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- [00:02]
Wendy Zuckerman
I'm snorting. I'm snorting already.
- [00:04]
Samin Nosrat
Already.
- [00:04]
Wendy Zuckerman
We haven't even started. What's gonna happen? Do do, do science chats with our favorite nerds.
- [00:17]
Samin Nosrat
Yeah.
- [00:18]
Wendy Zuckerman
Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to science versus today on the show. The wonderful chemistry and science of food. Yeah, because you know, even if you've never set foot in a lab, you are doing a little bit of science every day. When you add a little salt to your pasta or you cook your vegetables or even if you make a Betty Crocker cake, you are doing some really cool science. And one award winning chef who's thought a lot about all this is Samin Nosrat. She's the author of the best selling book Salt, Fat, Acid Heat. She has a new book out. It's called good Things. And I've wanted to get Sabine on the show for ages because she, she makes me think about cooking and the food that I shove in my mouth in this completely new and very nerdy way. And so that's what we're talking about today, the science of cooking. Plus, why you should never put meatballs on spaghetti. My interview with Samin Nosrat is coming up just after the break.
- [01:29]
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- [01:58]
Samin Nosrat
So good, so good, so good.
- [02:01]
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- [02:10]
Samin Nosrat
Cause I always find something amazing.
- [02:12]
Wendy Zuckerman
Just so many good brands.
- [02:14]
Samin Nosrat
I get an extra 5% off with.
- [02:15]
Nordstrom Advertiser
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- [02:17]
Samin Nosrat
Total queen treatment.
- [02:18]
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- [02:32]
Wendy Zuckerman
Welcome to the show, Sabine. Thank you so much for coming in.
- [02:35]
Samin Nosrat
Thanks so much for having me.
- [02:37]
Wendy Zuckerman
Growing up in San Diego, I've heard you say, and you write about it a little bit in the new book, that you never really felt like you belonged that much in San Diego. Can you tell us about it?
- [02:46]
Samin Nosrat
Well, I mean, my family's from Iran and my parents came to San Diego sometime in the mid-70s. In 1979, there was a religious Revolution in Iran. So a lot of people sort of sensed that coming. And my parents. My father's side of the family, practiced a religion called the Baha' I faith, and they were persecuted, so they all fled and were religious asylees. And my mom, like, came after or followed my dad here. And so I was born here, and I was born here to a family who wasn't entirely, like, willingly, you know, in San Diego, like, it was just right. There's the trauma of leaving your homeland behind. My. You know, we. There was in ways I'm sure I can't imagine and probably many ways I witnessed there was racism and sort of Islamophobia directed at us and to my parents, and I'm sure that they had a pretty clear sense of, like, not feeling very welcome or belonging here. And I also think, because they didn't leave, especially my mom did not leave Iran, thinking she'd be gone forever. My mom would say things like, you know, when you go, when you leave this house, like, you're stepping into America, but when you step back over the threshold into the house, this is Iran, and you're gonna, like, behave like an Iranian child. Right. And I. My mom. It was so important for her to instill in us a relationship to the place that we were from. And one of the ways that she did that sort of most powerfully was through food. And so. And I have always loved to eat. So, like. And the food is good, you know.
- [04:39]
Wendy Zuckerman
And your mom's an amazing chef.
- [04:40]
Samin Nosrat
And my mom's a great cook. Yeah. And I remember there were things where, like, I would bring Persian food to school for lunch, and people, you know, it was the classic, like, immigrant kid being like, ew. Ew. What's that? The smell of the whatever in the lunchroom.
- [04:54]
Wendy Zuckerman
And they would have been eating some disgusting peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
- [04:59]
Samin Nosrat
Totally. And so.
- [05:00]
Wendy Zuckerman
Or, like, Americans are gonna get mad at me saying that, but it's just.
