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It is quite amazing how easily the banana reproduces while still being sterile. Had the banana not been sterile and full of seeds, it might be as popular a commodity as amaranth or the cactus pear, meaning only used in specific applications. The fact that the banana is one of the oldest cultivated products man knows it has slowly become the banana we know today. Without the dozen or so corm clones it produces it may be impossible to acheive its marketability as it has. Some scientist say that at one time man would never have thought that the banana would reach the distance it did, especially being cheaper than the apple. I do think it is important for more of these vareities to come to market because as a pastry chef I would love the opportunity to utilize them in ways I couldn't with the cavendish. What would happen to the restaurant industr and people without the cavendish? Obviously it wouldn't shut anything down, but it would be a big dissapointment. How many people have banana's fosters on their menus? How many people have a signature dish utilizing the cavendish that just wouldn't be the same without it? I guess I am not too worried about it, but I am curious to know what my life will be like in 30 years without the cavendish so expectedly placed in the middle of our supermarket produce section.

I agree with you sazji about tomatoe's, I never cared for them as a kid either, only being aware of beefsteak vareity really, though I always liked pizza sauce. The thing about territories now ripping up local vareities and replacing with the more popular vareities has actually been happening extremely widespread for over 100 years now, especially in central and south america it is nothing new. Infact it has been so bad this last century the united fruit (chiquita) and standard fruit (dole) have been tearing apart whole countries at a time and toppling governments constantly just to gain "virgin land" to plant their profitable bananas. Nearly the entire country of guatemala has been used at one time or another for the banana that we know so well. Ever since the european union formed in the 90's they have taken business away from united fruit and focused on other areas for their plantantions. As you may well know, the european union exceeds america in banana consumption, not by much but would explain a little bit about your personal findings in your home country. In fact, Africa so devasted by black sigatoka and panama disease has been forced to call in a scientist currently working in belgium to produce dozens of new hybrid vareities to help support hunger suffering in nigeria, ruwanda and burundi. So far progress has been great, but distribution of the new bananas are still less than 10% of the needy population as far as I know. They are hoping distribution of the corms will be handed by neighbors and the spread will be subject of the people. So far the bananas have been liked so much that people have been resorting to stealing in the middle of the night to plant trees on there own land (not the worst of crimes). And infact it is sort of what the governments want, because their main fear starting the project was lack of enthusiasm to a foreign product. But when you are hungry and something tastes good, I dont think people are going to be overly resistent. Thanks for the site adam, I would like to taste the gros michel someday. There are many hybrid versions around these days. It is amazing at how much work has been accomplished so far on such a difficult plant, but just because you see it in your supermarket doesn't mean its going to be the new dominate. I think these companies are looking for the "ultimate banana". A lot of those vareities have a couple difficulties with them. Some damage and bruise very easily, some flavors aren't widely excepted, some dont ripen in the proper format, some aren't resistent enough to disease, and I guess some are just too odd to be accepted. There is a couple banana vareities I am looking forward to tasting, one is the lakatan which can be found in the phillipines, the other is the goldfinger which I believe can be found in brazil. Both are being used as base projects for the "ultimate" banana.

Appologies to everyone who has posted here, your points and ideas were probably remarkable, but I only read the initial post and just wanted give an answer straight to that. Achatz and others may be doing something they don't even fully understand. It may be pure human instinct, developed with a portion of passion, pinch of creativity, dash of knowledge/awareness, encrusted with a specific personality and finally cooked in broth of chance and possibilty. We all have a specific way of thinking and approaching life. What we probably can agree on is that these chefs, though different, are as persistent to there own development as anyone else. Sometimes I dont think they are too different from Alain Ducasse or even Escoffier. The idea of becoming better is consistent with all of them, where exacctly they want to develop and become better is what makes them different. Naturally humans are afraid of something we are not use to (which actually explains unecessary racism). We have to encourage ourselves to explore the new anyways. You dont have to like it, but as far as I am concerned you need a reason. By not exploring you have no reason, just extended doubt. We dont have to get into the logistics of if alinea is a place you will return to every weekend, because that isn't even close to the point. So many people give me that excuse, if its not something I wouldn't do often again I don't think I will like it at all. Thats just an excuse for your own self comfort, but that sort of comfort is a blanket of lies, I figured that out when I was young. I still think back to the days when I would only eat tacos with meet, no lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, nothing. Now I want everything but the meat, it takes up too much space . Our minds and bodies mature, if we try something today and dont like it, a year from now we may look back on it and think its appealing and want to give it another try, but had we not tried in the first place we would not have the knowledge or ability to place recent events, thus not supplying our minds with the information our life seems just a bit more lame. We have to understand we change far more often than we typically imagine, most of the time without knowing it. I say embrace any challenge you can, it is the only way to make your life better. What is a comfortable life without memories? And to more directly answer, both your experiences give you great memories chris, I think its better not to examine the differences as better or worse, but the differences as to what interests you. negative perceptions are as good as flyers people hand you on the straight, typically waste (of time in this case). One doesn't have to be better than the other, they can just have there own -place-.

