GourmandeMom™

UT Food Lab Taste Tests

I'm a recent groupie of the University of Texas Food Lab - and just in time.  Just in time to get in on a food tasting the other day.  The deal:  food startup founders test their foodstuffs with you.  Tell them/grade them on taste, what you would pay, texture and size of the product vis-a-vis the packaging and price.   The Food Lab is tied into innovation, technology and commercialization - but focused on food systems.  So I kind of love it.

Turns out I had a lot of opinions, such as how one company could not be serious about naming their company "XYZ" - clearly trademark infringement, though I was not offering legal advice was not their lawyer and nothing I said should be taken as creating an attorney-client relationship and they should consult a lawyer of their own choosing.  Just a passing observation I could not help but make.

Forms were available to fill out to answer standard questions for each product, but index cards, color-coded to each offering, were there to allow you more room to voice your opinion.  After the protein bars, there were the sticky marshmallows in these two pans, from Sugar Puff.  Icky sweet did not sound tantalizing at all after the nicely done organic protein bars with the fire-roasted nut taste.  But I was there to taste, so taste I did.  The lightly crusted ones - which I thought might have a toasty salty flavor combined with the icky sweet - was not that at all.  Lesson: freaky to have a food not taste how it looks.  

Next, and winner, to my mind, in terms of most interesting and challenging as a food startup concept: the Indian snack food tasting. The founder wanted something tied to his growing up in Southern India and the tastes and textures of those street foods.

Tasting a new potential snack food or party side dish - when it's at this baby stage - makes you appreciate the myriad decisions to be made.  With this snack, it's substantive, spicy, but not too spicy - great size - or is it too large such that we would not know what to do with it.   It's too dense to be eaten seriatim like a tortilla chip.  And price-wise cannot justify a large-enough bag of smaller sized individual chips.   So, yes, perhaps best to keep it this form (chosen because most efficient) but packaging will be key to ensure it conveys the appropriate high-end but healthy different nature of it to justify a premium price.

Next, this food startup founder's doughnut-like (his description) sweet treat, another food of his childhood.  

(As those who know something about Indian food have probably figured out by now, I know little to nothing about Indian food in terms of differences between North and South and types of flour, etc.)  

It is nothing but rice flour and unrefined sugar.  It is the unrefined sugar though, which sugar is very hard to find, that gives it the genuinely distinctive interesting taste.  Almost carmelized, not quite, not icky, just a sticky sort of spicy sweet - like honey.  Took me eating through one, alas the whole thing, to wrap my head around it.  My last question for the founder: (i) what year are you; and (ii) are you in a Food Studies program?  Answer: (i) freshman; (ii) in the business school.  

Next, and last, or first depending where you started at the tasting table, there were the energy drinks.  

Not going to go into detail about some of the names given here, such as the one that is not the Brain Booster.  Give me a call if you want to know more.  All I will say is that there are some interesting aspects of pineapple juice I was surprised to learn about.  

And so because I was there to taste, I had to taste not just the pretty-colored drinks (light frothy pink for Strawberry Banana), but also the dark brown green gross liquid in the liter-sized Sprite bottle named the Brain Booster.  

Guess what.  Delicious.  Light.  Vegetal-esque.  Not too sweet. I liked the texture of the pulp.   Others did not.  My major issue with the Brain Booster: who but the wheatgrass junkies group would pay $2.00+ to chug down a dark brown/green drink?  

Yes, that's the real color.  

If we eat with our eyes, this would make you want to run away from the table.  A better color that connotes just how light and lovely it surprisingly was?  Pale celery or celadon.  

And you are welcome for that free food startup design advice. 

 

Austin Forum - Technology and Sous Vide For The Maybe Almost Perfect Poached Egg

(Mount Bonnell steps - for 8 a.m. walk for the visiting out-of-town guest in town for Austin Forum, etc.)

I first had a sous vide-prepared protein (chicken) at Haven in Houston.  At least a couple of years ago. This timing means the sous vide craze was in its early days.  Sous vide is a French term though, so I had an immediate affinity for the whole idea of it.  And it did apparently begin in France, in the 1970s, as a new method of slow cooking. 

Austin Forum, a "monthly speaker series and networking event that hosts distinguished leaders who share their knowledge and experience about the confluence of science, technology and society in the 21st century," had food and technology on tap for this month:  i.e., sous vide and social networking as ways in which technology is changing the way we eat. 

