Snackums

In lieu of Halloween candy updating... (will do that at some point):
Snacks from China, brought to me by my dad when he went to China in the summer. Consumed before Halloween so that I can make space for chocolate and such (actually, my room has a lot of space. Plenty of room to store food...and no mice [yet]).

Square cracker thingys: really spicy and tasted a bit like stale wasabi.
Green plastic packaging: delicious spicy tofu. Vacuum packed. It's like jerky...but it's tofu!!!
Yellow plastic packaging: more spicy tofu jerky in oil.
Bamboo shoots: pickled and spicy.
Mushrooms: pickled and spicy (and really oily)
Dried kiwi: did not taste like kiwi. Way too green to be naturally preserved kiwi...bland and not that delicious :( :( The seeds were real though.
Lotus seeds: Moist and nutty.

Pizza Making!

My GA had a pizza-making event today! Maybe 15 of us hung out in the kitchen at 4 pm and made pizza dough. We started off with a pile of white flour, made a well, and poured in some yeasty hot water. Then, we added water and oil and salt, and kneaded the dough (adding water and oil along the way). We then let the dough rest for 3 hours (as I went to my Chem workshop...and I really need to learn E1 and E2 reactions).

Then, I came back from the cold and rolled out my dough, and waited for a pan. We only had 6 pans, and the oven would only fit 4 pans. And there were a lot of us. So, it's 8 pm right now, and my pizza's finally in the oven. Actually, I've already jumped up, TWICE, to my GA calling me from across the room and saying that my pizza's ready (but both times, it turned out to be someone else's. Oh well).

A (don't know his last initial) made really round pizzas. Mine aren't round...but they're, haha, "rustic". A, RK  and L all threw the pizza base in the air. I tried to as well, but I don't think it did anything remotely cool to my pizza base.

I put shredded cheese, some fresh mozzarella, and a chunk of string cheese on my pizza. There's also a little bit of basil (and store-bought basil looks really different from the basil in my backyard! It's a much lighter green, and the leaves are less jagged).

My second pizza is just cheese... and a speck of basil because we ran out of supplies. Ah well.

Teh Botol Sosro

Aaannndd... yet another reason for loving the Monell Chemical Senses Center! Apart from all the science I learn, I also get to sample Teh Botol, which my mentor tried in one of her science trips (at Singapore...? I think she said Singapore, but Wikipedia says it's popular in Indonesia.). There are varying types of jasmine, and apparently a specific type is used to make this tea, and it is difficult to emulate the flavour that this type of jasmine has. The chemical company that she was visiting was trying to find a more cost-efficient way of making  a Teh botol knockoff.

To her, the tea tasted slightly bizarre. Of course, cultural considerations, along with genetic ones, come into play (receptor sensitivity, haplotypes, etc.). In American culture, tea is... well, "chilled tea" is normally some generic tea, slightly bitter, possibly made from slivered stumps and roots and not actual "leaves". American iced tea is packed with cane sugar, caramel flavouring, crushed ice, and, and sometimes milk.

This differs from hot tea (in which multifarious niches exist, from the British-y Earl Grey with a sugar lump and milk, to the (optional honey) hibiscus, to the bland roadside Lipton).

In contrast, East Asian tea is never sweet (bubble tea is an exception). It's just hot water and tea leaves. The tea leaves stay in the water; there is no bag that gets picked up and throw away while the cream is being added. It's just a sprinkling of aromatic tea leaves (or non-leaf-portions of the plant)...and water. Having drunk hot Chinese tea, including jasmine tea, all my life at restaurants and at home, I found Teh Botol slightly different, because it was a tad sweet (despite it being the "Less Sugar" version). Actually, it's not all that strange to me, because I've had the slightly-sweet Vita Chrysanthemum tea in the carton before, countless times, in HK (I don't really like Chrysanthemum tea though, whether it be hot or cold). The interesting thing about Teh Botol is that the jasmine has a flowery flavour. There is no other word to describe it; it tastes like a flower. It's how I'd imagine flowers taste - airy, sweet, fragrant. It's like a smell for my mouth. It's very appealing in this aspect, for me. I've never gotten the florid taste from hot jasmine tea before.

"Try it on your non-Asian friends",  my mentor encouraged. So, I did! (I was planning to anyway, just to see whether different ethnicities/races have different perceptions). I'm wondering whether it's appropriate to talk about patient data without previous written informed consent, so I'll just stick with A and B even though usually I would just use each person's initials. You know who you are.

