On Food and Cooking

into contact with vulnerable polyunsaturated fatty acids in the green chloroplasts. (Leaves are sometimes ...

molecules. Producers usually blend such refined or “pure” oil with some virgin oil to give it flavor. Sto ...

Plantains Plantains are varieties of banana that retain much of their starchiness even when ripe, ...

a vegetable; in Ireland they’re mashed up in porridge and thicken desserts. Most seaweeds have a richly savo ...

Sea grapes Caulerpa racemosa Peppery; eaten fresh or sugarcoated (Indonesia) Awonori Enteromorpha, Monostrema species Pow ...

Kelp, kombu Laminaria species Soup base (dashi), salads, fried (Japan) Wakame Undaria species Miso soup, salads (Ja ...

named this sensation umami (a rough translation is “delicious”), and pointed out that other foods, includin ...

each other and with MSG: a very small amount of each strengthens the other’s taste. Sensory ...

begin a Chinese meal with MSG-laden soup. Many studies later, toxicologists have concluded that ...

photosynthetic tissue. Some algae (e.g., nori, sea lettuce) are essentially all leaf, just one or two cells thi ...

The many physical stresses of ocean life have encouraged some seaweeds to fill their cell walls wi ...

they gave rise. Their primary photosynthetic pigments are chlorophylls, with smaller amounts of carotenoids, ...

brownish fucoxanthin. They store some of their energy in the sweet sugar alcohol mannitol, which can amo ...

families share a basic salty-savory taste from concentrated minerals and amino acids, especially glutamic ...

seaweeds have a characteristic iodine note (iodooctane) as well as a hay-like one (from the terpene cuben ...

release substances from within. Mushrooms, Truffles, and Relatives Mushrooms and their relatives are not true plants. ...

benefit: the mushrooms gather soil minerals and share them with the tree roots, which in turn share ...

is grown on a mixture of manure, straw, and soil in dark buildings with carefully controlled humidity an ...

network of fibers, or hyphae, which ramify through the soil to gather nutrients. A single cubic centimeter of so ...

traditionally gathered and eaten in Europe is now thought to present an unpredictable but real risk of poten ...