Here’s a couple of food science-y items recently brought to my attention.
Firstly – the hygiene issues surrounding ‘communal dipping’. I’m sure everyone is pretty familiar with this practice, unless you live in a cave or something. This New York Times article deals with a study about bacteria levels in dip, with what to me seem quite obvious results – that dipping the same chip twice into a pot of shared dip = more bacteria, although the article seems surprised by this result. The scientist’s general conclusion – do not eat dip at parties unless you’d also be willing to kiss everyone else there, as it (bacterially speaking) adds up to the same thing, a conclusion that makes me feel vaguely paranoid – what if everyone finds out about this study? I foresee situations at parties where eating dip is seen as a come-on, ie if you’re happy to eat the dip, you’re also happy getting off with whoever else is ‘dipping’.
Secondly – a food science challenge! The problem posed is
Can you find three foods such that all three do not go together (by any reasonable definition of foods “going together”) but every pair of them does go together?
(There’s more instructions and explanation under the link)
Anyone got any solutions?
There’s also some interesting possibilities for food science experiments, personally I’d love to see what Lemon Mole tastes like.
UPDATE: This resource could also be handy here.
(all via kottke.org)