Cheese It, Boys!

Cheese I ate today. I'm a fanatic of that one in the lower left,
a specialty of local cheese making expert, Barbara Jenness.

I ate some cheese today. Actually, it was quite a bit of cheese as far as variety goes. Have you noticed a trend when I discuss foods and beverages? They have all been practiced since ancient days and there are different varieties of them from all over the world. Bread, cheese, beer, chocolate, tea... Wine would fit nicely in this list.

And today the focus was on cheese. Fortunately we had a cheese whiz (thank you, thank you) come in and talk all about making cheese and different varieties. I payed special attention to this lady because one day I hope to make cheese myself and impress all my guests at a dinner. Yes, it is more of a hassle and more expensive to do this, but it's something I think we should all try at one point. Right? So let me go though the process of making cheese.

The Process of Making Cheese


Cheese, like all of the foods and drinks I've discussed (except for maybe tea), has its own special and intricate process of production. There are four main elements for making cheese:

1. Milk - Well, that one was kind of obvious. It needs to be acidified and curdled, which involves the next two.
2. Culture - Yes, you need some sort of rich heritage made up of peoples, arts, ideas, language. Psych! Not that kind of culture. I'm talking about the bacterium kind. Replacements include buttermilk, vinegar, and lemon juice.
3. Rennet - I'm sorry, could you rennet by my again? I said, "Rennet." This is the agent which actually curdles the milk. I'll discuss these elements more in depth later.
4. Salt - That's right. You need to add a small amount of salt to your concoction, and now you're ready to cheesemake!

Let's discuss each element further though, shall we?

Milk

They sure can drink though!

Or melk, as some say it (incorrectly, even though  it's one of the few words in the English language that's pronounced exactly like it's spelled). This is the most important ingredient to producing cheese by far. The others can be replaced, but once you take the milk away it is no longer possibly cheese. You can get milk from all sorts of different mammals, but the main ones are goats, cows, sheep, and bats. Oh, did I say bats? Heck not! Don't use that nasty bat milk. You sicko! Other milks not to use: Kangaroo, mouse, moose, lion, rabbit, pig, skunk,  whale, rhinoceros, porcupine, baboon, prairie dog, dugong, or wolverine. Yeah. I bet you never thought of some of those animals as milk makers. They all are, and for some reason, the US chooses to use cow milk a whole lot, even though it's less efficient than goat milk. Real mozzarella is actually made from water buffalo milk (I thought they only produced water). I've heard tell that goat milk is a great choice for cheese making. And the way the milk will taste is strongly based on the animal's diet. A goat consuming more grains will produce a milk that tastes different from the same goat feeding on mostly grass. Who knows what sort of wacky milk creations you can make? And we haven't even gotten to the cheese yet? Some pointers I got from Barbara Jenness (which is actually where I got most of this information) is that the milk should not be pumped, which I agree with for the sake of the poor lactating animal, and that it should be handled gently to preserve the delicate chemical make up of milk. And lastly, make sure you begin with fresh milk. The curdling and stuff will come later.

Culture

There are hundreds of species of bacteria you could use to acidify milk. The Average Cheese Making Joe (ACMJ) will probably not use culture, but people who make cheese for money or even a living will use bacteria. This is not to say that big cheese companies (pun originally unintended) use culture. But you know big companies. Now, for someone like me, an ACMJ, procuring a special strain of bacterium might not be worth the trouble. Not to fear. As I mentioned before, lemon juice, buttermilk, and vinegar can all acidify your milk. Try different things for different cheeses!

Rennet

Adding rennet to the mix.

By far the most obscure element to creating cheese, it can curdle the milk, and you're going to eat the curds. Oh yes you are. Now, where does rennet come from? You have to extract it from the fourth stomach chamber of a calf that hasn't been weaned from its mothers milk yet. Or pay someone to do that for you. You can probably buy it at your local grocery store, but the people that work there might not even know what it is. Did you? So I don't know. Look around. What I'm wondering is how we got this stuff in the first place. I mean, we've been making cheese for a while now. Have we always been extracting this rennet from calves? How would we have known? I'm thinking milk just curdled over time. The rennet makes it go faster then. Ok, settled.

Salt

Add a pinch of salt or two. There's not a whole lot to comment about. There's definitely a reason besides flavor to add salt, but I can't quite remember. Something about chemicals...?

Process of Cheese Making

Alright you ACMJs, get ready for some impressive cheese that will awe your friends at your next social occasion when you tell them, "Oh that? I made that. Yeah, no bigs. I make cheese. What of it?"

Step 1: Watch this video and do everything it says.
Step 2: Serve to your friends.
Step 3: Recite that quote from above.

And a last note about cheese: There are three important factors when dealing with cheese: Time, Temperature, and pH. When the milk's in the pot, the temperature should be anywhere from 70 - 90 degrees. It depends on which cheese you're going for. Look up each cheese's specific temperatures. The same goes for pH, but you're aiming for about 6.6, give or take 0.4 or so. The time refers to aging the cheese. You'll find that the more you eat cheese, the more you'll know about when you like eating it. Some cheese eaters like to eat bleu cheese when it's aged to the maximum. You may find you like eating a certain type of cheese very young. As you become a more experience cheese eater (or cheater, for short) you'll discover more about the way you prefer when and how your cheese is served. Enjoy.