Hello everyone. I appologize for not being involved for some time, I promise to come around one day. But in the mean time I would like to bring up a rather important discussion. As long as I can remember I don't believe anyone has discussed the dismal state of our cavendish banana or the history of banana's in general. Though I could have just over looked it. As some of the older people here may remember a banana from the 50's called the Gros Michel which was the original banana kind before the banana we eat to came around (cavendish). That banana was larger, strong and probably most would agree (who has eaten it) much better tasting than our cavendish. I dont really know considering I have never eaten one or probably ever will since "panama disease" anihilated the product decades ago. The cavendish was originally put in replace of gros michel just because It was the best alternative in crisis situations. A lot of money and time has been put into making hybrid or "new banana" over a the last several decades. It seems that the research is becoming more and more important. The reason we eat cavendish now is because during the change over it was resistant to panama disease and yellow sigatoka which were the two main maladies that ended the gros michel's reign. Since then a new strain of sigatoka has arrive, it being called black sigatoka and is much more deadly thatn the yellow vareity. Unfortunately the cavendish cannot fight this one, though there are methods of controlling it (chemicals). So for a while the banana plantations have been doing ok but struggling. About a decade or two ago southeast asia began having severe trouble with there "new cavendish" plantations. Something was wiping them out and nobody knew what. As it started to approach Africa and many of the islands between asia and australia the diagnosis came in, it was panama disease. And upgraded version found in asia has (since and still today) been ravaging the continents at a time. So far it has not reached our hemisphere but scientist know with certainty it will, when is unknown. The problem is, once it hits our hemisphere it will spread so fast that the cavendish will inevitably be called in for "game over". What will we do without our banana? this is a very seious problem. I wonder what you think about the situation. later I will bring up gmo possibilities but right now I am curious about what you think.

I dont consider melon and guava to be that similar.