- [05:03]
Samin Nosrat
Oh, you think it's. Oh. I actually love pbj, too. But I know it's a American thing, though. Like, other. Other cultures were like, what are you people doing putting that stuff in your mouth? But then. And what's funny is now, like, you know, 40 years later, Persian food and a lot of Middle Eastern Persian food, a lot of times it gets appropriated by non Iranian cooks into their. Onto their restaurant menus, where it gets a sort of a gl. A glam. Like a makeover. And on the one hand, I'm really happy for more and more people to have exposure to our foods and in other ways, it makes me so mad. Like, it's like, you want our food, you know what I mean? You want to eat the crispy rice or. There was a drink I used to have, it's like a summer drink called Sechan Jabin, which is like a, it's kind of like maybe an early relative of a shrub. So it's like a vinegar and sugar syrup that's boiled down with mint. And you make this like really thick, very fragrant, minty syrup. And it's so tangy and refreshing. It's kind of like the original Gatorade in a way, like. Right. It was just one of my favorite childhood things. And I remember having like a water bottle of it with the mint leaf in it when I was a kid. And some people, like little kids school were like, ew, gross. Like, what's in your water? You gross, like alien, you know? And now, of course, like every, like, hipster bar has shrubs on their menu, you know, so there's just this way where I, I, it's like an extra pain, a level of pain where I'm like, this is yet another way in which, like, our humanity is not recognized. And you just like, take from. You pick and choose what you want. And this has like, historically been done against all. You know what I mean? Like, Americans love tacos but hate Mexicans. So, like, it's just, yeah, it's, it's not, it's not unique to us. But it does hurt when, when I.
- [07:02]
Wendy Zuckerman
Feel that you talk about in the, in your new book that as a kid, cake mixes became like a Betty Crocker cake became kind of my obsession. Yeah, your obsession. What was it about the Betty Crocker cake or the, you know, those cake mixers?
- [07:19]
Samin Nosrat
I mean, my mom, my mom was really, she had, she was very committed to like an organic, only like low sugar, you know, like sort of a very hippie, like, rules in the household for the children of like, we're only eating fresh fruits and vegetables. We shopped at the vegetable at the, like hippie co op. And so it's not that we were never allowed dessert, but even when she went to get us the birthday cakes and things for occasions, special occasions, they came from like the finest European bakeries, right? And they were covered in chocolate shard, in chocolate shavings, and they were just this like, dense chocolate cake and there, I just never wanted to eat that. I wanted to eat what all the white kids had, like at the bake sales. I wanted to eat the fluffy yellow chocolate, you know, yellow cake. With chocolate frosting. Like, it was so. And I would have never been allowed to have that. That would have just. That was like, not okay. We never entered our home.
- [08:18]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah.
- [08:19]
Samin Nosrat
And so this is again, going back to the like, outsiderness. I think it became a symbol like the yellow cake, in a way became like this symbol of fitting in. And there is something just extraordinary about cake mixes and the very light, like incredibly tender texture, which almost feels like it's like a space like astronaut food or something, because it doesn't seem naturally achievable. And so I sort of became obsessed as a young cook and with like, there must be a way to achieve some sort of like lightness because every cake I. You make a cake with butter and it's dense and heavy. You make, you know, you could use the same exact ingredients as what's in the. You think is in the yellow cake cake mix. You could follow the joy of cooking. Martha Stewart, anybody's like, classic yellow cake recipe, and it would still come out quite dense. And I just wanted this lightness.
- [09:17]
Spotify Advertiser
Yeah.
- [09:18]
Wendy Zuckerman
How do, how do the cake mixers do it? Why?
- [09:20]
Samin Nosrat
So the. Well, my. This was a many year journey for me and I didn't know the science of it, but over time I learned that like butter is made of, you know, it's made of fat primarily, but also milk solids, which are like proteins and water. It's an emulsion. And so when you cream butter and you are like, you know, whipping sugar into it to make this like kind of light texture, that's that you're aerating the butter. And that's the main source of lightness in a cake. Butter is in this kind of emulsus. It's like a magical state of emulsion. That's why it's like you can be on your counter and it's a solid, right? Yeah, yeah. It kind of has this incredible range of temperatures at which it stays in this solid, emulsified state. Which is why it's like that amazing thing when you like spread butter, cold butter on your warm toast and it's like kind of like some of it melts, but some of it's just soft still when you bite into the soft butter.
- [10:18]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yes.
- [10:18]
Samin Nosrat
And so you have that. And the thing about it is the melting point of butter, like chocolate is very close to human, our body temperature. So it's so pleasing the way it melts. It melts on the tongue in this really like amazing way, right? Yes. That's like part thinking. You eat a piece of chocolate and like part of the pleasure of it is it's just like melting on your tongue. And so. So butter is kind of this miracle ingredient, but also, like, you have to understand there's water in there. And when water and flour combine and start mixing, that's when gluten strands start forming. And gluten is a. Is a. Like a protein that is. Leads to chewiness and toughness. It's what you. You want to develop gluten in something like a crusty loaf of bread so that when you cut into it or bite into it, you get that like, sourdough chew. You know what I mean?