Chili Children

Making Chili

Today I made some chili using nothing more than a couple slices of diced onions, some green peppers, most of a can of black beans, diced tomatoes from a can, some olive oil, a pan, two hot plates, two outlets (complete with endless electricity), a stirring spoon, salt, and various other ingredients. That's seriously all you need. Oh, and a pot. That's it. So I made some delicious chili and ate it with some chips. How splendid. I tried other creations, such as my neighbor's salsa, and it was very nice. They added some spicy peppers to the mix, and that was very nice. It was on its way to being a truly excellent salsa. Well done, chaps. Very nice!

Secret Agent Spice

A dictionary definition of pungent

Spicy food can be miserable.

Capsaicin belongs to the vanilloid family. It has a special binding property that makes it burn you. Burn you hard. It also has a heavy molecular weight compared to other molecules in the vanilloid fam. Drinking water to cool yourself down won't do much for you because of capsaicin's lipid properties. It is hydrophobic and will not dissolve in water. Using something high in lipids, like milk, would do the trick. Or ice cream! I've made the mistake of eating one of those peppers before, but I did come out of it with a cool shirt. A Scoville Unit indicates the amount of capsaicin present. You'd find anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000 units in a Jalapeño pepper. In the habañero pepper that I ate (picture above) there were about 100,000 to 350,000 Scoville heat units present. Here are photos of the three hottest peppers out there:

Bhut Jolokia 855,000–1,359,000 SHU

Naga Viper Pepper - 855,000–1,359,000 SHU

Red Savina Habañero - 580,000 SHU

So I read an article about spiciness and all that, and I really don't think the creams it mentioned would work all that well for getting rid of the pain caused by spicy foods. But when you are really in pain from something spicy, I think getting any help at all is more than welcome. I think it's interesting that humans are drawn at all to spicy things. I mean, I am too, but naturally the effect of capsaicin is the equivalent to a thorn. It's an irritant. Animals don't even like this sort of thing. But then, humans are pretty strange.

There was a table in that article where the difference between capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin was just one double bond between the carbons in capsaicin. The difference between capsaicin and homocapsaicin (which means "same as capsaicin") is the direction of the carbon after the double bonds. Capsaicin is thought to be a double-edged sword because it has both chemotherapeutic properties, but also cancer-causing properties. This chemical is thought to make you use burn more calories and thus not acquire fat.

Aroma Therapist

Sales and Smells

Smells are everywhere. Now, I found out about aroma marketing, and it's this crazy concept that companies and stores are buying into. You release scents at a store and try to draw in customers. It lures you in and you may already be emotionally swayed to buy something. Personally, I think it's a sweet strategy to get people to buy stuff. That idea of getting into people's emotions to get them to buy stuff is ingenious. Beautiful. Now, does it work? Well, I wouldn't say that it works on me, but then again, who would admit that? I don't think anybody knows if it works on them. As to why most people don't know about its effects on them, I'd say it comes from the very nature of the marketing and how it targets the subconscious. But apparently it works pretty well because there are more than one of these companies that specializes in aroma manipulation. It certainly is a very creative approach on marketing. It's about time we had this. I'm just waiting for smellovision and smellophones to come on to the market. That will be difficult to adjust to at first, but eventually people will love it. I'm totally serious. Listen, if we make it past December 21, 2012, then we will be seeing all sorts of smellectronic devices. It will be rad.

How Exactly Does Smelling Function?

So here's the skinny on how we smell (though I've explained this before in my blog): It starts with an odor molecule. Humans are able to detect over 10,000 different odor molecules. If one of these odors manages to fly up into your nose it may just contact an olfactory receptor neuron. You have millions of these, and each one has cilia jutting out of them. The celia contain receptors, which are the proteins that change when odor molecules bind to them. See? You're getting it. So neurons have receptors. Ok, when the molecules bind to the receptors, the receptors change shape, which causes an electrical signal to be sent to the brain. Your brain gets a message saying "fish alert, fish alert!" and you interpret it. Now, just because there are a bunch of different smell molecules doesn't mean that each smell has its own molecule. The smell of certain shampoos are actually combinations of these molecule odors. So with over 10,000 thousand the amount of possible smells are nearly endless. I mean, really. One day we should be able to experiment with creating different smells with a program. I can imagine it: Molecule #2968-2988 + molecule #24 + molecule #8838-8842. Now compute and give me a scent as to what that smells like.

Loss of Smell


Anosmia, the medical term for the loss of smell, is kind of a rare condition. Old people lose their smell from age because they are more susceptible to nasal infections which destroy their senses. Once it's gone it's gone. It is strongly tied to tasting, and eating food would be a much less rich experience. On top of that, odors like smoke and gas would go undetected, and those can be red flags to humans with any common sense (pun intended). You also don't know when you smell bad, so you'll just have to shower daily and use lots of deodorant, or ask someone close if you smell to know when to correct that.

