The Savvy Gourmet

Welcome to The Savvy Gourmet blog!

There are thousands of food blogs. Why add another?

To find recipes and comment on them, to pinpoint the best restaurants in your neighbourhood and publish your opinion, to discover and comment on chef’s shows and many other related subjects – there is a wide selection of blogs, magazines and websites for all this and more.

On the other hand, discovering and making use of the characteristics of a category of foodstuffs, finding guides and indicators to help you choose the best product or seeing that the fine foods you choose come with quality assurance is quite something else. In fact, it can be a difficult and frustrating task.

The purpose of our blog is to partly fill the information gap on fine food products, simply and honestly. It is produced by OGourmet, an online food store for gourmets.

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Food Perception on Satiety and Satisfaction

Read what the researchers of INRA-France have to say on the role of perceptions of satiety and satisfaction:

“The sensory characteristics of foods contribute to both stimulating and inhibiting food intake… The pleasure of eating, rather than acting as a guide to help adjust food consumption, sometimes compromises the regulation of energy intake and weight control…

The sensory pleasure of foods participates in determining meal size and stimulating food consumption through a variety of mechanisms.”

Therefore sensory analysis will increasingly become a tool in the design of dietary or food programs. Controlling your weight and your health with sensory perception? Now that’s something!

Sensory Analysis? What’s that?

Sensory science is the study of the senses and sensory perception.

Sensory analysis requires panels of human assessors to describe a product's appearance, smell, taste, texture and sound.

And, obviously, it has its own vocabulary (see ISO 5492 Vocabulary).

Sensory analysis can be split in three sub-sections:

1) Effective testing (objective facts about products)

2) Affective testing (subjective facts such as preferences)

3) Perception (the biochemical and psychological aspects of sensation)

Whew, sounds complicated! And what is the purpose of this analysis?

It has many applications: improving products, making them more attractive, reducing production costs by avoiding unnecessarily expensive ingredients, etc. Read the following article for a surprising example.

Antioxidants? What’s that?

Several foods are consumed because they are rich in antioxidants and offer numerous health benefits. Antioxidants are found naturally in foods, or produced industrially, to reduce the negative effects of oxygen.

Indeed, antioxidants delay oxidation of food, a cause of degradation, rancidity and discoloration.

Why so much interest in these substances? Is oxygen not essential and beneficial? What exactly are antioxidants, and where do we find them? Here are a few sources for answers to these questions.

See the antioxidants pages of the Food Safety Network website of the University of Guelph.

Want to know which additives contain antioxidants? Look for the A code in the list of ingredients on the label (Refer to the Food Additive Dictionary produced by Health Canada for food additive codes).

See also the Health Canada page on Antioxidant Vitamin Research.

DRI, ANR, AMT? What’s that?

We are submerged with information on what to eat and what not to eat.

What are the scientific sources underlying this avalanche of advice? Who defines our nutritional needs, and how? To understand this complex issue a little better, here are two important references.

First, a list of definitions to understand the real meaning of the terms used in this domain (see Health Canada FAQs on food and nutrition). For example, the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) are a set of scientifically based nutrient reference values for healthy populations.

Then, tables on DRI, RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance), UL (Tolerable Upper Intake Level), etc. Seem complicated? It actually is. But if you really are concerned about adequate nutrition, it is a very good reference source, without any distortion or biased interpretation.

Balsamic Pesto from Cascina Marchesa

The balsamic pesto is the flagship product in the Cascina Marchesa (Basilidea Srl) line of products, manufactured according to ancient regional traditions.

Made mainly with olive oil, basil, cashew nut, Modena balsamic vinegar, walnut, Grana Padano cheese and pine seed. Only top quality ingredients are used. Pesto is produced according to traditional recipes, but with modern production techniques and thorough quality control.

Producers in the Spotlight - Cascina Marchesa (Basilidea Srl)

If you want to produce pesto sauces, how do you stand out from the hundreds of other producers? That’s the challenge Basilidea addressed with flying colours.

Their recipe for success is simple. Top quality pestos using only natural ingredients, with no chemical preservatives, additives or colours, state-of-the-art production techniques, and high standards of quality. It all adds up to great pesto!

Cascina Marchesa is the trademark under which these top quality products are offered by Basilidea. A name to remember.

Does freezing olive oil degrade its quality?

Below 6°C, there is a slow increase in hardening of olive oil as the temperature is lowered. At 2°C, olive oil has more or less the consistency of butter at room temperature. At -10°C, it is hard enough that a fork cannot penetrate it.

Chilling or freezing olive oil does no harm and the oil will return to its normal consistency when warmed.

On the other hand, the oxidation process (which is responsible for the degradation of flavour) increases with temperature. Keeping oil at low temperature is a good practice.

In fact, it’s so good that a patent has been issued for a method of freezing olive oil so that it retains its original properties. Why not serve your best olive oil frozen, like butter? That’s what Costas the Greek suggests in his blog!

Sources:

Cloudy Frozen Olive Oil by John Deane.

Preserved Olive Paste, WIPO (WO/2008/122320).

Frozen Olive Oil and Six-toed Cats, Costas the Greek blog.

Sesame Crackers from Vilmas Knäckebröd

Vilmas went a bit over the top on the seeds (they're in the dough and completely cover the surface of the cracker).

These sesame crackers are probably the most versatile knäckebröd – perfect with everything from mild cheeses to mezze (baba ghannouj, hummus, etc).

Wild Rice is not Rice!

Wild rice is any of the four species of plants that make up the genus Zizania, whereas rice is a monocot plant of the Oryza sativa genus. Thus, wild rice is not a rice species.

Wild rice is an aquatic cereal grain that grows "wild" in isolated lake and river bed areas located primarily within the Great Lakes region of North America. It is also native to ecologically similar regions located on the continent of Asia.

This ancient grain has been found in layers of the earth dating back some 12,000 years. In addition to its role as an important food staple for ancestral peoples, it has provided a unique habi-tat for fish and waterfowl for thousands of years.

Wild rice is high in protein, the amino acid lysine and dietary fiber, and low in fat. Like true rice, it does not contain gluten.

Sources:

Wild Rice History, International Wild Rice Association (IWRA).

Wild Rice, Wikipedia.

Try the Gourmet Sauvage Wild Rice.

Producers in the Spotlight - Vilmas Knäckebröd

Vilmas Knäckebröd was founded in 2001 in Stockholm. For several years Vilmas sold handmade breads to a handful of selected stores and restaurants in Stockholm.

Today Vilmas knäckebröd is sold as far away as Harrod’s in London and Globus in Switzerland.

Follow the European gourmets and taste these delicious knäckebröds.