Addie Broyles, food writer for the Austin American-Statesmen, among other things, told us many things that I was surprised enough to hear that I managed to write them down:

1. Austin currently has 350 food blogs.   

2.  The most visited/busiest website for food recipes?  Not Epicurious, as many guessed.  It is allrecipes.com. 

3.  Food app development has lagged but is picking up steam now.  There is an app out there/about to be out there, that will allow you to take a picture of your food and the app will estimate the calorie count.   And an app to take stock of what your have in the fridge and tell you what you can make with what you have.  Now THAT is a great idea.

4.  Her 70-year-old cousin/uncle/somebody did a simple YouTube video that got 7 million views: how to use the microwave to shuck corn.   The video is easy to find - it's the first one that pops up, and per my checking this out tonight, it has had 7,138,951 views.  And now I know why.

5.  Despite the apps and social media frenzy about food and one's food life and eating experiences, we still "crave a tangible relationship with our food."  Indeed.  

Michael Chu - of Cooking for Engineers - then took the stage.  Started slow.  A downer after techie energetic Addie.  And then his comedic self emerges, and his timing is brilliant.  His fascination, tedious but amusing attention to details, numbers, and his commitment to getting it just right (i.e., sous vide cooking at home) - endearing and hilarious.

His list of favorite foods for the sous vide process:

1.  The egg.

2.  A steak.

3.  Bread.

What is sous vide?   Cooking a protein (though he did mention vegetables) in a plastic bag, in water that is at a scientifically determined appropriate temperature (thus the need for that intense engineer mind), but a pretty low temperature, for an appropriate (long) amount of time.   We learned about evaporation problems, which affect water temperature, the trick for using ping pong balls on the surface to limit problems of uneven temperatures and evaporation, etc.  He uses a rice cooker at home to eliminate the evaporation problem.

And he had the kitchen in the back, somewhere in that lovely facility that is the AT&T Conference Center, cook for us, in the sous vide style, poached eggs.

He loves this type of egg on a spinach salad.  Paris/Houston friend Maureen, who was visiting for this, and I -- we both think of the delicious farm-type salad, like une Salade Lyonnaise, and I think of Chez Nous, and I start thinking where to go for dinner after this. 

And then the 200 eggs are done for anyone who wants to try a sous-vide prepared poached egg.  Of course we want to try it. 

First: the single egg, rolling around in the bowl.

Next: crack the egg gently on the little writing desk at your chair in the amphitheatre to open it up.

The whites are almost just right.  The egg is indeed poached.  You can discern in this picture below - the yolk covered by the whites.

And then - a great burst of color - the bright sunny yellow yolk.

The yolk was runnier than I expected.  Could not eat it all, but it was still beautifully done: the texture, the color.  I get it.

Michael said that if the yolks were that runny - they were not supposed to be that runny - the water temperature was probably closer to 63 degrees rather than the 65 he had planned for. 

And about the bread for sous vide...With Central Texas AC making it difficult for bread to rise in a nice warm place, placing the dough in a plastic bag and putting it a nice warm bath (100 degrees) apparently makes for a great rise.  And cooking potatoes this way is nice - but he warns you have to cook at a higher temperature for the pectin to break down.  One starts to get the idea of the science behind this. 

Nowhere more appropriate to take Paris/Houston friend Maureen than to Justine's.  I drive out there.  I realize it is closed on Tuesdays.  I have no app, no technology, obviously, to remind of when my favorite places are closed.  I use the old-fashioned cell phone for a lifeline call to figure out where to go. By chance we end up at Second on Congress, which is becoming a favorite place for one particular dish:  curry roasted cauliflower- red quinoa pilaf - apple salad - fresno ginger syrup.   The roasted nuts - can do without next time - too many pecans.  But do squeeze the lime onto the toasty warm roasted nuts.  Makes a difference. 

I'd like to say the going out ended there, but there was a short business meeting out at the Grove the next night, with friend/colleague who is handling trademark case for a Paris client.  I'd also like to say that we had no wine, but we did.  And glad again that we did: a 2010 Leira Albarino.  This was a big step up from the vinho verde and a good way to get me thinking better and happier thoughts about white wine.  If only they could move the Grove a little bit closer to me....