Odor Preferences


Why do we like certain smells and dislike others? Why does that change for different people? These are probing proboscis questions, and here's what I understand: People aren't born with certain preferences. There is not sufficient data to back up the claims that we are. It's pretty much a preference based on association. You learn if you like a smell from a very young age. Some cultures have a general smell for home, and that might be the smell of the mother making a certain cultural dish. Then you're always going to like that smell of Caldo de Pollo boiling in the pot. I know I do, Mom. But some Indian food smells pungent and pretty gross to me. I remember when I was in 6th grade and I walked into my Indian friend's house. I really just didn't like that smell at all, and I wondered how the ones living there could tolerate it. Now I realize how. Your perception of the smell is really a big factor of what determines the like or dislike of a certain odor. That may sound redundant, but what I mean is that if you think something smells "artificial" or "natural," that may have a big effect on your overall judgment of the smell.

Breadwinner

Ah, the age-old food. The food that's has a band named after it; it's a slang term for money; The whimsical Patti Smith wrote a poem about it; it had a British sitcom from the 80's named after it; it's a proofreading acronym (Browse Read Edit Add Delete); it's a world renowned staple food, and it just might be a solution to world hunger. Ladies and gentlemen please welcome our guest, bread.
Let's begin our discussion with yeast. After all, without yeast bread would not be possible. Yeast are single-celled fungi that ferment and cause bread to rise. There are several types of yeast available and widely used for various preparations, including Baker's Yeast, Nutritional Yeast, Brewer's Yeast, Distiller's Yeast and Wine Yeast. Each has its specific function to the different users. You give the yeast a little sugar and it will immediately capitalize on the opportunity, consuming sucrose, fructose, glucose, and maltose. This is necessary for the fermentation of the yeast. Fermentation produces CO2 gas, and this gas causes the bread to rise. The fermentation also makes ethyl alcohol, which adds its own unique flavor to the creation. It's like the old proverb, "yeast said, soonest mended."
On to kneady greetty. As you know, kneading is important when dealing with dough. You must knead the dough so that gluten forms, and that gluten adds a cohesive property to the dough, thus making it doughy. And tyrosine, and important chemical in bread making, reacts with more tyrosine to become the scaffolding of dough through interlinkage.
On the gluten. For those of you who speak German, allow me to greet you: "Gluten Tag." Here's a definition of gluten from my dictionary: A substance present in cereal grains, like wheat. It is what causes the elastic texture of dough. For those with celiac disease, do not consume gluten. It's a mixture of two proteins, prolamin and glutamin. If you can't digest gluten but decide to eat it anyway then get ready for a wild ride. Your large and lower intestine's villi will be destroyed, and you will miss out on lots of nutrients when you digest stuff. Who knows? Your gums might even start bleeding. You do not want to mess around with gluten if you are gluten intolerant.

We meet again, Lactobacillus.

On to sourdough. One of my favorite types of bread, it starts with, strangely enough, starter. Starter? Yeah, it's that medium that keeps cultured yeast alive. And that specific culture of fungus, lactobacillus, is what is used and found in sourdough. Yummy fungi!
There are a few differences in making Pita, Injera, Naan, and those other wacky breads out there. For St. Pita, that distinct pocket is created with steam. Injera uses Teff, a special grain, filled with iron. Teff flour is mixed is with water and set to ferment for several days. The dough is actually liquid enough to be poured out on to the cooking surface, so the bottom is smooth and the top surface is porous. What a neat texture. Naan needs yeast water, yogurt and ghee (or vegetable shortening). Yeah, it looks like a bubbly pizza thing, and it's pretty good. Give that one a try sometime.

Coming to your Senses: Old Fashioned Olfaction

There's nothing like a good ol' whiff. Am I right? And that's why we talked about smelling in class. We studied the different effects of not being able to smell on taste. We also took a whiff down memory lane with some smell samples. You may wonder why we would be so thorough with a topic like smell, but it just makes scents.
For one experiment, we plugged our noses and tried different jams and jellies and such. There was grape and strawberry and mango and there was also applesauce, which was not a jam/jelly. I was blindfolded and noseblinded. I ate a spoonful of each and after I had guessed I had misplaced all of them (except for the applesauce, but I could feel the different consistency of the food.) The same happened with both of my partners, including the applesauce phenomenon (a great name for a band).
We also tried to confuse our senses by blindly eating one flavor of chip while vigorously smelling another chip of a different flavor. I had no problem telling apart which chip I was eating and which I was smelling. Granted, there was not much variety, but I still think anybody could have gotten this right. My partners weren't fooled either.

Stereotypical Vamp-bag

But what of the effects of garlic and desensitization? I loves me some garlic, but does it lose its kick after eating it enough. I seemed to think so, but very mildly. I ate garlic chips with garlic hummus, and later when I came back to it the garlic seemed less present in both. I was a little disappointed in that, but I still enjoyed it very much. Garlic used to be a panacea back in the day, and it's still known to be quite healthy for you. Plus it keeps vamps away. We don't want those spooking us, now do we?
Lastly, we sampled lots of different aromas from a jar. I was struck when I smelled certain flowers like rose. It brought me back to a simpler time. It reminded me of my mom cooking stuff and living in a different house. Or others would remind me of playing with rubber dinosaur toys from when I was little. They say scent is the strongest sense tied to memory. I believe it. I was tripping. One smelled like the tires from a mechanic garage. Another smelled like maraschino cherries. The smells were very distinkty. The whole experience was simply amazing. Try smelling a whole bunch of unique smells some day. You'll know what I mean.