- [11:10]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [11:11]
Samin Nosrat
But that's not the thing you want in a cake. In a cake, you want it to like, crumble and 10. Dissolve tenderly on. Or. That's what I want is like tenderness on my tongue. And so you want to prevent gluten from forming, which is why they use lower protein, lower gluten flours, things like cake flour and pastry flour to make cake. And also when you have oil, if you. And so fat inhibits gluten formation, it kind of coats flour and it makes like. You can think of it almost like it makes it slippery. So it's. The. The flour is not going to combine into long gluten strands because it's kind of like lubricated by this outer layer of fat. Right. So then the thing that. The way cake mix is made industrially, like, at some point I kind of went and learned about that. And it's made in these. You can think of them like massive food processors, just like huge machines where they combine all the dry ingredients with shortening, which is a solid fat. It's a solid oil. Right. And they. And they mix. And because it is solid, but it's soft at like these, at regular room temperature, they can put shortening in there and coat the flour. You know, mix it without any. They're. They're pre. They're pre oiling your. Your. The flour in the cake mix so that when you bring it home and you add your oil and your water.
- [12:34]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah.
- [12:35]
Samin Nosrat
Your less gluten will form, but it doesn't. And it's done for so long and on such an industrial level and so carefully that you can't see the fat. Right. You don't see any of that. You can't. It just looks like flour and cocoa powder when you dump out a chocolate cake mix. But that's what's happened to it is like the flour has all been pre. Fat. Pre coated with fat. And so I just was like, huh, I'll Never be able to do that. I don't want to make a cake with shortening that's not going to taste good. Like, I want it to be with butter, but I don't know how to do this. And then at some point I stumbled into. Which is so funny because maybe if I had been looking. Well, like, if I had been more method. I'm not saying I'm, like, methodical in any of this. I am not a scientist.
- [13:17]
Wendy Zuckerman
But this is. Where are we at two decades in this journey right now.
- [13:21]
Samin Nosrat
Yeah. Which, honestly, maybe if I had been more methodical, I could have solved this a lot sooner. Because literally there is a book, it is a legendary book called the Cake Bible. Like, honestly, I could have just looked in the Cake Bible.
- [13:34]
Wendy Zuckerman
Oh, but come on, come on. You think like in Lord of the Rings, I could have just looked at the map, you know, got the. Jenny.
- [13:44]
Samin Nosrat
Totally, totally. So, like, Rose Levy Barenbaum is kind of this extraordinary just. Well, like, queen of cakes. And she wrote this book called the Cake Bible. So whereas when a typical yellow cake, a typical sort of homemade cake starts with room temperature butter that you're whipping sugar into, and that step is called creaming. Reverse creaming sort of mimics what's done in the cake mix industry. Right. Where you take your flour and your sugar, and if you're using cocoa powder, whatever your dry ingredients are, and then you take very soft, but not too soft, not so soft that it will separate into water and fat. Butter. You take butter that is just at the exact right temperature and you work it into the flour very slowly in your mixer or your food processor and in such a way that, like, by the time you've worked, all the flour in, it actually just looks. Or all. Excuse me. By the time you've worked the butter in, the flour just looks like a dry ingredient. It's kind of amazing. It is this. But it's all about having the butter. Yeah. I mean, Rose did it. And so. And it was one of those things where I was like, this was here all along. And I feel like such an idiot. And also I felt like a genius because the first time I made it, people came over and I was like, I did it, you guys. I made a. I made a homemade Betty Crocker. And people were like, I don't. And then they started eating it. They're like, oh, my God, it really tastes like it. So it felt like that was truly a mirror miracle that I thought I would. I would. I know. There were so many bad cakes on the way to that cake in the middle.
- [15:24]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah, but you did it.
- [15:25]
Samin Nosrat
I did it, yeah.
- [15:28]
Wendy Zuckerman
Okay. So to continue on with your journey, a lot of people, including me, sort of first met you after you wrote the book Salt, Fat, Acid Heat, which then became this Netflix documentary, which is amazing. The book, the documentary, for those who haven't come across it, what is the overriding thesis of Salt, fat, Acid Heat?
