I rececntly ordered a water circulating heater for sous vide cooking. I do not like cooking all that much, but the controllability and repeatability of sous vide, along with the opportunity to play with a new gadget, appeal to my not-so-inner geek. To make the most of it, I ordered a copy of Modernist Cuisine at Home. It is a home version of the original Modernist Cuisine book that comprises six volumes and 2,400 pages and deconstructs the science of cooking. It is part of the molecular gastronomy movement in cooking, an attempt to make cooking more science-y. This appeals to me also because normal cookbooks are oppressive: “Do this!” they say, without ever explaining why. From their random examples I am unable to build a mental model of what is going on, so I can only follow the instructions blindly and wonder why I failed. And the jargon in cookbooks is incomprehensible; I am much more likely to be able to understand a science book.
Nathan Myhrvold is a principal author of Modernist Cuisine. He was the CTO of Microsoft and later went on to found Intellectual Ventures, which buys patents and licenses then to companies who are being patent trolled, though others have accused them of patent trolling themselves. An offshoot of this is Intellectual Ventures Lab, which does research and applies for patents and contains the kitchen where the cookbook was developed.
Myhrvold is a global warming believer, though he annoyed all the right people when he appeared in a chapter in Superfreakonomics suggesting that we might reverse the effects of man-made global warming with other man-made technology, instead of by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. And he is a proponent of nuclear power as a solution. Intellectual Ventures Labs began work on a travelling wave reactor, a type of nuclear reactor that runs on U-238, which reduces the need for enriching. TerraPower is now one of many subsidiaries, and is developing the reactor.
Between this, thorium, and a host of other reactor designs, I am hopeful about the technology of nuclear power, we just need the politics to catch up. A micro nuclear reactor was proposed in Alaska but, “the project never began the mandatory, lengthy and extremely costly process of gaining approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission…which takes tens of millions of dollars and several years”.
Oh you can do many marvellous things sous vide!
“Global warming believer” is such a vague description, nearly all “deniers” are such, as the scientific concept of man made activity affecting the climate is accepted theory and warming is one outcome, however, it is obvious he hasn’t jumped on the “we’re all gonna burn” bandwagon and, although he may accept the doom-mongers vision of the future, it’s on the grounds of “if we carry on as we are”, something which humans have never done throughout history and which, to his credit, he is actively disproving. The catastrophe league might have the political ground mapped, and they have stolen the consensus argument (which remains like all “big lies” do), they still can’t employ their totally unscientific predictions of a warmer world, particularly one that gets a less warm future when yet another IPCC report appears. So it may appear his approach is the best one, remember that Bjorn Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist already showed that economics is not the green movement’s strong point, Myhrvold’s rejected proposals reveal their scientific ignorance as well, so full marks to someone who is prepared to fund the way forward rather than waste resources on chicken little fantasies.
The micro-reactor is an excellent concept, as technology advances you could even imagine one in a car one day.
Should really mean “activity proving [that humans have never carried on as they were]”.
Runcie Balspune: I agree I was too vague but I was also wary of applying a less vague label innacurately. I think he believes more that I do. I don’t actually mind what he believes as (on this, at least) his proposed solutions will likely benefit me.
There’s a show on PBS called America’s Test Kitchen that goes the other way. I’m not a big fan of cooking shows, but this one actually explains the physical and chemical processes that are going on and explains the ways you can screw up. Very informational.
“the project never began the mandatory, lengthy and extremely costly process of gaining approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”. I wonder if we could find a spare uninhabited island to do testing like this, without Uncle Sam looking over one’s shoulder all the time. Might be useful for developing pharmaceuticals, too. Could mean some fine rental income for some country with a suitable spare island.
I’m suspecting that China is the spare uninhabited island, but without the features of being spare and uninhabited. They have quite a lot of incentive to make their small portable nuclear power plants work, and if they are successful at doing so safely and repeatably it will be hard for the US NRC to stop the tide.
The reason environmentalists went after nuclear before coal and oil is because nuclear as it is today is already the safest, cheapest most concentrated and most abundant energy form on earth usable by today’s technology. So my question is: if with these advantages people still propose laughable alternatives such as solar and wind, what makes you think they’ll want to switch to nuclear when a better alternative is invented?
If coal had to follow the same regulations about releasing radioactive material as nuclear, it would cease to be an economic alterative. And that is even if it retained all the other regulatory advantages.
By the way, commercial reactors which use thorium cycles are already online. CANDU.