Beer Me

Beer: How Make?

Yes, this time we learned all about every man's stereotypically favorite beverage, beer. Beer has been around for quite some time now (4000 B.C.), but the ingredients needed are basic, so that makes sense. Although the process is not too simple. The key ingredients are barley and hops. And don't forget the water. So you take your barley, steep it so that it starts germinating. Ok, now stop that germination by putting the seeds of the barley in a kiln. Now it's time to grind that germinated seed in the mill. It will be bashed and mashed from her. There's even a lauter tun used. Who knows what that thing does. Now you throw in your hops. Hops are plants that add flavor to a beer. There are even hops that smell like citrus. You brew it from here in a kettle. Your whirlpool separator should do the trick for the next step, and then a cooling device cools down the beer-in-progress. Here's the part where you let it ferment. Yeast comes in to your fermentation vessel, and any excess yeast is removed. Hmm, it smells like alcohol now. At this point, your beer is green. Eww! You let this green goblin mature in a tank and then filter it all out. From here you basically have your beer. Of course, you can always pasteurize it, but who wants beer past your eyes? You would drown in beer if it were past your eyes! Now put it in the right container and ship it out for everyone to buy and get drunk off of.

Beer: Why Drink?


Now, as we all know, nobody actually likes the taste of beer, or any obviously alcoholic beverage for that matter. They all pretend to like it to seem cool for drinking beer. The same goes for coffee and tea. I'm waiting for that day when humanity will finally say, "Ok, fine. Of course beer tastes gross. But it makes me feel good." Well, I'm glad you finally admitted that. It's true, even old people drink for fashion and that sort of thing. Now, another reason people drink is to get drunk, or the technical term, "Shwasty Krunkity Koo". We all know the effects alcohol has on someone:

1. Improved dance skills: Perhaps your rhythm is a little off, but you're no longer afraid to bust some sick moves on the dance floor, including the robot, the sock puppet, and the ironic twist.
2. Slurred speeeerrrcch: You might combine words you never thought were possible, like dinosaur and laser. Lasosaur! Which turns into Lasosaurus Rex, which is turned into Lazorsaurus Rex, so people don't mispronounce (aloud or in their head) it when the read it.
3. Super great time: When did you become so funny and honest and spontaneous? Oh, just a few drinks ago? That's funny. I have a feeling we're going to have a good night tonight. Now let's boogie, buddy!

Which is why one should always drink responsibly and never drink in excess. So, any questions so far besides this very one I'm asking? Let's continue on our magical mystery tour then.

Beer: Who Knows?

Beer culture is about as well defined as surf culture, and that's well defined. It's there, communities form around a single concept. People that are into beers tend to really delve into the whole subject because once you go in that rabbit whole a little you just keep on finding more questions. There is a lot to know about beer, and I will summarize all of it briefly in this paragraph. Microbreweries are considered "cool" because it's not made by The Man who doesn't care about the quality of the beer he produces. Commercial beers like Bud Light and Coors are bad beers with carelessness in the craft. It's more about marketing than it is about creating a work of art, which is the beer. So do everyone a favor and stop buying those cheap, nasty beers and buy local or make your own. Beer ranges from a faded gold color to black (see above, which I'm sure you already did). Fosters is NOT Australian for beer. Most Australians have never even heard of that brand. The United States produces the most beer annually. American beer is basically a laughingstock in the world community. England is said to have the best beer in the world. That may be a pretty serious statement to anyone who cares, but I'll believe it. The rest is pretty much self-explanatory. Enjoy your beer, or finally confess that you can't, nor could anyone possibly enjoy the foul taste of beer, or any alcoholic beverage.

Chocolatl: The Food of the Gods

"¿Quieres chocolatl?" "¡No, güey!"

Well hello there. I didn't see you come in. Take a seat, please. Today I'm talking about chocolate, or as the Mayans called it, choclatl. I learned a lot about chocolate today, and really it's a fascinating product. I mean, who comes up with this stuff. It's interesting being born this late in the history of mankind and being caught up to date on the past several thousand years of recorded history. In a way we are very fortunate. Man has made many advances in the fields of science and art, including inventing science and art to begin with. And today they caught me up to speed with chocolate development, or at least up to speed up until the 80's, because that video we watched was pretty retro-looking.

A cacao tree with cocoa ripe pods.

The video began with a brief history of chocolate making and how it was done way back in the day. The narrator switched between Mayan and Aztec civilizations, but all that stuff is the same, right? Chocolate consumption started as a drink. Apparently, the emperor would guzzle down 50 cups of the chocolate drink a day. Guy likes his chocolate. Eventually, technology allowed us to solidify chocolate, and then we started eating. It all comes from the cacao tree. You take the cocoa pods when they're yellow. That's when you know they're ripe. The seeds are what you use, but they're covered in a sweet, sugary pulp. The pulp is actually delicious if you ever get the chance to taste it. Which is juxtaposed by the horrific bitterness of the seeds used. These days, after you ferment them and dry them, you remove the skins and grind it, I think. Then it goes through a million other processes, which involve extracting the butter, making it into a solid cake, melting it and mixing it, drizzling it over nougat or nuts (optional), or putting it in a mold. The Swiss added some milk to the mix, and there's where milk chocolate came from. Thank goodness for that. The factory procedures involved with producing chocolate are actually pretty ingenious. Skin removal was done by slamming chocolate against a wall and having a vacuum suck the skin up, but not too strong as to suck the seed with it. And now we get to eat it all the time if we want! I wouldn't want to live in a world without chocolate, although if I never knew about it I guess I wouldn't really mind, since I wouldn't know what I'm missing.