- [15:50]
Samin Nosrat
Yeah, it's basically that if you can sort of grasp why salt, fat, acid, and heat are important elements and understand, you know, their function in the kitchen on flavor and on texture and how to balance them and how to use them, that. That they. They will work as sort of the four points on the compass for you as a cook, no matter what you're cooking. And so whether or not you want to follow a recipe, paying attention to salt, fat, acid, and heat will enhance the way that you feel independent, are able to cook instinctively, understand what's going on underneath the maybe steps one through six that someone else lays out for you so that in case you need to substitute something, you understand why that vinegar was there and why it would work or wouldn't work to replace it with lemon juice.
- [16:51]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah.
- [16:52]
Samin Nosrat
So with salt and fat and acid, those are all tangible. Fats come in many forms. There's oils and butters. There's animal fats. And same with acid comes in many forms. But heat is kind of this, like, ineffable, intangible thing. But as a young cook, I kind of realized that was how everyone around me that I was looking up to and learning from really oriented themselves in the kitchen on any given day. And they were not always consulting cookbooks and recipes. The things we were always tasting for were salt and fat and acid.
- [17:23]
Wendy Zuckerman
I think about it every time I have avocado on toast. Cause I'm like, Samin would be so proud of me. I'm toasting my bread. There's my hate. I've got my avocado and then my salt and my lemon.
- [17:34]
Samin Nosrat
Like, it's the most beautiful version. Yeah, there you go. You did it all.
- [17:37]
Wendy Zuckerman
But I always think of you.
- [17:39]
Samin Nosrat
I mean, I am so glad. And that's the thing I always say is, like, this is actually a lot simpler than you think. It's just some jargon you have to wrap your mind around. But we all naturally do this. I mean, all of these things are things our palates have evolved to seek and to enjoy. Right. And so, like, if you are a person who goes, has ever been to a taqueria and has garnished your own burrito, or taco with sour cream and. Or cheese and. Or salsa, you know, or guacamole, like, and to. And done it again and again until it tastes just right. Then you're balancing the salt and the fat and the acid, right? Like, you're doing it already.
- [18:16]
Wendy Zuckerman
And in salt, fat, acid, heat. You talk about this story of working at Chez Panee, which you've mentioned. It's like this for those who don't know. Fancy restaurant in Berkeley, California, where you got your start, and having this moment where you realize that salt is not just the sidekick for Pepper, but actually can like, completely reshape a meal if you stride. And you. You actually wrote, sorry if it's awkward that I'm quoting you to you, but he wrote, if one lesson stays with you, if one lesson from this book stays with you, let it be. This salt has a greater impact on flavor than any other ingredient.
- [18:52]
Samin Nosrat
It really does. Yeah.
- [18:53]
Wendy Zuckerman
Do you know why that is?
- [18:54]
Samin Nosrat
It does so many amazing things. You salt meat in advance, which is to say, like a chicken that you're gonna roast tomorrow. I would salt it today to give the salt plenty of time to be absorbed and be distributed evenly throughout the meat. That means, like, tomorrow when I roast it and I take a bite, I won't have salty skin and bland meat. I'm gonna have an evenly, perfectly seasoned chicken. Right. The salt has penetrated and gone all the way through, but also the salt will have worked on some of the proteins and so. And ultimately leading to much more tender meat. It sort of disables some of the proteins, leading to more tender meat. And that is like, a crazy function, is like, just by salting your meat in advance, you will have a more tender meat. Salt also on it has an. A kind of an ability. If you think about a tomato, like slicing a tomato, and you salt your tomato slices and you wait a few minutes, and then you come back and you look and there's like, all this water has come out, right? There's like, the tomato's juicier all of a sudden, and you take a bite of that tomato and the one that has salt, even if it's just a little bit of salt, so little that you don't actually taste it to be saltier. Your experience of eating that tomato is going to be totally different because what the salt has done is by bringing out not only water, but aromatic molecules out of the cells that it started to break down. That means with every bite, your nose is going to breathe in so much more aroma. But the vast percentage of our experience of eating is smell, not taste, right? The vast experience. So the more access we have to aromatic molecules, the more profound our experience of eating is going to be, Right? The more perfumed and profound. Right? So you are always after, like, how do I get those aromatic molecules? It's the same as, like, why people, you know, tear fresh basil into the thing at the last minute. It's because you just want that smell, right? You want that. You want that smell as close to your eating experience as possible, right? The fragrance is what makes it sort of alive. And so salt, a lot of times sort of goes into cells, breaks things down.
- [21:06]
Wendy Zuckerman
I was even surprised that salting correctly when cooking beans can make them more vibrantly colored.
