The Cooking Process: Part 14

Heat is applied by being transferred from something that is hot to something that is not. There are three methods of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. Often more than one process is involved.

Heat brings about change in foods by affecting the various substances of which they are made-the proteins, carbohydrates, fats, water, and minute substances that provide their flavor and color. It can also determine whether the vitamins and minerals present in raw foods are passed on to the diner or lost along the way. you will understand better how all this works as you learn more about specific foods and how to cook them in topics to come.

The many ways of transferring heat are divided into moistheat and dryheat methods, depending on whether or not moisture is the vehicle of heat transfer. Moistheat methods include boiling, simmering, poaching, steaming, and braising. Dryheat methods depend on hot air, radiation, or fat for heat transfer; they include baking, roasting, broiling, grilling, barbecuing, deepfrying, panfrying, and sauteing.

This topic has given you a big dose of terms and concepts that you may not fully understand as yet. But learn them well and use them precisely: they will help you to understand what you are doing as you cook, and why it works, and how to do it better.

Many times Cooking terms defy precision and usage crisscrosses accuracy, as with broil for grilling and grill for cooking on a griddle. There is the backyard barbecue, a good American term for a process that is not truly barbecuing; it is either grilling over coals or roasting on a spit with a barbecue sauce brushed on the meat. If you have ever attended a corn roast you know that the corn and potatoes are not really roasted. If you've been to a real clambake you know the clams are not actually baked. You may work in kitchens that use terms in their own way and not as we have defined them.

To deal with such situations, follow this simple rule: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." If you can't do that, it's time to head for Greece.

THE COOK'S VOCABULARY

Palatability - Acceptable to the taste; sufficiently agreeable in flavor to be eaten.

Coagulation - Synonyms: coagulate, clot, congeal, curdle, jell, jelly, set. The central meaning shared by these verbs is "to change or be changed from a liquid into a thickened mass": egg white coagulating when heated; gravy clotting as it cools; water congealing into ice; milk that had curdled; used pectin to jell the jam; jellied consommé; allowed the aspic to set.

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