So I tried a few varieties in class. One of my three favorites was the Reese's, although it wasn't so much the quality of the chocolate itself, but rather the combination of the peanut butter and the chocolate. The chocolate was probably subpar, but what a delicious duo. It's salty, melts quickly (a little too quickly at times), and the composition and consistency is great. I happened to be a little partial to Reese's, but that's life.
The next highest ranked was the Symphony chocolate made by Herseys. It had a rich texture that melted just at the right time. By the way, I watched a video of a piece of chocolate melting on some kid's tongue while he didn't swallow it. He just sat there and let his mouth dry up and I bet he nearly gagged just trying to keep that chocolate on his tongue. It was Pavlovian even, just without the bells but with the drooling. I digress. That was one good piece of chocolate.
The last came from the Rasinets, one of my favorite treats. Luckily for me, somebody brought them (me). Also, luckily for me, not many people ate them, so I returned to a nearly full plate of my raisin things, which I dumped in my mouth promptly. Again, like the Reese's, it wasn't so much the chocolate that I enjoyed so much, but the duality of this fruit and chocolate. In the same way that chocolate goes well with strawberries, it goes very well with raisins. The chocolate itself was pretty shallow and there wasn't much of it, but it worked just fine for its duty in this case. Raisinets rule!
There was also a part of our day devoted to seeing where the money went in a two dollar piece of chocolate. As it turns it in the UK, 20 cents goes to the cocoa farmers. This makes sense since it's cheap labor and there are lots of farmers willing to work for very little, just as long as they are making something. 20 more cents go to the government of the exporting country. I think the rest was split 96 and 64 between the producer and retail seller, respectively. While it seems unfair that the hard working farmers only get 10% of their chocolate they're helping make, it's life. I think in an ideal world they might be making a little more and the government and producer might be making a little less.

Coffee and Tea: Two Very Disgusting Things in this World

Coffee, or Coughee?

While coffee has been scientifically proven to be objectively "gross", it still remains one of mankind's favorite drinks, which is a phenomenon beyond my understanding. The origins of coffee consumption begins with Abyssinian shepherds stumbling about and coming upon a "coffea" tree. They ate it, spit it out immediately, and then did the same thing over and over again. Then they decided to brew it instead, and it became slightly more bearable.
A mole is 6.022 x 10^23 atoms.
In an experiment on the effects of hot water vs. cold water on dissolving rates, I found that hot water dissolves substances at a high rate. In the cold water, the sugar dissolved slowly, but eventually it all disappears.
The reason espressos are so strong, yet have relatively little amounts of caffein is for two reasons: Small serving size (typically 6.5g of beans) and short amount of contact time with water during extraction. When brewing coffee, you're really just releasing the water.
The reason substances like (E)-ß-Damascenone and 2,3-Butanedione (diacetyl) are volatile is because they are rich in polar bonds, thus making them water soluble. They reach our noses and then we can smell them.
The reason it's good to use new beans instead of week-old beans is because they eventually produce nasty smelling chemicals, such as the two show here. It's really easy to smell these compounds, so make sure your beans are fresh!
There are 20 Carbons found on cafestol, so if it's a diterpene then there must be 10 carbons in a terpene.

The Asian Palm Civet eats the coffee and poops it out,
and then you get to have some

After reading about Kopi Luwak, I don't think I would want to try it. It's super expensive, it came from a weasle-looking animal's digestive tract, and it's coffee! The pros don't outweigh the cons in this one. Sorry, Civet. I just would prefer a beverage less involved with your intestines.
I did actually try some different coffees while I was in class though. One was a "medium coffee", and it was just awful, but the other was a strong one from Ethiopia, and this one was actually pretty bad. I mean that. I thought I might actually need to wash it out with some tea! That's how desperate I was.

Tea tastes bad, too!

