this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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Science of Cooking
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Welcome to c/cooking @ Mander.xyz!
We're focused on cooking and the science behind how it changes our food. Some chemistry, a little biology, whatever it takes to explore a critical aspect of everyday life.
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You can't taste the produce, so you have to use something else to determine tastiness. As a result, produce producers (heh) try their best to compete against each other based on looks. Everything else falls to the wayside as they compete for more sales until you get to where we are today, terrible taste but impeccable looks.
It's why Red Delicious apples are disgusting, tomatoes are flavorless, and Jalapeño Peppers aren't spicy. Looks are the only thing to compete over at a grocery store.
I think it was Ocean Spray cranberries were on How It's Made or another show like that where they showed their laser powered cranberry grader that would ID perfect berries at near supersonic speed and an air puff would shoot any imperfect ones off the line. That was pretty cool.
Produce samples would be nice! Could probably do that at the farmers market.
But you can smell things