- [21:12]
Samin Nosrat
Yeah, totally. So, like, how does that happen? So what's happening when you have a very salty pot of water and a vegetable in it is immediately, osmosis is gonna start to happen in the pot, but also inside the vegetable, inside the cells of the vegetable. So it's gonna start absorbing in an attempt to reach homeostasis, right? It's gonna start absorbing salt from the pot into itself, and that's what's gonna flavor it. And that means it's, like, holding on, right? It's pulling in minerals, right? It's in a state of pulling in minerals and not letting them out. Whereas if you cook your vegetables in under seasoned water, then in an attempt to reach homeostasis, the vegetables are gonna leach their minerals into the water. And with their minerals, also, the chlorophyll will get affected. They will be less vibrant and less green. Amazing. It's just a wild. Totally. It's a really wild and amazing. It's so incredible. Saltism is so magical.
- [22:09]
Wendy Zuckerman
So in. In the Netflix documentary version of Salt, Fat, Acid Heat, you get to visit, as I guess, for those who haven't seen it, Samin visits the world and sees, like, all these places that kind of represent these elements. And for salt, you visit the soy sauce factory, and. And I have heard you say that, and you could see it. You cry like a baby. Yeah, I wouldn't have said cry like a baby, but I thought, well, since you. What was so emotional about that place?
- [22:41]
Samin Nosrat
Well, for me, so much of it has to do, like, that soy sauce in particular. I also got very emotional in the parmesan factory. And both of those foods are foods that have hundreds or even thousands of years of tradition being made the same way. There's so much knowledge. So the story of that soy sauce producer in particular is that it's one of the last remaining traditional soy Sauce producers in Japan. And what makes it so exquisite is that it's aged for upwards of two years. Whereas if you think of, like, Kikkoman or other industrially produced soy sauces, they're aged around three months maximum. So that thyme is, you know, and in any food that you're producing, thyme is often the most expensive ingredient. In addition to the two years of aging, the soy sauce, this soy sauce is aged in these special barrels, these, like, huge wooden barrels that only one or two people are left in the world who know how to produce these barrels because they last close to 100 years. But as the industry has industrial, like, become so much more industrial, the need for that knowledge and for those barrels has disappeared. Because Kikkoman, just like an industrially produced soy sauce, is just aged in stainless steel casks, like, in the place.
- [24:06]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah.
- [24:06]
Samin Nosrat
So the wood for the barrels is harder to find. The knowledge of producing the barrels is harder to find. And the barrels are part of the taste, Right. There's microbes in that specific type of wood from that place that affect the way that that tastes. So it's almost like I knew in that moment I was, like, getting to taste an endangered food. Right. An endangered species. And Parmesan is not endangered, thankfully. But, like, again, there, you know, years of aging go into making a wheel of Parmesan. Hundreds of gallons of milk go into one wheel of Parmesan. So it's just. It's like this massive amount of work and resources and time for one little bite. And that is what is so meaningful to me, is like, I love those things. I love that in my whole life. I love things that feel like the magic is sort of hidden a little bit.
- [25:01]
Wendy Zuckerman
How do you make Parmesan cheese? What are you doing with all that milk?
- [25:05]
Samin Nosrat
What are they doing? Well, all cheese, this is one of those things that blows my mind. I love dairy so much. What's funny is my girlfriend's lactose intolerant, and I'm like, oh, God, I feel so bad. Like. But, you know, when I was a young cook actually working at Chez Panisse, at this amazing restaurant, one of the things that really sort of took. Blew me. Blew me away was seeing these people, like, these incredibly experienced cooks who literally knew how to make anything from scratch. And that sort of is a little bit of, like, what became my ethic, Right? Like, how can I make this yellow cake from scratch? Right? And so. But one of the things that they didn't make from scratch, it already kind of surprised me that they made it at all. But they didn't make it all the way from scratch was mozzarella cheese. So we would pull fresh mozzarella. We would get the curd from the local producer and then pull it into fresh balls that then we would slice and turn into, like, caprese salad or something else. And it is kind of this magic trick. It truly is. Like, it turns into this rubbery texture, and it's very fun to make. I was like, well, this is amazing, but why aren't we starting with. With milk? Right? Like, we should be able to make. We should be able to make our own curd.
- [26:20]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah, the cow.
- [26:21]
Samin Nosrat
Yeah. It's like, this is the house of. Made from scratch. Let's make this from scratch.
- [26:25]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah.