Tea Off
The origin of tea is said to have started when Shennong, the legendary emperor of China, was drinking boiled water and some leaves happened to drift into his bowl. When he saw that the water changed colors, naturally he drank it up. He tried it with other leaves, and thus tea was born. However, this is just one legend. I don't know when people started adding nas as a key ingredient, but they must be since I've tried my fair share of nas tea. Tea was introduced into Britain for the first time in 1662 by Catherine of Braganza. Tea imports from the East India skyrocketed when tea became a popular beverage in Britain.
The Han dynasty used tea as a medicine.
King Charles II was involved in bringing the tea to the west, since he was married to Catherine of Braganza. It is also thought that sailors from Amsterdam could have been responsible for bringing over the first tea samples.
The Boston Tea Party was when colonists, fed up with the East India Tea company and their monopoly, threw barrels of lots of tea into the harbor, thus destroying it all without paying for it.
Because the English loved tea so much but didn't want to pay so much for it, they created an opium addiction in China. Eventually, China was addicted to opium and England could pay for their tea. It's always nice to see how England has used its moral compass throughout history.
Flavanoides, amino acids, vitamins (C, E and K), caffeine and polysaccharides are all closely related to human health
If you're making green tea you'll want your temperature to be in between 80-85 degrees C. Toss in those nasty leaves for about fifteen minutes and you've got yourself some green pea. I mean tea. You could also put it in for less, but expect some bitter stuff no matter what you do.
Now if you're going to make some of that black tea, you'll need to crank up the temperature so your water is at a nice 99 degrees C. Hmm, it's pretty much boiling there, but you need a high temperature to develop those active substances in black tea. Leave it brewing for four minutes or so and viola, you're drinking some nas tea.
While I don't like tea very much, if I had to choose my kind of tea here's how I'd describe it using key tasting terms:
Much sweetness with none of that tannin. Sure, I'll take some length in there. A little after taste never hurt. Now, as far as body goes, I prefer a hot body. Good body. Yes. And throw some balance in there while you're at it.
Honestly, I just don't know if my mood would affect opinion of tea, unless insane is a mood, although I don't think it is. I mean, I like Arizona Iced tea, and an Arnold Palmer ain't half bad, but really it all just kind of tastes the same to me. I don't know if that sounds immature of me, but they're just my honest feelings. Ok, how about this? If I'm feeling contemplative I'll drink some 1706. That was when Benjamin Franklin was born. Hmm, how contemplative...
I tried four different types while I was there in class. Let's go through them, shall we?
Red Bush Tea, from South Africa. The leaves smelled like wood and BBQ a little. Somebody mentioned campfires, and I totally understood what they were talking about. I got that too. The brew smelled pretty similar. I couldn't really tell the difference. The taste was very week. It was just watery and had some wood.
Green Tea, from Japan. The leaves smelled very much like what tea is my mind. Green tea is pretty gross. The brew smelled kind of like green beans. The taste was similar to the brew's smell. It had this green bean taste, but it was just bitter and unpleasant.
Mint Tea, from Mintland. The leaves smelled like straight up mint. The brew smelled like a mint tree, and the taste was slightly minty that left the tongue cooled and the after-taste lingers. Not that bad, as far as tea goes.
Smokey Black Tea, from Whoknowswhere. The leaves had a strong, wood-like scent. I got that BBQ thing going on with this one too. It was a pretty foul tea. Bitter, water, and bland. Why do people drink this?

January 10, 2011 - Gustation Station, Olfaction Fashion, and the Green Beans

Gustation Station: Tongue
Olfaction Fashion: Fancy Perfumes (or Colognes if you're into that sort of thing)

1) I'd say for the most part that map (see below) is correct. I'm not sure about bitter being in the back of my tongue, but it's kind of a tricky taste to locate. Sometimes I would mix up sour and salter, but sweet is right on the tip.

2) Plugging my nose while eating is actually kind of frustrating. Immediately I want to unplug it, but when I don't and I eat food it tastes much more dull. Sometimes, if the food isn't very strong tasting, like with some of the oats I ate, I can hardly taste anything. I can only feel the mushy substance in my mouth. But I could still taste the apple I ate. The texture is very recognizable as an apple's, and this may have thrown me off, but I'm pretty sure I could still taste it.

3) The five tastes commonly accepted are bitter, sour, salty, sweet, and savory Umami. Mmmm, Umami. Some of the more questionable tastes on our tongue are calcium and fatty. Mmmm, fatty.
The innate "wisdom of the body" is an interesting concept which means to convey that naturally the body tells the brain which foods to eat. For example, when I was a little tike I only wanted candy and ketchup and sugar water and all that junk. So your body goes after the sugars. Bitter things, which are potentially poisonous, are signified to the brain as no good, so naturally you don't eat this. Pretty clever, Mr. Tongue.
The reason some people can triumph over their inherent dislike for bitter broccoli could be for some reasons. One is that your environment can affect it. Perhaps your mother always fed you broccoli from a young age, and you could just chow down on that stuff. But then again, some people have never liked it and never will, like George H. W. Bush. Then there's the explanation of genetics. They got some mice to like sweet stuff less, which is pretty convincing. Always those experiments with mice.

4) Vision and Olfaction are pretty similar in that they both have specific receptors for certain types of light. Vision has three types of cones, and light that we see is a combination of those three. There are a lot of different smell receptors, but still there is probably some sort of smell spectrum out there. Different combos make different smells, like that smell of packaging foam when you put your nose right up to it and take a big whiff. That's the stuff.

5) Here's how smelling works: Odors are flying everywhere through the air. Then, the manage to fly up your nose. These odors are like tiny robots flying around on jet packs. They know what they must do. They are programmed to press certain buttons, and each one knows just the right sequence. The buttons are connected to a huge computer translator machine. So they soar up and an insane amount of them press these buttons. These buttons are like the alphabet of our smell. Or more accurately, our smellphabet. So after these have been pressed, that supercomputer I mentioned (our brain) can figure out the rest. And it says "Oh, you mean parmesan cheese? Yes of course, that distinct scent. Good choice."