Well on the first question that is not something easily answered. So many people have so many different philosophies and depths to their philosophy on cooking, modern techniques, deconstructionism, ell bulli style, etc. Its basically all bullshit in my eyes. I am starting to get to the point where I dont care for any titles, french, german, italian, japanese, indian, etc. or modern, classic, traditional, neo-classic, fusion. It's a waste of time to me, but maybe I am jumping the gun on that decision. What everyone should be focusing on in my opinion is pushing the limits, regardless of what view you are looking from. Maybe you are intrigued by flavor and grabbing the most intense of powerful flavor out of a product. Maybe combination and composition is your thing, where odd flavors/textures/ temperatures that once was not thought of (or at least broadly discovered) now seem to work harmoniously. Maybe you are an expert plater, or an expert laminator, or stock/ sauce maker. There are some of us who like to experiment and look to science. Whatever it is I think it is important to go as far as you can, but dont forget to come back to where you started. I believe the most important thing is to not forget where we started and go back to that. Figure out how to utilize what we learned and place it into everyday situations. For example, fruit cavaviar is neat, but who wants to eat that all by itself when you are paying $150 for dinner. It does work well with certain things though. If you have a persimon sauce with mackeral and thought you were going to put some kind of persimon gel for added texture and plate appeal, then the little caviar beads could work very well for that cause, its all jello in the long run. Another example would be all the de-hydration going on these days. Ok thats cool, but instead of just putting dehydrated berries on the plate, utilize the powder. If you are doing something with phyllo, make a blueberry phyllo dough out of the powder, and then give it a little dusting to highlite how the phyllo was made. There are so many ways to manipulate food these days, but we aren't going back to the start and re-doing things, we are just changing or adding. It is so easy for us to make concentrated stocks of absolutely anything, why aren't we making bread from that? Wouldn't it be neat to take a tomato consume, evaporate it, and use the strong flavor as our liquid for a tomato brioche that could be used for some kind of tartare? The ideas are there, we just are going back through the rythyms, only finding new rythyms to fall upon. You see the classics were the best ideas the chefs could come up with for tools, ingredients, and techniques available at the time. For any chef who ever said it was better to do one thing than the other is a chef who is not paying attention nor cares to. So my idea is to come up with an idea, any kind of idea and develop it, then re-develop it, again and again until it is nothing like it was at the beginning but has become what I was searching for all along. Maybe some of the dishes that were developed so long ago were the best they could come up with, that doesn't mean we can't re-develop an already progressive start of an idea. One last thing to this answer, I think there is too strong of a psychological line between savory and sweet, it's quite ridiculous. The saddest part is that even if everyone jumps on board to stitch up the gap between the two and start paying attention to one another it will still take decades to centuries for the populace to conform to the idea of all food being the same, yet different. A pastry chef is immensely better if that person knows how to make stocks, clarify them, reduce them, and flavor them properly. And a savory chef may become so much better at what that person does if they are aware of the setting abilities of proteins, fats, and hydrocolloids, as well as baking abilities of those products. Who said you cant have cake with dinner or beets and squash for dessert? Everything should be ..... harmonious ..... though. Secondly, for the record I don't think I am ever understood, just people daring enough to follow me into whatever territory I find myself engaging at the moment. I can be quite overpowering for anyone, I feel bad about it sometimes but It's likely I won't know if it was the right decision until my life is nearing the end. All I ask is that people trust me once in a while and the answers should fall into place for them one way or another. I am getting better at the "gaining trust" thing, but I started with barely anything. I suppose thats how life is. Thank you for your post.

whoa, you guys are thinking very hard on this subject, thats great. All you have to do is keep tossing and stirring the nuts until the are fully crystallized on the outside, possibly adding a tablespoon of sugar here and there to speed up the crystallization. Make the caramel, add the nuts and the butter, reduce the heat a little bit and cook and stir the nuts constantly, sprinkling sugar in ever so over, and just keep stirring them up untill they are rough on the exterior. Once the coating of sugar is fully crystallized it is very stable and would take a good deal of moisture to make them stick. crystallized sugar is in a happy state, theres not much phase changing if any. Whoever in put cocoa butter, that helps at the end too (after crystallization). The fat solidifies on the outside and makes a nice thin barrier. If you really want to get commercial, carnauba wax coating at the end will keep those suckers seperate indefinitely, but i wouldn't worry about that.

Invert sugar is just sucrose with fructose glucose bonds broken down. And with glucose, sucrose, corn syrup, invert, it doesnt matter with the ratios of these (except for prolonged crystallization), its simply the water content in the ganache. If you were to make a butter ganache you will extend the life of the ganache significantly to that of a liquid ganache due to the dramatic reduction of the water content. There is also alchohol content and acidity that plays important roles with specific pieces and their shelf life.

why would you want to hold on to chocolates longer than 3 weeks? Thats kind of old even if they aren't molding. I think the bigger problem may be turn over rate and or production scheduling. You could always cryo-vac and freeze them, that suspends shelf life. But still, 3 weeks seems like plenty of time to be selling merchandise.

i would use egg white powder. Considering egg whites are about 10% albumen, try working with 40% egg white powder to 60% water, and I would reccomend using glucose with the recipe. Glucose will help you get that shiny dense texture, and with the added protein it should be quite strong as well. Blends of xanthan and iota carrageanan or xanthan and methylcellulose can help stabilize. Do not go over .25% xanthan though.

My stay at home mother learned to cook from my father, strangely. I guess its not so strange, he was a professional chef, but still she knew nothing before they started dating. Its all just a really bad stereotype. Preparing food has no specific ground, everyone should know how, read my qoute under the signature. regardless of who does the cooking today, nobody is doing the gathering, its already been done for us, so isn't it most important that our kids, no matter what the gender should have a strong introduction into how to properly take care of themselves, including feeding themselves. As a nation we really suck at feeding ourselves properly. Its not the womens fault for leaving the kitchen, its all our faults for forgetting.

