Follow-Up Q&A with Ole G. Mouritsen

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Onodera, translator, and Mouritsen at Science of Sushi. Photo Credits: (Matthew Kang/Eater)

Onodera, translator, and Mouritsen at Science of Sushi. Photo Credit: Matthew Kang/Eater

The audience present at The Science of Sushi asked our guest lecturers some great questions, and quite a few of them! Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to answer them all, but Ole G. Mouritsen has been kind enough to answer some of the lingering questions that went unanswered. Below his responses, we have included some additional information to help quench your thirst for knowledge (and sake).

Q: Are parasites within fish common? Are they a passable health problem?

A: Parasites can be common in some species, e.g., cod, mackerel, herring, and wild salmon. If in doubt, always freeze or marinate fish before eating raw.

The FDA provides guidance under their Parasite Destruction Guarantee on the preparation of raw fish. Fish intended to be consumed raw must be “frozen and stored at a temperature of -20°C (-4°F) or below for a minimum of 168 hours (7 days)”. [1]

Photo Credits: (Antony Theobald/Flickr)

Photo Credit: Antony Theobald/Flickr

Q: What exactly is ‘sashimi/sushi grade’ fish?

A: Fish that can be eaten raw. If in doubt, ask a fishmonger you trust.

 In the United States, the term ‘sushi grade’ is unregulated. However, many suppliers have set up their own parameters for their products, often reserving the term for their most fresh fish.[2]

Photo Credits: (Marla Showfer/Flickr)

Photo Credit: Marla Showfer/Flickr

Q: What are your thoughts on using brown rice in sushi?

A: I don’t myself like brown rice in sushi. If you worry about the calories in white rice, don’t eat sushi.

During the milling process, the germ and bran layer of brown rice are left intact, and are not removed as they are in white rice. The only layer removed is the outermost layer, the hull. Some health-conscious people often opt for brown rice because several vitamins and dietary minerals are lost in this removal process and the subsequent polishing.

Photo Credits: (Thokrates/flickr)

Photo Credit: Thokrates/flickr

Q: What’s your thought on cooking rice with ‘bamboo charcoal’?

A: I don’t understand this question. In principle the source of heating does not matter (except if the cooking pot is open and takes taste from the burning material).

Q: Sake: does it add, hide, or subtract?

A: It is a matter of taste. An old Japanese proverb says that one should not drink sake with rice (too much of a good thing). So drink sake before the sushi meal, or after.

Sake, the alcoholic rice beverage officially known as “Seishu” is defined as one of the following:

  1. Fermented from rice, rice-koji (the mold used to convert the starch in rice into fermentable sugars), and water.
  2. Fermented from rice, water, Sake-Kasu (the lees that remain after pressing Sake; these can still contain fermentable elements), rice-koji, and anything else accepted by law.
  3. Sake to which Kasu has been added.

After any of these processes, the liquid is then strained through a mesh to produce a clear beverage. [3] 

Photo Credits: (atmtx/flickr)

Photo Credit: atmtx/flickr

 

References

  1. “FDA Food Code 2009 – Chapter 3 – Food.” Fda.gov. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.
  2. Ransom, Warren. “Sushi Grade Fish.” The Sushi FAQ. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014. <http://www.sushifaq.com/sushi-sashimi-info/sushi-grade-fish/>.
  3. “Sake.com: Sake Making.” Sake.com: Sake Making. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.

Elsbeth SitesAbout the author: Elsbeth Sites is pursuing her B.S. in Biology at UCLA. Her addiction to the Food Network has developed into a love of learning about the science behind food.

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Science & Food UCLA 2014 Public Lecture Series

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2014LineUp

The 2014 UCLA Science & Food public lecture series is here!

General admission tickets are available for $25 from the UCLA Central Ticket Office (CTO) . Tickets can be purchased from the UCLA CTO over the phone or in person and will not include additional fees or surcharges. The UCLA CTO is located on-campus and is open Monday–Friday, 10am –4pm. A UCLA CTO representative can be reached during these hours at 310-825-2101. Tickets can also be purchased online from Ticketmaster for $25 plus additional fees. A limited number of $5 student tickets are available to current UCLA students. These must be purchased in person at the UCLA CTO with a valid Bruin Card.

