โ Scribed by Herrmann, Andreas
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The cooking and heating of food is closely related to the emergence of civilization and probably started not very long after the discovery and control of fire half a million years ago. Most likely by accident our early ancestors discovered that meat and other foods were more enjoyable and easier to chew after being heated. These days, three-star chefs such as Ferra, Blumenthal and Keller have brought the modern culinary art to a high level of sophistication, but the benefits of cooking still remain much the same as before the ice age. Cooked foods taste better, are more palatable and easier to digest, offer a larger variety of possible dishes and are microbially safer than raw ones.
Volatiles are generated during the cooking of food and their number and concentration increase during the course of it. As an example, Table .1 compares the compound classes and the number of volatiles of raw and cooked beef. The complexity in cooked beef is extraordinary and the number of identified volatiles increases tenfold compared to the raw state. While just one sulfur compound is found in raw beef, in cooked beef sulfur volatiles (124 compounds) are the most numerous chemicals. Many of the aroma compounds that give meat its delicious typical flavour contain a sulfur atom.
The number of thermal food processes is large, including the roasting of coffee, cocoa, and nuts, boiling, braising, frying, and grilling of meat, baking of bread, sterilizing of preserved food, pasteurizing of milk and microwaving of ready to eat dishes. During heating, the compounds present in the food react, and constituents such as proteins, peptides
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
The Big Picture 'The multifarious nuances of the sense of smell embody the archetypal longing for the lower forms of existence, for direct unification with circumambient nature [. . .].' 1 Volatile molecules are to perfumers what music notes are to music composers and colours to painters. 2 Everyone