Back to work. So I suppose the next class to write about would be chocolates and confections. This is quite possibly everyone's favorite class simply because there are so many small things to learn in such a short amount of time. In this class we had the oppurtunity to compose far more items and ideas than ever before as a group. I think for the most it is exciting to most because its something we are not accustom to and probably will never be. Even Chef Greweling said at the beginning of class that he doubted more than just a few of all his students would go off and become an accomplished confectioner. It seems silly at first to make that assumption but if you really think about it, its true. Confection skills do not come easily, or cheaply. You can get an exact idea of how are class was just by picking up "chocolates and confections by Peter Greweling". That was basically a text book for us, the first real CIA text book. It evevn goes in order of pages to curriculum days. Out of 14 days each team of two would generally have one to two projects a day to work on, and very seldom did two teams make the same thing. Me and my partner Danielle absolutely anihilated that class. We ended up doing seven extra projects including a giant chocolate egg (about three feet tall). Even I always had the disdained feeling that Chef Greweling had some sort of inner hatred for me I still had a fantastic time in that class. Me and my partner worked with true precision, it was as if we were reading each others thoughts, one would grab a bowl, the other would grab the chocolate without even talking to one another first. One would temper, the other would set up for dipping, one would bring liquid ingedients up to heat, the other would organize dry, it was like fluid motion in many ways. Originally I was concerned for my partner because she tends to be a perfectionist, and strives for the best possible grade, which is typically the opposite for me. I tend to want to absorb as much as I possibly can and sometimes that makes me a bit forgetfull and neglectfull. Basically we discussed our game plan before the block started, I promised to focus more on finishing projects to excellence if she would focus more on letting little things go so we can move on to bigger and better things. And I have to tell you, with both of us elevating our goals we really put some chocolate work to rest. We started off the class mostly with emulsions such as ganache and other fillings. We did liquid ganache and then butter ganache, then we studied different forms like piping method and slabbed method as well as truffly shells. We learned how to hand roll chocolates, pre-coating and final coating; we learned dipping methods for slabbed fillings; we also learned how to create patterns on forming chocolates, plus special garnishes, when and how to use them. Moving forward into the next week we learned all about jams, jellies, gelee', marmalade, and caramels both hard and soft and ways to use them for chocolates. Somewhere in there we also gained knowledge on how to make confectioner's marzipan(not limited to almond), gianduja's (not limited to hazelnut), pralines, fondant's (including soft fondants using invertase, cordials, and hard fondants). The last week we studied hard candy as well as aerated confections. Me and my partner even took on the task of making a couple varieties of taffy which our small class had not had the oppurtunity to cover. I had many many more pictures but they never got loaded into my new computer since my old one has since failed to respond. Hopefully I will be able to retrieve them someday soon. Once I do I can go into more depth of this class, but I just felt like I was taking to long to write about it.

omg, you are right. the prices were set at 3 and 4 dollars a pound. good lord I wonder what happened. I'll ask.

I dont know why its not working but thats not the link either. go to www.ticgums.com then go to "whats new". Underneath that is a link to "culinary kit". Once you click that go to "individuals" and it will take you to the destination of the link I originally posted. They are aware of how difficult it is to get there right now and the marketing people should probably make it easier soon. best of luck.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to let you know that my friends at TIC just let me know that they opened up their retail line FINALLY. so all you people paying $16 a pound for xanthan gum and higher can now buy all these hydrocolloids and more, plus personalized blends for $3 - $4 for 1/2lb. https://qnet.e-quantum2k.com/~brite/Custom/...od-list-jwf.cgi THANK YOU TIC.

any consome works well warm

duh.... Providence on Melrose, come on now.