2014ScienceofSushi

The Science of Sushi
Dr. Ole Mouritsen & Chef Morihiro Onodera
Wednesday April 23, 2014 at 7:00pm
Schoenberg Hall, UCLA

In this lecture, Dr. Ole Mouritsen will illuminate the science underlying sashimi, nori, sushi rice, umami, and more.  He will be joined by Chef Morihiro Onodera who will share his approach to sushi as well as an inside look into his partnership with a rice farm in Uruguay.

2014NeuroScience

How We Taste
Dr. Dana Small, Chef Wylie Dufresne, & Peter Meehan
Wednesday May 14, 2014 at 7:00pm
Schoenberg Hall, UCLA

In this lecture, we will explore how we taste from the perspectives of a scientist, a chef, and a food writer. Dr. Dana Small will describe how our brains respond to flavors, and shed light on the link to obesity. She will be joined by Chef Wylie Dufresne who will present his creative approach to generating surprising food flavors and textures.  Peter Meehan will share his experiences with food and taste and how they have shaped his writing, both as a cookbook author and former writer for The New York Times.

2014ScienceofPie

Harnessing Creativity (and the Science of Pie)
Dave Arnold & Chef Lena Kwak
Sunday June 1, 2014 at 2:30pm
Ackerman Grand Ballroom, UCLA

At this event, Dave Arnold will discuss his latest culinary innovations and the role of creativity in food. He will be joined by Chef Lena Kwak who will share her process of invention, research, and discovery in the kitchen. Also at this event, students of the Science & Food course will present the results of their apple pie projects, including their freshly baked pies in a large-scale pie tasting. The event will close with an Iron-Chef style discussion of the winning pies featuring the keynote speakers and renowned judges from the Los Angeles community.

5 Things About Baking

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At our 2013 Science of Pie event, Christina Tosi, Zoe Nathan, and the fantastic students from the Science & Food undergraduate course taught us all about pies, baking, creativity, and the scientific process. We just can’t get enough pie science, so here are 5 fun facts related to baking and some of our favorite baking ingredients:

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Liz Roth-JohnsonAbout the author: Liz Roth-Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in Molecular Biology at UCLA. If she’s not in the lab, you can usually find her experimenting in the kitchen.

Read more by Liz Roth-Johnson

The Science of Pie

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The Science of Pie
Featuring Christina Tosi & Zoe Nathan
May 19, 2013

At the world’s first scientific bakeoff, the students of the Science & Food undergraduate course presented results from their final projects, including a live taste test of apple pies. The final projects were judged by Chefs Christina Tosi and Zoe Nathan, food critics Jonathan Gold and Evan Kleiman, and UCLA Professors Andrea Kasko, and Sally Krasne.

Chefs Christina Tosi and Zoe Nathan also shared their perspectives on inventing desserts, with an emphasis on pie. Watch the entire lecture or check out some of the shorter highlights below.

Christina Tosi on…

…creating cereal milk

“Cereal milk, fortunately for us but unfortunately for the scientific process, was very simple to make . . . But a lot of the other things that we make at Milk Bar go through a much more vigorous question asking and testing process before we actually decide whether or not its successful.”

…crack pie and re-inventing pie crust

“Crack pie is our approach to pie. It very much embodies our approach to pie. We don’t use a traditional American pie crust . . . Pie crust is an opportunity to surprise and wow and provide texture and flavor that is beyond, perhaps, you standard traditional American pie crust.”

…creativity, curiosity, and the scientific process

Whether or not we’re aware of it, the scientific process is often an integral part of cooking and baking. When Christina Tosi describes her creative process at Milk Bar, she might as well be describing the process of scientific research and discovery:

“The second that I got out of school and I was able to have my own voice, I stepped back and I looked at everything that I was taught and listened to and followed  without questioning, and I questioned it. And not in a disrespectful way, just in a ‘Well, what if? Why and what if?’ And I think that that curiosity and that forcing yourself to question every single thing in the creative process is incredibly helpful … you really just need that wandering spirit and the courage to ask ‘Why?’ And then of course the momentum and the patience to test through and be willing to fail but also be excited when you succeed.”

Zoe Nathan on…

…being a traditional baker and working with simple ingredients

“A really good baker isn’t bored of flour, and isn’t bored of sugar, and isn’t bored of salt, and isn’t bored of butter. They just know that through process they can make an entirely different thing every single day using five ingredients.”

