Science

Photo: Marco Veringa, Flickr.

Does no-kill caviar sound fishy to you? It doesn't have to.

A pricey indulgence that once required killing the sturgeon from which the eggs were harvested, may now be a sustainable delicacy. According to an article in Thursday's Independent, Mottra, a new caviar producer, has come up with a way to harvest the eggs without killing the fish: "The eggs are massaged out of each sturgeon through an incision in its lower abdomen." The company farms the sturgeon in Riga, Latvia. Once the eggs are extracted, the fish are allowed to heal and then produce the next year's harvest, while breeding normally.

One small step for your soirees; one giant leap for sustainable fishery.

[Via The Independent]

New laser labels. Photo: ARS/USDA.

Goodbye sticky labels, hello tattooed fruit.

The FDA is expected to approve laser-etching of fruits and vegetables in the next month or so, paving the way for produce "tattooed" with product information to hit store shelves, an official with the USDA tells Slashfood.

"We figure maybe next month or the month after it will get FDA approval," says Jan Narciso, a research microbiologist with the USDA's Citrus and Subtropical Products Laboratory in Winter Haven, Fla.

But will these new labels affect the taste of your fruits and vegetables?

Porgy. Photo: jasonlam, flickr

A fish better known for its contribution to the American songbook than the American dinner plate is being touted as a sustainable alternative to grouper and red snapper. Southern conservationists are now championing red porgy, the fish that was once so ubiquitous on low-country docks that it lent its name to the hero of George Gershwin's opera, "Porgy and Bess."

While the effort has been slightly hampered by chefs' reluctance to tinker with unfamiliar proteins and the lingering social stigma associated with eating red porgy, backers believe the fish's taste and history make it an excellent candidate to diversify coastal diets.

It's practically impossible for me to decide what I like best about this video: The fact that it features both cloth coffee filters (sustainable!) and a hand coffee grinder (retro!), that the robot appears to let the coffee bloom before starting the proper brew, our little friend's deadpan expression, or the two-second outtake where the poor gal pours coffee all over the counter before a set of friendly human hands sets it right.

Actually, this little automated lady looks like she seriously knows what she's doing -- storing coffee in an air-tight container, grinding fresh, making coffee to order... She's a barista-bot after my own heart -- even if she's more likely to rust than over-caffeinate.

NYU chemistry professor Kent Kirshenbaum. Photo: Jeff Potter

Like many inquisitive scientists, Kent Kirshenbaum regularly scans the ingredient list of prepared foods to uncover the chemical composites lurking within. The substance that most recently piqued the New York University chemistry professor's curiosity is liquid smoke. "My immediate thought was that it was a horrible mix of chemicals," he told us.

After distilling the concentrated smoke and liquid mix (often sold at the grocery store by the bottle to enhance barbecue) down to its roots of water and more than 400 chemical compounds, the scientist (who in person comes across as one part Einstein, one part Malcolm Gladwell) learned that liquid smoke is actually "safer [for human ingestion] than untreated wood smoke."

Kirshenbaum discussed his discovery last week during a monthly gathering of the Experimental Cuisine Collective -- food nerds who love to make things like edible foam. We caught up with him to chat smoke, bongs and homemade liquid smoke.

What is liquid smoke?
Liquid smoke is very simply smoke in water. Smoke usually comes as a vapor, but there are ways to condense it and turn it into liquid and that liquid can then be carried in water.