The behavior of the food can teach us something about our behavior.
At the same time, we can treat food in the same way we treat people.
A big example?
Tempering!
What does the verb “to temper” mean?
It means to be able, with proper manners, to calm a person.
A “temper” is the characteristic of a moody individual. In Italian language we would say “lunatic”, someone who feels the changes of the moon like the tide.
We can temper food, as well.
Using proper manners, we can make so the food the behaves in the way we want it to behave and not like it would behave as following its “temper”.
You know, eggs start to coagulate at 62° c – 144 F, which is a pretty low temperature. Pasteurization (killing bacteria) takes at least 85° c – 185 f: a temperature at which eggs would be already scrumbles or would have become an omelette. Which is the reason why often the pastry cream, the custard, the zabaione and any other creamy preparation that requires eggs, scrumbles.
The whipped egg whites can be pasteurized making an Italian Meringue, which is adding hot syrup at 121° c while beating and stirring so that the “heat” goes to touch every single drop of the whole volume of them without ( or trying to not) scumbling them. This “gradual and quick action” is the tempering.
The egg yolks, mixed to sugar, can be pasteurized making a Zabaione: beating them on a double boiler, increasing the speed of the whisk as the temperature increseas, preventing the eggs to stick on the bowl.
“Tempering” eggs or egg mixtures is the technique to prevent the “scrumbling”.
Also caramel must be tempered, this time going lower with temperatures. A sugar, as it becomes a caramel ( starting at 121° c – 250 F ), cooling down gets solid, witht he consistency almost of glass.
If you want to obtain a liquid caramel, you have to add water. Which is really triky, as the evaporation point of the water, the temperatures at which is start to boil, is 100 c – 212 F. Adding water ( or other liquids) to the caramel, means to make the caramel angry. The caramel starts to sizzle, becoming foammy, and starts to become lumpy. Not a good result if we want a glossy caramel for decorating a cake. Again: tempering helps. Adding water gradually, giving the habit of lower temperature to the caramel gradually, so that it doesn’t get crazy.
The most known example of tempering food is chocolate. Also the most fun. We have to spread the melted chocolate on a cold surface with a spatula, to get down its temperature whitout getting it solid ( changing the structure of the crystals).
Practically we “cheat” the food to make it do what it would not have naturally done.
In the same way we humans can be “tempered” in a gradual way, without we notice: little by little, but inexorably. The chinese drop, the brain wash to leave space to invented needs, the constant propaganda that tells us how a certain thing is good without saying why it is good.
Like in the metaphore of the boiled frog. Do you know the story?
A frog jumps into a pot of fresh water. Someone puts the pot on the stove. The water starts to warm up. The frog is happy and comfortable in the warmth. The heat goes up and the frog continues to enjoy the increase of the heat, until she doesn’t like the heat any more but at the point she feels unable to move and to jump out. She ends boiled…with some sort of happiness.
Marcella Ansaldo © 2023