Well that was interesting.

I went to prison last night and, to my great surprise, they let me back out again. It was quite an experience to watch a group of convicts — many of them serving extended sentences for very serious crimes — perform Shakespeare. Quite honestly I’m still trying to decide what I thought of it. It wasn’t the best Shakespeare I’ve ever seen, though many of the performances and several of the scenes were jaw-droppingly good.

Over the years the Shakespeare Behind Bars troupe has performed a variety of different Shakespeare plays, many tragedies (Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Othello, Macbeth) but also comedies (The Comedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice). This year’s show, Richard III, was I think the first of the history plays they’d performed. You won’t be surprised to discover that the histories are generally my favorites, especially the so-called “Henriad”: Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V. So…no surprise that I was keen on seeing it.

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This week is camping week.

I’ll admit I’m not a big fan of camping. Oh I like the outdoors plenty, I just have bad associations with tents and sleeping bags. Being the nerd in my scout troop I was always the kid whose backpack got filled with rocks, or who climbed into his sleeping bag only to find someone had put a hundred of those little restaurant butter pats inside. Hey, you try sleeping in 40-degree weather when you’re greased from head to toe, OK?

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On-the-Edge Q & A

Reader Silviu writes:

Reading [your posts on Michael Pollan] leaves me wondering what’s your approach to ingredients and food in general? Do you fit in any particular category (organic, local, etc.)? Do you have some never-touch-that rules? What do you think of sugar and pastry (I mean pastry is mostly not pastry without sugar)? I’d love to read a whole post on this.

Silviu, I try not to touch hot-button questions like this since they often lead to go-nowhere comment field combat, a lot like the trench warfare at Ypres. In the end, after all the shells and noxious gasses have been released, little has been accomplished and nothing has changed. But since you asked I’ll go for it. Briefly.

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Can sugar really “cook” egg yolks?

Reader Lily writes:

Joe, the other day I left some egg yolks that I was about to whip into pastry cream sitting in a bowl with some sugar for too long. The yolk sides that were touching the sugar turned pale and hard. My instructor said that it was caused by sugar cooking the eggs because sugar and yolks together create heat. I’m skeptical, but what do you think?

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On The Physiology of Taste & Other Amusements, etc.

Reader Allen wants to know if Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste was more a book about science and physiology or more about philosophy and other intangibles/ineffables. The answer is yes. You really have to read the book to get a feel for it, Allen, or at least a few parts of it. To me it’s really about fun.

When you set out to tackle Physiology it’s important to remember that it is very much a product of its time: the mid-Enlightenment. This was a period when most learned people took a keen interest in science and the physical world, but practiced science rather informally. Yes the scientific method was around, but techniques for conducting experiments were still evolving, so more than a few of the “science” books written around the time were simple collections of observations, anecdotes and speculations.

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(Un)Melted Chocolate

Reader Amanda writes:

I received a gift of some good quality, too-dark-for-me-to-want-to-eat chocolate and I decided to turn it into hot chocolate instead of eating it straight. I followed some recipes from the internet and the advice was to heat up a bit of milk, melt chocolate into it and then add more milk and heat the whole thing up. The taste was actually great but there were lots of tiny flecks of chocolate that wouldn’t melt into the milk with the rest of the chocolate and I was wondering what was up with that. I was hoping you might, as the only guy who answers questions about the science of ingredients that I’m familiar with, be able to answer my question.

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Yellow Fever

Yellow No. 5 has also seen it’s share of controversy, not so much because it’s ever done anything much to anyone (most countries outside of Norway consider it safe, and “sensitivity” complaints against it are about on par with other coal tar dyes) but because it became the most widely used food coloring after Red No. 2 was de-listed due to public pressure. Once that happened, Yellow No. 5 was simply the next color on the target list. However no serious complaints — only urban legends — have ever sprung up around it.

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On High Ratio Cakes

Reader Jack writes:

Joe (actual name?),

I live in Chicago and want to reproduce the Jewel grocery store plain old yellow cake. They sell it by the piece and I want to reproduce the texture and taste. It has a very fine crumb, it is very firm, almost sponge like. It has tiny uniform holes, and would be perfect for a few baking “projects” I have in mind. I have tried a dozen yellow cake recipes from the net and they taste fine, but the crumb is soft, and does not have the sponge-like pores of the Jewel cake. I read your article regarding creaming, but that alone does not convert the existing recipes I have into what I am looking for. I tried separating the eggs, beating the whites, folding in…nope. I deconstructed the Jewel recipe using their ingredients list, but that list flies in the face of all cake science (no yolks, no butter). I am getting fat with all the experimentation!!! Do you have a recipe/technique that will help me achieve the desired results?

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Where does Yorkshire pudding come from?

If you guessed Yorkshire, you’re partly right. This sort of open-pan pudding made with meat drippings has been popular in Britain since at least 1737 when the first recipe was published by “a Lady” in her seminal book, The whole duty of a woman, or, An infallible guide to the fair sex: containing rules, directions, and observations, for their conduct and behavior through all ages and circumstances of life, as virgins, wives, or widows : with rules and receipts in every kind of cookery . I need to get a copy of that for the missus for Christmas. Think?

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Popover Recipe

Popover recipes tend to be very consistent in their proportions since the science that underlies them is constant. Herbs and other flavorings are an exception to that rule, and are popular with American cooks (traditional Yorkshire pudding has no herbs). Popover recipes can, however, differ in technique. I’m stymied by recipes that tell the cook to whisk the batter gently or until “just combined.” That’s a rule for pancake or crêpe batter — which popover batter closely resembles — or for quick breads or cakes, where you don’t want much gluten development.

It’s the opposite with popovers. In this case you want lots of developed gluten to give the rising bread the elasticity it needs to stretch and hold steam. For that reason I recommend a blender or a food processor. If you have neither of those and rely on a whisk, use plenty of elbow grease, and consider using bread flour (or a mix of half bread and half all-purpose) to amp up the gluten content. By no means use pastry flour, cake flour or a fine Southern flour, which won’t do the job here. Either go Yankee or make dinner rolls instead. The ingredients are:

1/2 ounce (1 tablespoon) melted, unsalted butter
5 ounces (1 cup) all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, room temperature
8 ounces (1 cup) milk, room temperature

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