Exactly how it works.

The Green Beans

So I had hypothesized that using salt kept the beans greener and improved the flavor. I was not sure as to what other reasons could have existed. It's a natural preservative, so that could play into it, but the experiment would probably take days. Here's what I found out:

We cooked beans with salted water and unsalted water, and our experiment says that you can't taste the difference. I personally tasted samples, and when they told me the results I had gotten 50% correct (or if you're a pessimist, 50% incorrect). The same results came with my partner who also tested the beans. We tried four times, and only twice got it right. This is slightly better than guessing, because guessing would have been 33.3% correct, but given our innacuracy I'd say you can't tell the difference. To keep it a fair test we cooked both beans with the same amounts of water and in the same sizes and quantities with no lid. We let them cook for the same time. Perhaps the length cooked would affect the results, but we didn't isolate that variable in our experiment.

For the second test we used two different types of salt: "regular" (Morton) and sea salt. The results were obvious for the testers. The sea salt was much salteier to both testers. It was so salty that it even caused their faces to cringe a little. The colors were about the same, but the flavors were certainly different.
The next test was to see if beans cooked with the lid on turned yellower. As we discovered, the testers could only pick out 50% of the lidded beans. So really they were only guessing. The beans did look the same, and we can conclude that lids don't affect the color of the beans.

The penultimate test was to compare the effect of salt vs. salt + baking soda vs. salt + vinegar. The results were clear, as this photo illustrates.

Starting at the top-left and going clockwise: Just salt; Salt and Vinegar; Salt and Baking Soda
So that's how that whole deal works. Just salt turns out ordinary, vinegar and salt gives you brownies, and salt and baking soda gives you these bright green vegetables with murky green water.

The last test was to see the how much walt increased the boiling point of water. As it turns out, not much. Here are the results:
0g - 102 C
1.5g - 102.5 C
3g - 103 C
4.5g - 103.5 C
6.0g - 104 C
Not a very big difference in the grand scheme of things. And there you have it.

January 9, 2011 - Optical Confusions & Colorful Food Molecules

Optical Confusions

These illusions show me the limitations of the human senses. Visual, upon which I rely heavily, is not as reliable as I once thought it to be. It tries to correct things automatically or compensate, which can really be confusing. For example the illusion with the two gray tiles and the pillar casting a shadow is unbelievable. Without the proof I don't know if I would have ever believed it. It's a great trick, and even after I know it I still can't wrap my mind around it. There is not just one clear explanation for why our minds are ill-percieved with this particular image, but what I understood was two things:

1. If a gray square is surrounded by lighter objects it appears darker because the eyes compensate for all that surrounding brightness. The opposite happens when a gray square is surrounded by darker objects. It's easy to see why such an effect would happen if this is true. But it is really exaggerated here.
2. The second has to do with the fact that you can clearly see a shadow is being cast from that green pillar and the fuzziness of the shadow itself. This misleads you into thinking ignoring the shade change caused by the shadow. You simply dismiss it and try to figure out what color it is really supposed to be without the shadow.

But the illusions didn't stop there. There was more gray/black/white madness on other websites. I was terribly confused by some of them. They all began to run into each other after enough of them. Some that stood out were the Vasarely Illusion, the Simultaneous Contrast Illusion, And The Koffka Ring. The Vasarely Illusion made a cross appear out of nowhere, but when I looked closer I could see that edges always appeared brighter, so naturally there would be a cross effect. It was a true illusion. The simultaneous contrast illusion was a basic light/dark surrounding trick, which more or less set the stage for the other illusions. The Koffka ring was a very interesting illusion because you could see the ring "changing" color even though it didn't. I think part of that illusion's success is due to the illusion of continuity that your mind creates when it sees the curves aligned. You see darkness leading one way and you assume it continues that way without thinking about it, thus making one part of the now shifted ring appear lighter or darker, depending on which side. Koffka, you've done it again!

There were tons of other illusions like the curveball, which was really something. And even more that made dots disappear and fish wiggle and ladders swing at different rates and all sorts of nonsense that my brain could not keep up with. The designers must have been out of their brainstalks for some time now.

I like the colorblind tests because it allowed me to better appreciate that minority of people who do suffer from such a condition. My father is actually one of them, and he tells me the grass is what I call purple. I think he's making that up. But some of those color inversions actually looked pretty spectacular. I think I prefer my normal vision (at least I can pilot planes), but one of the rarer conditions of colorblindness was a neat color scheme.

Which number do you see? I only see a snowman.

Colorful Food Molecules


The colors of the respective pHs were as follows:
1: Deep pink
3: Lighter pink
5: Pale pink
6: Light Magenta
7: Cobalt Blueish
8: Light Blue
9: Aquamarine
10: Kelly Green
11: Forest Green

They look just like the results of my classmates'! (The brainbow was radicool.)