I like to use an anti griddle to make my pancakes. Nice and frozen stiff. No seriously, are we just talking about wheat like pancakes here or are we getting adventurous. What about gluten intolerant people, what about potato pancakes, how about similar things like funnel cake. Where are our guidelines here. I like to make my pancakes from the cream syphon. I first like to incorporate raspberry or blackberry powder into the batter, then toss a few blueberries in during cooking. Sometimes if I am crazy I add a little maple powder to the mix. Sometimes I use atomized chocolate. When I am really crazy I will use dry albumen with hibiscus tea and continue making the pancake from that. But then again, I am a little crazy. Carry on.

let me know how things work out

heres a couple suggestions. One, I would use beans to make it easier. But another way to do it (non-frangipane) is to bake at a high temperature for like 2 - 3 minutes, remove from the oven, drop the temp and allow to crusts to cool slightly. Put the crusts back in and finish baking. That is without beans for regular tarts like you gave example earlier. With frangipane, heres my suggestion: Instead of trimming the tarts before cooking, bring the temp of the oven higher (say 190-200C) and cut off the fan. Have the dough come a little above if not hanging over the shell. Place the tarts in the oven for maybe 2 -3 minutes, just until the outside starts to dry (bubles become apparent) but no color (or limited). Remove from oven immediately and trimm the edges with a knife while still warm. Allow to cool and then procede with your frangipane. This time reduce oven to 160-170 and continue baking. I suggest leaving the tarts in the rings if possible. Keep the fan off the entire time. Hope this helps.

could have a lot to do with the temperature of your oven, and what kind of oven you are using to bake them. Also the thickness of the crust may play a small roll, as well as the size of the tarts. Can you give us a few more details, specifically take us through your preparation would be nice.

Oh I know you are female, i was just making an outside reference in no way implying you are a man or acting like a man. You may be surprised that if you start eating correctly (not saying your diet is horrible) that you will have energy even into the time you want to sleep. energy is not an enemy of sleep, improper diet and incorrect neurotransmission is. You can go to bed every night with energy but at the same time mentally exhausted/relaxed and ready for rest to go on to the next day. Try eating this way for a week or two, you may find it stimulating you all the way until your bed time. I must declare the the advice I give you is not a universal diet, there is no such thing. It is only to your specific routine. I think we should pay a little more attention to how we live our lives and what kind of fuel is needed and when. everyone is different, and we change ourselves quite often throughout life.

Alright, I do not know what your diet is right now, or your conditions, but from what I can tell you is this: If you are craving protein, which is rare unless you are a man and just want to eat a steak to feel like a man, then you probably need it. If you are forcing your body to do more physical labor/work than it is use to, then your body is more than likely trying to convert your calories into building muscle. So this could be a reason why you are so tired because you are burning even more energy than you would be if you just did this excersize once in a while. Since you are doing it routinely your body is anticipating the effects and trying to strengthen your system, thus converting more energy. If this is so, scratch the fiber/carb breakfast and focus a little more on protein. Eat more eggs if possible and possibly ham if you like it for breakfast. Its good to have fiber throughout the day, so instead of fiber packed carb cereal, eat a whole wheat or bran muffin with your protein. Concentrate on fruits throughout the day. If you are getting enough protein in th beginning of the day, then fruits will help you break it down, and recycle your amino acids plus help strengthen all the little things like site from vitamin A, bile transfer, digestion as previously said, bone/joint/ligament function. By helping your body function more easily, the proteins/amino acids in your body can attatch themself to there jobs more easily burning less calories later in the day. It is important to keep the vitamins coming in routinely as well because they leave your body much more quickly than proteins. A very well balanced dinner is important for the returning day. Your body may crave fats or high calorie products closer to the night because your body wants to ensure an easy recovery in the morning from all the energy it burns at night. The more you work in the day, the harder you sleep at night, which means the more energy you burn at night repairing and re positioning. Make sure you eat strong vegetables, high in carotenes. Also carbohydrates as well. A little protein would go nicely to help rebuild over night. You need to pay attention to foods that take a while to break down, this will keep a consistent calorie and vitamin flow all night. Nothing high in simple sugars, thats why you eat fruits mid day for quick punches of energy. This is where you eat your whole grain pasta, your tomatoes, your carrots, beets, potatoes, kale, spinach, etc. Try to eat the carbohydrates first and the protein last, that way all the tryptophan enters your brain and stimulates serotonin. Dont forget your red wine and chocolate either.

Check the rainbow coop over on 13th in SOMA. I hate malt unless its in my beer so I dont really know for sure. If I do see any I will let you know where I got it. But I would bet the rainbow coop has it.

too many things. I tried making a list. It hurt my head.