…how to create the most amazing pie

“My second biggest pet peeve as a baker is how people bake. They forget that this is also an ingredient. Color is flavor: without it, you don’t have flavor. It just doesn’t work. Color and baking time and how your pie looks needs to be treated as another ingredient. It’s just as important as salt, sugar, flour, or anything. If you forget your color, you didn’t make the thing. . . It’s like you don’t have chocolate for your chocolate chip cookies.”

…baking and being present

“I would wish for everybody to throw away their timers and to start to engage all of their senses.  Smell! Is it done? Look at it! Is it ready? . . . The whole thing about baking is that it makes you be present.”

5 Things About Fruits & Veggies

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At our 2013 public lecture Edible Education, Alice Waters, David Binkle, and Wendy Slusser discussed the challenges of eating healthfully in a “fast food” culture and how they are working to improve health and nutrition in schools and on college campuses. When it comes to healthful eating, what could be better than eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables? Here are 5 fun facts you might not know about fruits and veggies:

Veggies1

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Liz Roth-JohnsonAbout the author: Liz Roth-Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in Molecular Biology at UCLA. If she’s not in the lab, you can usually find her experimenting in the kitchen.

Read more by Liz Roth-Johnson

Edible Education

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Edible Education
Featuring Alice Waters, Wendy Slusser, and David Binkle
April 25, 2013

At this enlightening evening of food education, Chef Alice Waters shared valuable insights into food culture and her work with the Edible Schoolyard Project. Chef David Binkle and Dr. Wendy Slusser then provided an informative discussion on initiating change in how we eat through school lunches and healthy campuses. Watch the entire lecture or check out some of the shorter highlights below.

Alice Waters on fast food culture and slow food values

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been accused of being a Farmers market philanthropist because I believe in paying people for the true cost of their food and their products. And people say that I’m artificially driving up the prices of food in the markets. And I say, it’s the discounted prices that are artificial. I feel that it’s my responsibility to pay for the true cost of things, if I can.”

David Binkle on LAUSD’s school lunch program

“In our school district more than 80% of our children qualify from circumstances of poverty. And that is a real challenge for our children just to get a good, healthy, nutritious meal every day. So our job is to really provide that healthy, nutritious option to the children.”

Wendy Slusser on UCLA’s Healthy Campus Initiative

“UCLA serves as a leader in Los Angeles and around the world, and by prioritizing health in its broadest definition we are signaling that we value living well. And so what does the Healthy Campus Initiative focus on? Make the healthy choice the easy choice, so that we can live well, eat well, breathe well, move well, be well, and mind well.”

6 Things About Eating Insects

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Chef Alex Atala is famous for scouring the Amazon for interesting new ingredients. At his Science & Food lecture, Primitive X Modern, Chef Atala shared some of his innovative creations with everyone in the audience. One ingredient in particular really challenged our perception of what we consider to be edible: Amazonian ants!

Photo courtesy of Matthew Kang/Eater

Photo courtesy of Matthew Kang/Eater

While we don’t expect insects to show up in American grocery stores any time soon, it is estimated that at least 2 billion people worldwide already eats insects on a regular basis [1]. Here are 6 things you might not know about eating insects:

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“What is honey? The excrement of an insect. If you actually consciously think about what honey is, it’ll disgust you. But we are familiar with it, we have an interpretation of it being sweet. Hell, in English we’ll say, ‘Honey, I love you.’”
-Alex Atala, Eater 2011

References Cited

  1. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2013) Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security. http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e00.htm

Editor’s note: The original post stated that shellac and cochineal come from beetles when, in fact, they come from insects in the “true bug” order Hemiptera. Thanks to our astute readers for catching this mistake! The post has now been updated (10-24-2013 9:55 a.m. PST)

Liz Roth-JohnsonAbout the author: Liz Roth-Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in Molecular Biology at UCLA. If she’s not in the lab, you can usually find her experimenting in the kitchen.

Read more by Liz Roth-Johnson

Primitive X Modern

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Primitive X Modern: Cultural Interpretations of Flavors
Featuring Alex Atala
April 17, 2013

Chef Alex Atala joined Science & Food to discuss his approach to food, how his cooking has been impacted by science, and how cooking is fundamentally tied to larger issues of natural conservancy and humanitarianism. Atala is renowned for pioneering regional cuisine using indigenous Brazilian ingredients and works closely with anthropologists and scientists to discover and classify new foods from the Amazonian region. Watch the entire lecture or check out some of the shorter highlights below.