It’s not just that regular cookbooks say “Do this!” with no explanation, it’s also that such a direction is so hard to follow. If the pan is supposed to be “medium hot”, how hot is that? Is it better to err on the side of hot or on the side of cool? What happens if you do, in each case? This can be really important: a hollandaise sauce with slightly too little butter added is a bit thinner than you might prefer: go on adding butter to make it thicker. But a hollandaise sauce with too much butter is ruined. MC and MC-at-Home really help explain this kind of thing, and why.
I got into sous vide with MC last year. What are you using to vac-pack? Based on your choice of circulator, I’m guessing that like me you haven’t gone for a full-on chamber vac at around £2000. In which case let me make a suggestion for cooking steak (quite likely both your first effort, and what you’ll do most often).
I’ve found that with a FoodSaver-style vac-pack quite a lot of the jus comes out of the meat while it’s in the waterbath. So while it’s perfectly tender, done *exactly* how I want it edge-to-edge (on the rare side of medium-rare), and then nicely seared in a smoking hot cast iron grill pan, the result was still a little dry. I’ve found the answer is to wrap the steak in cling-film before vac-packing. None of the books mention this, I think because even though they talk about sous vide with budget equipment, having tested it the chef-writers go back to using top-end restaurant kit which seals the vac-pack more tightly to the meat, so cling film isn’t necessary. Anyway, give it a go if you like.
Oh – and I don’t want to spam adverts here, but you really want to check out Chefsteps for genuinely helpful video recipes by MC-type people.
All the best with your new toy. I’d love to hear how you get on, if you can put an acceptably on-Samizdata-topic spin on your updates to be able to post them.
I guess I’ve been living under a rock, but this is the first I’ve heard of “sous vide cooking”. It does seem interesting. I learn something new here every day. Thanks.
As a avid enthusiast of both food and eating, I must say that in most every case the former compliments the latter. The different possibilities to prepare, cook and consume are astounding as one looks with curious eyes to the future advancements of cooking technologies. It may be quite possible that one day in the near future it wouldnt be an uncommon sight to see nuclear powered food devices in the kitchens of tomorrow.
@ Steve D, the reason why environmentalists went after nuclear is they inherited a bunch of ex-CND hippies when the Berlin Wall fell and they lost their raison d’être, the original greenies, like Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace, and James “Gaia” Lovelock, are pro-nuclear, but their voice is a minority one now.
Mary Contrary: thank-you for the tips. I have not bought a vacuum sealer yet because I am still waiting for my water circulator (I pre-ordered a new product and it has not yet shipped). Your cling film tip could be a good one, I’ll give it a try. Also thanks for the link; no need to worry about spam.
I agree about cookbooks; I could have made exactly the same point. Now I can measure the temperature of my pan! MC also explains why cooking by weight is so much better: for example a cup of flour is *not* the same as four tablespoons because the extra weight in the cup compacts the flour.
I’m sure many people manage to have good judgement when cooking from cookbooks but feeling my way through does not work for me.
Oh, the other thing I am enjoying about MC is the layout of the recipes, with ingredients listed *alongside* method, in strict chronological order. Often when following traditional recipes I get the pan up to temperature and mix half the ingredients before realising I was supposed to do something with some other ingredient and now I don’t have time!
I am sure when I make something good I will find a way to post about it on Samizdata. Probably by making something for Samizdatistas to eat and posting under the “parties” category. 🙂
Jimmy: I’ll be signing up for the nuclear oven Kickstarter project, just as soon as it appears!
A typical cookbook is written for people who have a minimal cooking experience (traditionally housewives), who by trial and error learned when the pan is too cool or too hot, and the like. Cookbooks for rookies have always been around, but I am not sure how much one can learn from such books without the benefit of sight, smell and sound. In that regard, YT must be an invaluable resource: no smell, but when the pan is hot, one can see it and hear it even in the video.
Personally, I prefer the trial-and-error approach to an extent, but OTOH I have always been interested in the natural phenomena behind the common cooking rules. I don’t like cooking to get too “sciency” and technical, but I do like to understand why things happen the way the do. And yes, efficiency is important, so please list all the necessary ingredients ahead of time, including the stage in the process when I will need them.
Oh, and ditto about the nuclear oven 😀
Alisa: yes, I think you’re right, cookbooks are written for people who already know what they’re doing. While there’s no substitute for experience, the problem with trial-and-error is all those errors. What I want from a cookbook (and I guess Rob does too) is to skip past some of those errors and get on to cooking well, sooner. YT, Chefsteps and other video instruction certainly helps, but so does the rational explanation Rob flagged up as one of MC’s attractions.