- [26:25]
Samin Nosrat
So God bless them. Like, these. Like, this is. This is, like, one of those things where I'm like, only at Chez Panisse. I decided to take this on as my project. And I was, you know, probably 20 years old. I had no colon. I was. I. Maybe they sometimes let me cut an onion. Like, I had no culinary experience. I had no business doing this. This is also very early Internet. This is like, 99, 2000. You have to remember. Okay, so there was not, like a. There was not the Internet where you could be, like, how to make mozzarella curd from scratch. There was not that.
- [26:54]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yes.
- [26:54]
Samin Nosrat
So I had to look it up in books. I went to the UC Berkeley, like, Food and Cookbook Science Library, like, sort of looked this up in books, and I found out the basic steps. I called a few cheesemakers who were friends of the restaurant. They all were like, do not do that. They were like. They were like. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. It's so simple. It's just milk and rennet and a little acid. Like, of course. I can totally do it. And they're like, no, literally, because it's so simple. It's one of the hardest curds, one of the hardest cheeses to make. Don't do it. Ooh. So basically, this is all to say I spent, like, an entire summer wasting, like, tens of thousands of gallons of cheese, of milk in an attempt to make mozzarella that, like, never were. Also, because cheese, you have to have everything super sterile because it's at. It's basically the whole point is, like, it's at bacteria growing temperatures. So you just have to make sure you're not growing the wrong bacteria. Right? Like, and so. And so you can make people really sick in cheese making people can die. So you have to Sterilize everything, which is like, do not trust a 20 year old in an restaurant kitchen to be making cheese that you want to eat. Yeah. But one of the things that I learned was, oh, my God, like I would start with a gallon of milk and end up with, I don't even know, 8 ounces, maybe 8 ounces of curd. Wow.
- [28:20]
Wendy Zuckerman
So after the success of Salt Fat Acid Heat, I thought you would be living it up sumayne and living your best life. But you read in your new book, it hasn't been exactly like that. How have you been?
- [28:37]
Samin Nosrat
No, I mean, I'm okay. I'm okay now. That's good. But yeah, it was, you know, I was 38 when the book came out and when the. And I was 37 when the book came out, 38 when the show came out. And I'd spent most of my life till then, much of my life till then being like quite sort of invisible in the world. Right. Like, just head down doing my work, like sort of dying for acknowledgement, for the hard work. And then I went from one extreme of like being very sort of underseen to then being like very over seen. Yeah, it's just that, like, it kind of knocked me off kilter in a lot of ways and I had to. Yeah, I like sunk pretty deep in depression.
- [29:26]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah. You wrote that the sense of joy that you'd always found in cooking and eating no longer felt attainable.
- [29:33]
Samin Nosrat
Yeah, yeah, it was really. It was a very. You know, obviously during this time, it was also. There was Covid.
- [29:42]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah.
- [29:42]
Samin Nosrat
There was like George Floyd murder. But ultimately. And part of it had to do with my dad dying and like, watching my dad. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, thank you. I was just like watching this very complicated and kind of horrible person die a very sad, prolonged, complicated death. And my dad was such a chaos agent and created so much pain for so many people. And his last months were really awful for a variety of reasons. But part of sort of the, like, takeaway was that, like, he was alone. You know what I mean? Like, my brother and I were there with him as much as we could be, but like, there was. And we were just in this sea of chaos that he had created during this time. It was so horrible and uncomfortable for all of us, including him. And I was like, this is the worst way I could imagine for somebody to die. It's just so lonely and sad and pathetic. And I kind of had this moment of being like, you know, when I'm on my deathbed, I want to look back and know that I made a life that was full of beauty and joy and friendship and connection and deliciousness and puppy dogs and gardens and, you know, art. And so once he died, I kind of was. I think this is pretty common. But I very much was sort of washed over with a sense of, like, you only live once. You know what I mean? Like, the sort of preciousness of time really sort of was like, I could see it so clearly in that state of, like, grief was just like, oh, I've spent my whole life trying to be good and to do good and to win the affection of the people around me. And I've had this sort of voice in the back of my head being like, just put your head down. Do good, do good, do good. Like, I'm investing in a good bank account so that one day I'll reach some sort of, like, balance from which I can withdraw and be happy, you know? And I was like, oh, there's no day, right? There's no there that you get to, like, I have to. Why am I making myself so miserable in the meantime? The meantime is all there is. And so I think I sort of have just changed as much as a person can change my policy about that. Of, like, oh, I have to, like, even if I'm on deadline and I feel really bad about being behind, which is all the time, like, I still have to take a break and go have watermelon in the park with my friends. You know what I mean? I still have to have a little bit of joy every day. And I still have. And a way that I can do that is this, like, simple act of cooking. And that if I sort of understand, if I sort of reorient my entire understanding of what's valuable in my. In my life, and that the ultimate most valuable thing is my time, right? The only thing I can't make more of, the only thing I can't, you know, produce more of is time. That's actually the most precious currency I have. And so my act of spending time for you or with you or on you is the most beautiful gift I can give you. And vice versa, right? You know, it's not like, oh, I'm just trying to make the world's best lasagna. It's like, I'm thinking about the person who asked me to make lasagna for their birthday while I make this. And I'm like, putting all of that energy into this thing that takes sometimes two days to make, right? So that when you eat it, you feel like I spent two days of my precious time on you and happily right.