On creativity, innovation, and a vegetarian tasting menu

“For me as a chef creativity is something very, very, very important. In my personal perspective or professional perspective, creativity is not to do something that no one has done before. It’s exactly the opposite. It’s to do something that everybody does in an unexpected way. This is creativity. I make food, I don’t make miracles . . . It is almost impossible to make something new. It is possible to make something unexpected.”

On black rice and helping local producers thrive

Atala tells the story of a small rice producer in Brazil who, unable to compete with big agribusiness, turned away from traditional white rice and started growing black rice. At the time, black rice was thought to be “diseased,” and many laughed at the producer for growing such an undesirable commodity. But Atala disagreed – he met the producer, tried the black rice, and started cooking with it. He began sharing with other chefs and showing it to the media. By embracing black rice and using it in a new way, Atala was able to change the producer’s life.

“Sometimes creativity is not doing something that no one has done before, it’s doing something that you’ve known for your entire life in an unexpected way.”

On tucupi and making poisonous plants edible

Tucupi is a traditional Brazilian sauce prepared from lightly fermented manioc juice. Because yellow manioc contains high levels of poisonous hydrogen cyanide, it must be boiled for an entire day to make it safe to consume.

“In Brazil, we have manioc, yucca, it’s very important for us. We have two families: the white one who is friendly and the yellow one who is poisonous. Natives prefer the poison one . . . it tastes better.”

On mandioca and the challenge of being simple

“Being simple is a challenge for a chef, because being simple is not easy. It’s so complex. Having one dish with three ingredients is a huge challenge for a chef.”

On cultural interpretations and eating insects

“I was very deep in Amazonas, and I went to a tribe, and an old lady gave me a small sauce with a few ants inside . . . and I tasted it and said ‘Wow, beautiful. What herb do you put in here?’ And she looked at me and said, ‘Ants.’ . . . There’s this beautiful taste . . . cardamom, lemongrass, ginger. We didn’t have these flavors in Amazonas . . . I went back to Amazonas with my lemongrass, my ginger, and I made the same sauce, and I gave it to her to taste. And she tasted it: ‘tastes like ants!’”

On priprioca and discovering new ingredients

Atala has worked with scientists in the cosmetics industry to analyze the components of priprioca and evaluate its safety as an edible ingredient. He hopes that Amazonian natives will soon be allowed to produce and sell priprioca essence to restaurants and food companies.

“I was in the lab working, and I look at the analysis of priprioca, and I say ‘maybe this can be edible.’ … [we] put it in a chromatographer and made the analysis, and there are  no alkaloids and no representative toxic levels . . . So we started to use it.”

On our relationship with food

“My prep doesn’t start in my kitchen, it starts with natural conservation. It’s clear protecting the river, the sea, the lands, the fields, the forests—but we can forget a natural being, called a human being. People from the forest, from the sea, from the lands, from the fields must be supported as well. Our relation with food must be reviewed.”

The Science of Pie: 2013 Event Recap

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On Sunday we held our third and final 2013 Science and Food public lecture: The Science of Pie. Renowned pastry chef Christina Tosi joined us all the way from New York to explain her process for creating new desserts, and Los Angeles native and super-star baker Zoe Nathan shared her tips for baking the perfect apple pie. Guests indulged in delicious goodies from Zoe Nathan’s Huckleberry Café, Compost Cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar, and espresso brewed by four talented baristas.

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Zoe Nathan and Christina Tosi answer questions from the audience after their lectures.

And, of course, there was pie.

For weeks, students from the UCLA Science and Food course have been studying the apple pie and using scientific inquiry and experimentation to try to create the “ultimate” apple pie experience. Students examined everything from how different apple varieties behave in pie filling to how the size and shape of the pie affects baking. Several students also played with unconventional ingredients, including avocado oil, yogurt, chia seeds, and whiskey.

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Students prepare their apple pies the morning of the event.

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Students share their research projects and apple pies with the public.

The students presented their research projects and pies at Sunday’s event. While the public enjoyed sampling the scientific treats, the pies were scrutinized by an esteemed panel of judges made up of chefs (Christina Tosi and Zoe Nathan), food critics (Evan Kleiman and Jonathan Gold), and scientists (UCLA Professors Andrea Kasko and Sally Krasne). After tasting the pies a talking with the students, the public voted for their favorite pie and the judges settled on three additional stand-outs. The lucky winners all took home wonderful prizes from our friends at Breville.