Rob: chronological recipe layout. I couldn’t agree more! I can see how most cooks won’t want to go for the techno-techniques and chemical food additives MC introduces, but I think every cookbook should lay out its recipes that way. It’s just better.
Indeed, Contrary. Different people learn how to do things and end up doing them differently – that is why the free market is best for everyone.
Thorium is a bust as far as the UK is concerned; the government has ruled it out completely on the say -so of ignoramuses, such as Greg Barker, without a proper investigation into its merits. As to sous-vide, it’s only boil-in-the bag.
Rob –
Thanks for the heads up about the “Home” version of Modernist Cuisine. I’d noted the publication of the full version at the time, but had dismissed it as unaffordable for me. It’s good to know there’s a more realistically priced version. Still, £85 is nowt to sneeze at.
Personally, I rely on Harold McGee’s On Food And Cooking: The Science And Lore Of The Kitchen, 2nd edition. It’s a cornucopia of food science information (and it costs a lot less than £85).
‘why environmentalists went after nuclear is they inherited a bunch of ex-CND hippies when the Berlin Wall fell and they lost their raison d’être’
However, this timing doesn’t make sense. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989; the environmentalists had been going after nuclear for at least a decade and a half when that happened. I know this because it was one of our main family discussion topics over the dinner table when I was growing up.
‘Thorium is a bust as far as the UK is concerned; the government has ruled it out’
Someday when thorium is all that’s left, they may change their minds.
I don’t want to just re-post some thoughts about these advanced reactors that I put into a comment at bishophill a few weeks ago, but I must correct a few commenters here. CANDUs do not use thorium. They use natural uranium, without enrichment. It is possible for them to use thorium and breed U233, but the Canadians do not like to think about CANDUs as “production reactors”, because that might give some people the idea to do bad things.
“Someday when thorium is all that’s left…” is going to be a very loong time in the future. It is possible to extract uranium from seawater at a price/kg that is only a few times higher than the cost of mining it out of the ground. The Japanese did the work in the 80s. Considering that the price of the uranium itself is miniscule compared to the overall price of the rest of the technology, and that uranium continues to wash out of the mountains into the sea, we will NEVER run our of uranium. The people who really want thorium reactors to be built are the Indians (from India), who have a LOT of thorium in the ground, and would really love for someone else to pay for the research to understand how to make use of it, so they can then take the technology and apply it for themselves. They basic science was done in the 40s and 50s, but the practical work left to be done is enormous.
And the Microsoft efforts for the traveling wave reactor share a lot of issues with the search for the ideal electric battery. It is all about materials, and figuring out what works, whether it is safe, can it be produced economically. Nuclear fuel research is particularly difficult to do because it takes so long to expose the materials to the conditions that are expected, and the facilities to do the work are gradually disappearing. We used to have a National Reactor Testing Station in a godforsaken wasteland in Idaho, but then the greens decided that it was really a fragile, precious, irreplaceable ecosystem. No more reactor testing.
What the greens really hate is human intelligence. Humans create all sorts of stuff that nothing else on the planet can create, and they hate this. They think humans are the ultimate oppressors, and they want us to de-volve to the same state as the birds and the bees and the fish and the lichen.
That is a bit like saying “cooking is just heating stuff up”. Well… yeah.
Indians are not the only folks interested in Thorium reactors. So are folks in the space settlement camp. Not a lot of Uranium washing out of the mountains on the Moon.
I have a friend in the nuclear news business. He tells me that thorium reactors are an ignis fatuus; they sound good, but have extremely recalcitrant technical issues. Every few years someone comes along saying “This time we’ve got it just about figured out,” and then come up short again.
As to the Green hostility to nuclear power – Greenism has always been infested with watermelons. However, the main reason is that it was a convenient target. Big, scary, and easily tied up in regulatory knots, which destroyed the cost advantage.
In the U.S., Greens imposed long delays on nuclear power projects, adding substantially to the costs. In the U.S., the effective cost of utility plant includes compund interest on sunk costs until completion. The delays began in the 1970s, just when interest rates were climbing to double digits.
In fairness, Green critics exposed a lot of design flaws and construction errors (and outright derelictions).
I suspect the Environmental Movement went against nuclear when they merged with the Peace Movement.
The distinction between nuclear energy as a power source and nuclear energy as a destructive force is more than their soundbite mentalities can accept. That same intellectual myopia drives unilateral disarmament advocates who somehow think disarming oneself will make one’s enemies more peaceful.
There are some true environmentalists who see benefits of nuclear but they generally stay below the parapets.