- [33:27]
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- [34:54]
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- [35:31]
Samin Nosrat
In your book.
- [35:32]
Wendy Zuckerman
In your new book in Good Things. It's filled with obviously fabulous recipes and these sort of bigger tips about like just living a happier life, I think, but also a bunch of fun facts about fun science y facts about food. You know the excuse that I I was like I have to get some meat on the show. We better talk about science. But so can you tell me one of the things you mentioned is that you need to bring eggs to room temperature before baking them. Why is that?
- [36:03]
Samin Nosrat
Oh yeah, well it's. Oh, that's such a good question. It's just such a simple question. It's so good because it is in almost every baking recipe. Make sure your eggs are at room Temperature.
- [36:14]
Wendy Zuckerman
Right.
- [36:15]
Samin Nosrat
And just like I was saying about butter having like, very specific qualities at different temperatures, eggs do, too. And also, it's not that, it's not even so much necessarily that an egg at room temperature will whip better than a cold egg, even though it will. Like, a room temperature egg white will hold air more readily than a cold one.
- [36:35]
Wendy Zuckerman
Okay.
- [36:35]
Samin Nosrat
But often in baking, what you're doing is you're combining different ingredients, like with an egg into a cake batter. Say what you're doing is you have your soft butter that maybe you've creamed with your sugar or whatever, or reverse creamed or whatever, and then you're going to add eggs into that. And often you do one egg at a time, let it mix in, add the next egg, or even, sometimes more. Like, you even do it more gradually where you're just adding, you're dribbling the egg in. And that's because you are trying to keep an emulsion. You know, you're trying to have this cake batter or mixture or cookie dough or whatever come together into a unified texture and a unified mixture. And if things are vastly different temperatures, they're going to, they're not going to come together as readily, like. Right. And if the, if, if you're adding a cold thing into a warm thing, they're kind of going to reject each other a little bit. Right. You want everything to be similar temperature.
- [37:31]
Wendy Zuckerman
Aha. On a sort of different note, but fridge related, you write that refrigeration destroys a tomato's delicate flavor.
- [37:41]
Samin Nosrat
Yes, it is true. It does destroy the delicate tomato flavor. When I was a baby cook, somebody told me they, I feel like they had a fridge magnet that said, like, I think it said that, like, refrigeration destroy. I think it, I think I was quoting the fridge magnet. But, but, but it's part. Basically, tomatoes are very delicate, and this goes back to those aromatic molecules. And also, a tomato, like many other things, is sensitive to temperature. What a fridge does to vegetables is it slows down the decay, essentially. Right. Like a vegetable from the moment it's picked is dying. Right. So and so. And also a lot of things are happening chemically inside those vegetables. Like, for example, a thing many of us have heard is with sweet corn, for example, like, it's the freshest the moment it's picked, or it's the sweetest the moment it's picked. And that's totally true. Like, I. People I know who grew up in the Midwest, where they grow a lot of corn, you know, the grandma would put on the pot of Water to bring it to a boil before sending the kids out into the yard to pick the corn. Cause she's like, it has to go straight from the picking into the pot. And grandma was right. Because what you're doing when you pick a vegetable is, like the minute you pick it, its innate sugars start transforming into starches. So, like, if you've had starchy corn, you know, that's like, kind of like dry and starchy. That's probably because it's old. Or it could be the variety. But if it's supposed to be like corn on the cob, it's the sweetest. The moment's picked. That's why you want to eat the corn, like the day you bring it home from the farmer's market, if you can. And so the same is true for a tomato. Tomatoes ripen slightly differently, but still you want to pick them at the peak of their sugars and putting them in the fridge. What it's going to do to a tomato's texture is it's going to start degrading the cells, and the cells will become meal. Like, the texture of the tomato will start to become mealy.
