Oxalic Acid is an acid naturally present in many plants that we eat. Oxalic Acid is present in very small amounts in chives, oca, parsley, rhubarb, sorrel, spinach and taro, and in even smaller amounts in a zillion other types of produce from asparagus to sweet corn. It can make something taste tart, as it…
Technical Terms
Pack Date
A Pack Date (or Package Date, or Packaging Date) indicates the date when a product was packed. Though some manufacturers may interpret it as the date the product was packed in the retail packaging in which it will be sold at retail to consumers; some may interpret as the date in which these packaged goods…
Pasteurization
Pasteurization is a heat-treatment process designed to inactivate bacteria. It is not as thorough as sterilization: it is not intended to kill all micro-organisms, just to greatly reduce the number of ones that could cause illness and disease. It also extends the refrigerated shelf life of products. Pasteurization is a function of both temperature and…
Pavé: A flat piece of food, usually meat, cheese or bread
“Pavé” is French for a “cobblestone.” When used in a food context, it refers to a square or rectangular flat piece of food or dish. Moulded mousses or jellies: A cold dish made in a square or rectangular mould. The food is often a mousse, whether foie gras, pheasant, salmon or other fish. It is…
Penicillium Glaucum
Penicillium glaucum is one of two varieties of bacteria that is used to cause blue cheeses to develop blue mould.
Penicillium Roqueforti
Penicillium roqueforti is one of two varieties of bacteria that is added to blue cheeses to cause it to develop the characteristic blue mould.
Phosphoric Acid
Phosphoric Acid has no flavour of its own. It adds a sensation of dryness to drinks, and a bit of tartness and tang. It can act as a substitute for the sourness from citrus juice or for the tang from ingredients like ginger. Phosphoric Acid is used in cocktails such as the Montauk Riding Club…
Pickling Lime
Pickling lime is calcium hydroxide. It’s also called “food-grade lime”, because in making the calcium hydroxide the processors make sure that the process remains pure and doesn’t introduce anything untoward (e.g. it’s not done in rusty old bins.) Pickling lime helps to improve the firmness of pickles by introducing calcium that reinforces the pectin in…
Plant Variety Protection
Plant Variety Protection is a legal designation designed to protect plant breeders. It grants them an intellectual property right over the seed, whether the new cultivar was achieved through traditional open-pollinated methods, by hand or through genetic modification. No one else is allowed to profit from sale of that seed over an ensuing period of…
Potassium Nitrite
Potassium Nitrite is a compound formed of potassium and nitrogen. Its scientific notation is KNO2. It is used as a preservative in food. It helps in the curing process by inhibiting the growth of botulism bacteria, and slowing down any rancidness occurring. It also fixes colours in meats. It comes as a granular off-white powder….
Potluck Suppers
Potluck Meal. Texas. 1920s © Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries. UH Digital Library A Potluck Supper is when everyone invited to the meal brings some food, generally already prepared and ready to eat, unless some of it is a food to go on a grill. They are often held at workplaces, churches….
Punnet
A punnet is a small, low basket for soft fruit or vegetables, meant both to keep the items together, and to protect the items in it during shipping and retailing.
Quinine
Quinine is extracted from Cinchona Tree bark, native to the Andes, but which the British exported throughout the Empire. Cinchona Tree bark had been used by the Aztecs to treat fevers. It was apparently used to cure the wife of the Spanish viceroy of Peru in 1638, Countess Anna del Chinchon, and thus the name…
Scald (Fruit)
Scald on fruit is brown patches that appear on the skin of the fruit, mostly on the side of the fruit that was away from the sun. In some instances, the skin is entirely dead, and the flesh underneath the patch will have gone brown as well. It makes the fruit unsellable. Growers still (as…
Scoville Units
The Scoville scale measures how hot a chile pepper is. It does this by measuring the amount of capsaicin in a chile. Capsaicin is what makes a chile pepper taste hot (actually, it’s a group of compounds called capsaicinoids.) A gene helps to determines whether a pepper will develop capsaicinoids and be hot, or not….
Sell-By Dates
A Sell-By Date is the date by which an item should be sold. If the item isn’t sold by then, it’s supposed to be removed (“pulled”) from the shelves. When a date is given in calendar format, it is called “open dating”; when it is a code that you need a cipher machine to break,…
Silicon Dioxide
Silicon Dioxide is a natural item found in sand, agate, amethyst, chalcedony, cristobalite, flint, opal, quartz, and tridymite. It is present in cell walls of several vegetables; there it helps to reinforce their structure. It’s also in milk and even drinking water. The chemical formula is SiO2. In the food industry, it appears as powder…
Smoking Point
The smoking point is the temperature at which a fat or oil, when being heated, will start to give off smoke. What happens inside the fat or oil is that it starts to break down. This also changes the flavour, usually for the worst. Mustard oil is an exception: Indians always heat mustard oil to…
Sodium Nitrate
Sodium Nitrate is a white solid powder that is soluble in water. It is a food preservative found in processed meats, and used particularly in curing meat such as Italian salamis. It preserves the colour, keeping meat pink or red. More importantly, though, it helps to inhibit the development of botulism. Sodium Nitrate occurs naturally…
Sodium Nitrite
Sodium nitrite is a preserving agent used in processed meats to prevent rancidity and botulism.
Stufatura
Stufatura is the Italian term for the warm, humid aging of cheeses and sausages. It is sometimes referred to as a “ripening process.” Stufatura is done in dedicated, insulated rooms, now using technology in some form to regulate temperature, humidity and ventilation. The Stufatura process allows lactic bacteria to flourish. The bacteria converts lactose in…
Subacid
Subacid is a taste description term. It is used to describe a taste falling between sweet and tart, which is therefore slightly or moderately sour. Language Notes Subacid is sometimes used as well to describe the expression on someone’s face, or the tone of someone’s voice, or their manner of treating people.
Sweet-and-Sour
Chinese Sweet-and-Sour Sauce © Denzil Green Sweet-and-Sour is a term used to describe a dish whose taste contains elements of both a sweet taste and a sour taste. Usually the balancing is done with an added sauce. The sweet can come from something such as sugar, syrup or fruit. The sour can come from something…
Technical Terms
Definitions for food terms including from those agricultural, legal, nutritional, marketing and scientific realms.