it turns out that neutrinos can actually travel faster than light, as recent experiments suggest. In this letter to the Guardian (publisher on November 26th) I...
The Great Aussie Barbecue
Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, Oxford U.K., 8–10 July, 2011 The Aussie barbecue is a unique celebratory institution. From humble beginnings, with meat cooked on a ploughshare over an outback campfire, or on a shovel in the firebox of a steam locomotive, the...
Radio Interview: The Science of Cooking
Resonance 104.4 FM (London), 26 April 2011, 7pm–8pm
The Kitchen Thinker: Anosmia
Daily Telegraph (UK) A great summary by food journalist Bee Wilson of a talk that I gave at the 2009 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. I described how the sense of smell is unique to each of us, and how this affects our enjoyment of a meal. Here is one example, as...