Molekylær gastronomi-workshop 27. april: Mjød

Det sies at mjød var vikingenes drikk, deres utgave av øl. Dermed må det vel være noe rotekte norsk? Er det ikke da litt paradoksalt at de færreste nordmenn har et forhold til mjød, og at det først den aller siste tida er blitt tilgjengelig i handelen? Og hvordan smaker egentlig mjød?

Finsk mjød, Sima, og frityrstekt traktkake, tippaleipä, er en
tradisjonell kombinasjon på Valborgsmesse (foto: Wikimedia)

Og enda mer overraskende er det kanskje at mjød, i en nær alkoholfri variant, har solid fotefeste i den Valborgsmesseaften?
finske kulturen og lages i de tusen finske hjem hvert eneste år fram mot kvelden før 1. mai,

Molekylær gastronomi-workshopen denne måneden handler om prøvesmakingsteknikk. Grunnen til at vi har dette temaet er å forberede den påfølgende, og sesongens siste workshop (25. mai) der vi skal bidra med data til et forskningsprosjekt ved Københavns Universitet om whisky (mer informasjon om dette blir kunngjort 18. mai).

Skal vi prøvesmake må vi nødvendigvis ha noe å smake på, og da har valget falt på mjød siden våre finske venner nettopp i disse dager brygger denne drikken i stor og liten skala. Mest sannsynlig blir det smaking av tre ulike typer mjød der to er hjemmelaget med røtter i nyere finsk og norsk tradisjon. Samtidig vil det bli gitt en kort innføring i temaet mjød.

Ingen forkunnskaper en nødvendig, og workshopen er åpen for alle som er interessert. NB: begrenset antall plasser (ca. 20 personer).

Vel møtt!

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Tid: Onsdag 27. april kl. 18.00-20.00
Sted: Fru Svendsen kunst kulturkafé i Ørsta. Adresse: Kyrkjegata 25 (kart her).
Påmelding: Meld deg på med e-post til ef(at)hivolda.no. Da får du beskjed ved eventuelle endringer
Som vanlig: deltakelse er gratis

The Kitchen Stories project - Interdisciplinary network of culinary claims

The text below is an attempt at drawing up a new programme/collaboration/network for exploring claims about food and cooking. Hereby, we make an effort to start a new international and interdisciplinary network to explore such claims from various angles. If you are a researcher (from any field), teacher at any level, chef or something else and find this interesting, read on and feel free to contact us. The programme is drawn out by researchers from Finland (here and here) and myself.

Update 2nd June 2015: This is also described in a paper in the scientific journal Flavour. Fooladi & Hopia (2013). Culinary precisions as a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue. Flavour, 2(6). (open access)

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Is it true that you mustn't rinse, but rather brush, mushrooms? Should a steak be seared to keep the juices inside? Can you prevent fruit salad from turning brown by sprinkling it with lemon juice? Such apparently mundane questions have been source of inspiration for food geeks at least since “The Curious cook” by Harold McGee (1990) was published, but most likely much earlier. A closer analysis of such questions reveal an abundance of intriguing, surprisingly complex and unexplored questions which might be vehicles for education and even subject for research within natural and social sciences.

The world of food and cooking is full of statements on how to do things and occasionally why one should adhere to these advices. Many are rooted in tradition or are created today by us all and sometimes appear to us like modern urban stories. Some are rooted in long experience of kitchen professionals or home cooks, and some even in science. When tradition and science meet interesting things might happen. In some cases the phenomenon in question (see examples in the introduction) is well described within one field of science but is less so in another discipline, laying questions open for research. Secondly, such culinary claims, which we have termed “Kitchen stories”, provide valuable opportunities in education at various levels (see below). Thirdly, interesting questions might be revealed by laypeople, craftsmen (chefs, artisans) or even school children which in turn could end up as relevant research topics to be studied within various sciences. Finally, such kitchen stories are valuable parts of our cultural heritage and provide rich research material for scientific fields such as cultural history and sociology (see figure).

Food Culture Centre for Children Opened in Oslo

First day of September this year Norway saw a new centre for children's food culture located in an old renaissance farm in the middle of Oslo. This is to be a national resource for helping schools and pre-schools to focus on good food and food culture.

In the Norwegian curriculum the subject home economics ("Food and health") is given throughout primary and lower secondary school. Many would say that this subject does not enjoy much credit of being a "serious" subject in competition with mathematics, language, science etc. There does not even exist school books in this subject for primary school pupils(!) and the subject has not enjoyed the benefits of having its own "national centre for education" to support schools and teachers the same way as many other school subjects (e.g. Norwegian Centre for Science Education).

Food accepted as cultural heritage - food is surely culture

Recently, UNESCO inscribed two food-related traditions/cultures in their list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. One might say that finally food has officially received status as a true part of our common cultural heritage.

Of course, food is culture and very few would not accept this as a fact. However, since numerous other cultural heritages are accepted as world heritage, it is important that food culture is not passed over. The UNESCO World heritage list is probably well known to most, but there is also another list called the Intangible Cultural Heritage list intended to safeguard immaterial cultural heritage. In this list, at least four entries relate closely to food and food culture.