Cheese Making and Cake Baking: The Chemistry of Cookery
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We've whipped up an appetising take on the science of food and cooking for you this week. With a main course of cookery in the kitchen served up by a cake-baking physicist followed by a microbiological look at the cheese board and then the bacterial basis of the Best Before Date for dessert, this three-course scientific combo is an absolute academic feast. Also on the menu this week, how scientists are using brain scanners to reconstruct the movies we see in the mind's eye and we ask whether Einstein was wrong as scientists report particles apparently moving faster-than-light...
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The science of cake baking...
Professor Martin Adams talks through how cheddar and stilton cheeses are made.
What are the risks of food? Are 'best before' dates actually useful?
I tend to smell food on its ‘use by date’ as I've been known to throw food away before the date especially with poultry. Is smell a good way to tell whether food is safe?
I enjoy stilton's blue cheese. However, I wonder if regular consumption of the cheese would contribute to antibiotic resistance given that strains of Penicillium are used in its manufacture?
I recently bought a packet of Gorgonzola cheese, opened it up, and the mould on the inside was yellow. I thought it might have gone bad, but then I smelled and tasted it, and it was fine. I left the cheese on the counter and an hour later, I came back and the mould was blue. M...
My friend and I found a cake in the freezer today. The label on the cover of it had a data August 8th, 2000! It smells and looks fine, if a bit dry. Is it safe to eat something that's been kept from moulding for this long?
I like sell by dates - being a student I can get stuff cheaper, so there is a minor risk, but I bet that a sandwich that has a sell by date of Sunday is still edable even Tuesday or early Wednesday. I get the sandwich for less than half price. Is this a safe strategy?
It seems that many moulds are actually fine. Not all of them taste great, but you can scrape them off without any ill effects in most cases when they're on things like cheese and salami. But what moulds are a problem?
Why don't animals and birds get food poisoning?
Is eating what the locals eat a safe strategy to adopt when travelling?
With regard to home canning, you follow a recipe to make sure it’s safe, but if I wanted to make my own salsa for example, is there a way you can make sure you're always doing it safely and can you test it to make sure that you haven’t done something that might make you unwell?
what's actually happening when you smoke and cure meat to the microbes?
Why do the tastes of some foods complement each other so well? For example, cheese and wine? Could you explain the chemical reaction that takes place that makes it so palatable?
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