Best Overall Pie
Alia Welsh (Team Sablé)
Apple pie with shortbread crust and streusel topping.
This solo effort explored the vast parameter space of pie, studying the effect of fat content and temperature on the texture of the shortbread crust, as well as the effect of pH on the browning of the streusel topping. The final winning pie had shortbread made with room temperature standard American butter.

Best Tasting Pie
Stephan Phan, Kevin Yang, Amirari Diego (Team Apples to Apples)
Deconstructed apple pie with pie crust crumbs and spherified apples.
Using the technique of spherification, this team applied their knowledge of diffusion and gelation to prepare “reconstituted” apples. They found that optimizing both the calcium chloride concentration and gelation time was key to making a delicious modernist apple pie.

Judge’s Favorite Pie
Qiaoyi Wu, Qinqin Chen, Michelle Cheng (Team Aπ3)
Pie crust made with different liquids, including vodka, beer, and sparkling water.
Seeking to perfect pie crust texture, team Aπ3 experimented with different liquids that may impede the formation of gluten protein networks. Gluten gives structure and stability to pie dough, but can also make pie dough dense and tough when over-developed. The team examined the porousness, density, and browning of pie crusts prepared with three different liquids compared to water and concluded that vodka creates the flakiest pie crust.

People’s Choice Award
Elan Kramer, Caleb Turner (Team “Insert Team Name Here”)
Frozen apple pie with peanut butter mousse.
This student duo thought outside the box with this creative apple and peanut butter pie. To create the ultimate peanut butter experience, the team experimented with the effect of egg white content on the texture and density of the peanut butter mousse.

The Science of Pie was the perfect end to a fantastic lecture series. We are so grateful to our amazing lecturers and all the people and sponsors who made the lectures possible. And although the 2014 lectures might seem impossibly far away, don’t worry—the Science & Food blog is not going anywhere! Keep an eye on out for more exciting food science posts, profiles, recipes, and maybe even a few videos through the rest of the year.

Liz Roth-JohnsonAbout the author: Liz Roth-Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in Molecular Biology at UCLA. If she’s not in the lab, you can usually find her experimenting in the kitchen.

Read more by Liz Roth-Johnson

Science & Food 2013 Lecture Series

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The 2013 Science & Food lineup is here!
Stay up-to-date with all the latest news by following us on Twitter or joining our mailing list.
2013Lineup
While waiting for the lectures, you can satisfy your science and food cravings by watching last year’s lectures and browsing our blog archives. Over the next couple of months, we will feature exciting new content here on the blog, including chef profiles, recipes, and contests. Don’t miss out! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr to get all the latest Science & Food news.

We can’t wait to see you at the 2013 Science & Food lectures!

Primitive X Modern: Cultural Interpretations of Flavors
Featuring Chef Alex Atala
Wednesday, April 17 @ 7:00pm
Moore Hall 100 (map)

Chef Atala will discuss his approach to food and how his cooking has been impacted by science. Atala is renowned for pioneering regional cuisine using indigenous Brazilian ingredients and works closely with anthropologists and scientists to discover and classify new foods from the Amazonian region.

Edible Education
Featuring Chef Alice Waters, Dr. Wendy Slusser, and Chef David Binkle
Thursday, April 25 @ 7:00pm
Royce Hall Auditorium (map)

Chef Alice Waters will be joined by Professor Wendy Slusser and Chef David Binkle to provide and informative discussion on initiating change in how we eat through school lunches, edible gardens, and healthy campuses.

The Science of Pie
Featuring Chef Christina Tosi and Chef Zoe Nathan
Sunday, May 19 @ 2:00pm
Covel Commons Grand Horizon Room (map)

Chefs Christina Tosi and Zoe Nathan will share their perspectives on inventing desserts, with a particular emphasis on pie. Here, the students of the Science & Food undergraduate course will present results from their final projects, including live taste tests of apple pies. Final projects will be judged by a panel of esteemed local chefs, scientists, and food critics including Christina Tosi, Zoe Nathan, Jonathan Gold, and UCLA Professors Andrea Kasko and Sally Krasne.