A is African American, and A has lived in the US all A's life. A really enjoys tea, in general. [This is paraphrased. I should've taken notes]:

A: "This tastes like bubble tea...or, like, tapioca. I like it."

Me: "D'you think it tastes flowery at all?"

A: "Um...I guess?"

Me: "What about the sweetness?"

A: "The sweetness is great...it's not too sweet/too bland. DELICIOUS."

B is Caucasian, although B has lived in Japan before and... there's delicious tea in Japan. I took notes for this one, so here is what I wrote:

"iced tea, sweet, not flowery, weird aftertaste on roof of mouth, tea residue, enjoyable, but would get tired of it after a while".

So, is taste preference cultural? Racial? Dependent on upbringing (i.e. would B's preferences chance if B had lived in Japan for longer? Would my evaluation differ if I grew up on Dunkin Donuts as opposed to Chinese dim sum?)

And then there's my reaction, which I've described above. I suppose if you've been checking out my blog for a while, you know that I'm Chinese but have grown up in Ireland, Australia, Hong Kong, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, so my taste preferences aren't characteristic of the average American or Chinese.

Yes, small sample size and plenty of confounding factors. This is case report, without a Discussion section (actually, to avoid derisive comments, I shouldn't even be thinking about this as a scientific study. I'll just call it an "experiment" --notice the lack of the word "scientific" in front of the word "experiment". However, I do have an Acknowledgments section):

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my mentor for supplying me with Teh Botel!! I would also like to thank the participants in the study for their time (They should be thanking me because I hooked them up with a free drink, and in college, free Calories are highly sought-after).

Collard Tofu Wraps

I decided to make some pretty food even though I honestly don't care how beautiful my food is, especially as I don't have much time in my day. All this programming!!

Collard leaves + tofu + chunks of eggplant + minced garlic (why, yes, garlic remains super fresh for at least 2 months in the fridge!!) + salsa + pancake maker.

Endive

Endive. A character from Chowder. I've always known it as some lettuce-y thing, perhaps deep green, with leaves like holly, except more spindly and elongated. Well, I was wrong. Endive is to spindly holly the way a stingray is to a blubbery blue whale. Endive looks like this:

and I never knew.

 So... what do I do with endive? Why would I try this? Well, it was homework, from my mentor at Monell. We're discussing bitter foods and why people eat them, and of course, genetics plays a large role. For example, I personally don't find broccoli bitter at all, but some people with a different haplotype think that it is bitter. My mentor thinks that endive is really bitter, but for me... it was pretty much lettuce. Watery, slightly lettuce-stem-y, ending with a slight bitter note. Bitter melon is definitely more bitter. Raw asparagus is more bitter. Heck, weak coffee is more bitter, in my opinion. See, I love Monell because I'm doing research, sort of, by exploring new foods and applying these scientific taste ideas into my life. Another perspective that I've never considered is this idea, which I've simplified here for lay understanding: 

In a sandwich, there's:

1. Sweet in onion

2. Umami in tomato

3. Bitter in watercress

4. Sweat odor in cheese

5. Boar taint in ham

Let's say I have the genotype +/+ for 1. and 2. Let's say SP has the +/+ genotype for 3. 4. and 5. This means that I'd enjoy the sandwich much more than SP would. 

(Reed, Danielle R., and Antti Knaapila. "Genetics of Taste and Smell: Poisons and Pleasures."Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science 94 (2010): 231. Print.

Reference: DOI: 10.1016/S1877-1173(10)94008-8)

I know it's an oversight, but I've never considered haplotypes in taste receptors as a reason why people would dislike the taste of a soup or a marinade. It just never occurred to me.

My mentor told me that they make the white endive by putting opaque bags over them so that there is no chlorophyll development (therefore, no green pigment). This reminds me of white asparagus. I guess I personally prefer there to be chlorophyll, because I like green. Also, chlorophyll has magnesium, which I would ingest, and I don't know enough plant biology to know whether white plants have magnesium stored elsewhere...

 So, what to do with endive? Cook it? I prefer to eat leafy vegetables raw, though. I just ripped it up and stuck it in some spaghetti with chili sauce and Chinese spiced bamboo shoots.

I also stuck some in a crunchy peanut butter sandwich with dried cranberries. This isn't weird for me because I love lettuce and peanut butter sandwiches. I also love cucumber and peanut butter sandwiches. Actually, I'm sure any vegetable goes well with peanut butter. Yes, even tomato (tomato in a peanut curry would probably be fantastic. I might try that one day).