[Sca-cooks] January 2009 MK Cooks Challenge

[Gaylin Walli]

(Someone asked me if I would consider posting these on the SCA Cooks list as
well as MK Cooks, so here they are. I'll try to continue doing so for the
remainder of the year.--Iasmin)


Background

When thinking about food trends in the modern world, one of the things  that
struck several MK Cooks members was that people frequently used  small
research forays as a way of sound "pseudo intelligent" about food. Case in
point: wine tastings. People attend wine tastings,  memorize of the
pseudo-science and outright fabrications of the  tasting liason, and then
proceed to parrot that information to their  friends and acquaintances
without really understanding what it is  they're talking about. Phrases like
"Fruit forward," "lush mouth feel," "grassy nose" are being bandied about
with little explanation or true understanding of their meanings.

The Challenge

Mini "tastings" have become popular in the modern world as a trendy evening
activity. We could expand upon this by coming up with tastings geared
towards cooking researchers that bypassed the "pseudo intelligence" and
aimed at getting people to make their own decisions  on what items tasted
like.

Suggest only ONE or TWO possible items that might serve as acceptable
"tasting"  topics for a 1-hour session as a class or discussion panel. For
example:

-- salts from around the world, beyond common table and sea sea salt.
-- olive oils, especially those commonly available in the grocery store.

Discuss.