Ye Olde Brainbow

White clothes look the way they do because high energy coming from the black light (which is barely visible in the light spectrum) bounces off the white clothes and falls back down into the very visible part of the spectrum. The light ends up with a high amplitude coming to your eyes.
Rods probably see green best. I've seen biker vests and caution signs. They use a color called "safety green" which is a pretty obvious color to the human eye. As it turns out, Wikipedia agrees.
Chlorophyll and anthocyanin have many carbon rings, multiple function group possibilities, cations, and oxygens in common. The fact that they aren't very good at absorbing green light, but are good at absorbing red and blue light, is why it appears green. There molecular shapes are pretty big and have some carbon circle things with oxygens. What else can I say about them? It's probably the double bonds that are everywhere.
And when bleach or hydrogen peroxide comes into they remove the color because those double bonds, which contribute to the color, are taken away. If you have a grass stain you can kiss it goodbye with new extra strength Clorox bleach! Because the chlorophyll's double bonds are taken right away, leaving your socks white as when you first took them out of the box.
Molecules in colorful fruits and vegetables might function as anti-oxidants because those colorful foods have colorful molecules, which have double bonds, which can deal with those pesky oxidants.

January 7, 2011 - Frederik Meijer Garden Reflection

Sight - Pre-Class Assignment

1) There are 20 Carbons in the molecule, and the shape is planar.

2) If the channel were stuck in the open position then then the signal would fail. There would be miscommunication. If the channel could not open then there would be a problem with the electrical properties of the cell. They would not change and thus there could be no communication with the brain.

3)

• Boat = Cell
• Leak = Channel with ions coming through
• Bucket = Pump

Trip to Frederik Meijer Gardens

In my visit to the Frederik Meijer Gardens I experienced many different scents in the different places I went, such as the arid room, which was dry and warm and most plants lacked a significant aroma, or the tropical room, which was moist and warm, and almost all the plants had a particular smell to them. As I walked around things began to smell differently than when I first smelled them. From comparing to other plants and smelling a lot of things in general, my understanding of these scents was changing. There were three plants I noted in particular:

1. Natal Plum - Located in the tropical room, just past the bamboo shoots at the entrance. Source of smell: Leaves. I can smell it from about 5 feet away, as it is pretty strong. It's not a scent that's immediately pleasing to the nostrils, but if you let it grow on you an appreciation comes. It's a little spicy like cinnamon, or some other similar spice. Close up it's pretty powerful. It's a spicy one. My second time around it reminded me of allspice a little bit. I had to break the leaf up a little bit to smell it this time. I hardly remembered the smell.
2. Orchid (Brassocattleya Maikai) - Located in the tropical room on the orchid wall. Source of smell: Flower. It has a unique scent. I can only smell it when I'm up close, but it's quite pungent. It reminds me of some sort of baked goods, like bread rolls, or maybe even Fritos. I'm not a big fan of this particular scent. It's not spicy or minty. It's pretty neutral. My second visit to the orchid was similar to the first. It still had that strange scent. Perhaps it was even smellier the second time, or perhaps I was overcompensating and sniffing too hard since I knew I might have become desensitized.
3. Allspice - Located in the tropical room on the orchid wall. Source of smell: Leaves. It's a very strong and spicy scent. It almost tickles the back of my nose when you smell it from close enough and take a big whiff. It's a familiar smell. The second time around it had a little weaker of a scent, but it was still pretty strong.

That little vial of cinnamon reminded me of my mom making apple pie, especially the step where she cuts the apples up on the counter and collects them in a big bowl. It's pretty amazing that this time of year is special to just about every culture around the world, whether they celebrate Christmas or not. 

January 6, 2011 - Babette's Feast

Babette's Feast

1) Jutland is a peninsula that is comprised of Denmark and northern Germany. Denmark is in the 3 northernmost regions, and the southernmost are part of Germany. A large naval battle took place in Jutland during World War I, in which both sides, England and Germany, suffered major losses. It is a true part of Scandinavia. In Babette's Feast, they primarily spoke Danish (when they weren't being dubbed over into English).

2) There were many close ups of aromatic and pungent things, like fish hanging, a large slice of French cheese, or a boiling pot of turtle soup that almost allowed to recall the specific odors and aromas associated with those items. There are also beautiful scenes of sunsets and landscapes that are very visually appealing.

3) When Babette says, "I made them happy" she means to say that she could finally unite these disgruntled old men and women. She was unhappy when she saw that they argued and quarreled with each other, she wanted to create peace among them once more. So with her lottery win, she decided to use all the money to buy and ship the food to Jutland, where she served the meal of a lifetime.

4) The congregation that congregated at the sisters' house were always bickering and fighting with each other without a trace of forgiveness, but there redemption came in the form of a flawless meal with priceless wine. After that, they joined together again as they gathered around a well and sang together like brothers and sisters.

5) As Christians in a physical world, the material things are simply part of reality: an unavoidable aspect of what makes up our actuality. We cannot be expected to choose one or the other, but we can invest in more immaterial parts of life and less in the material.

6) ...As the ageless Babette continued living with the two sisters, each growing older every day that passed them, she began taking more and more care of them. The two sisters became more dependent on their French friend. But they had realized that regardless of customs or differences, that Babette was a true friend who genuinely cared for them, and had become more than a servant. She was loyal. To Babette, the sisters filled a familiar void that had distressed her all these years.