- [39:37]
Wendy Zuckerman
Oh, I can just see your face. You're so disgusted.
- [39:40]
Samin Nosrat
That's so gross.
- [39:43]
Wendy Zuckerman
What tomato?
- [39:44]
Samin Nosrat
And you'll lose a lot of those. And you'll lose a lot of those aromatic molecules, which are what makes a tomato have such sort of vibrant, fresh flavor. So I really. I don't put tomatoes in the fridge. I always leave them out at room temperature. Yeah, you.
- [40:00]
Wendy Zuckerman
You have spent a lot of time thinking about food systems and how we get food to how all that food ends up in our supermarket.
- [40:07]
Samin Nosrat
It's so interesting. Sometimes you find out the craziest things. Yeah, yeah. So, like, on your plate, you can see sort of the effects of sociopolitical conflict, of, like, economic sanctions, of. And you can taste the changes that happen with these. So, for example, cinnamon is, I think, a really great example. So until about, I would say, the mid-1900s, in this country, in the U.S. our predominant source, or our main source of cinnamon was Vietnam. And the cinnamon grown in Vietnam is sweet. Like, when you taste a piece of cinnamon bark, it tastes sweet on your tongue. It also is very high in the, like, the oils, like the cinnamon oils that are kind of make it taste spicy. So if you've ever had, like, red hot gum or red hot candies or big red gum.
- [41:06]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yes.
- [41:07]
Samin Nosrat
Like that taste of that very spicy sort of cinnamon that. Like that. That is what I'm talking about. Right. But if I told you to picture cinnamon, you wouldn't think of red hot gum. You would think of apple pie or cinnamon apple cider donuts or something.
- [41:21]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yes.
- [41:22]
Samin Nosrat
Which is a totally different kind of cinnamon. And that cinnamon comes historically from Mexico or India, but. And it has just a completely different sort of, like, molecular makeup and a different spice profile. It's much less spicy and more sort of soft, softly flavored. That's if you want to picture the difference between, like I said, apple pie and big red gum. Yeah, right. Those things are both cinnamon, but totally different kinds of cinnamon. And so until, like, mid-1900s, basically everyone here, like, our experience of cinnamon was this Vietnamese, very sweet, very spicy cinnamon. And then when the Vietnam War happened, and there were sanctions, economic sanctions posed on all goods coming here from Vietnam. From, like, this, I think, late 60s until the late 90s when Bill Clinton was president, there were nothing from Vietnam could enter this country. So an entire generation and a half of people, their experience of cinnamon shifted into Indian, Mexican, Chinese cinnamon. And so that taste of that big red whatever felt. And I fall into that group, Right. I was born in 79.
- [42:36]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yes.
- [42:36]
Samin Nosrat
And then one day, I can't remember when it was probably 2002, 2003, someone gave me a piece of Vietnamese cinnamon bark like I'd never had it before. And it's so good that I now only use Vietnamese cinnamon in my cooking. Like, I always look for it, and at this point, you can find it. Like, I got. You can get it at Costco. You can get it at Whole Foods. You just look for. It's called Vietnamese or Saigon cinnamon. But it is this way where, you know, it tells this story, right? This, like, taste and this simple ingredient tells this crazy, like, global story. And then.
- [43:08]
Wendy Zuckerman
Why are vanilla beans so expensive?
- [43:11]
Samin Nosrat
Oh, my God. Vanilla beans are so crazy. So at one point, I was staying in the. Like, near the Palm Desert, and somehow somebody was like, you gotta go visit this orchid greenhouse. They're so amazing. There wasn't a lot for me to do in Palm Desert, so I was like, I'll go visit the orchid greenhouse. So I went to the orchid greenhouse, and I saw the different types of orchids. I'm not a major orchid nerd, but it was still pretty cool.
- [43:36]
Wendy Zuckerman
They're very sexy. They're very. I feel like I totally, you know, totally.
- [43:40]
Samin Nosrat
It's amazing. And at the very end of the tour, they were like. I was like, oh, what's that thing? And there was this one sort of plant that was like, this crazy vining, trailing plant. And they're like, oh, that's vanilla. And I was like, what? And they're like, vanilla bean. I was like, vanilla is an orchid. And they're like, yes. And so vanilla is an orchid plant or vanilla is the seed pod from an orchid plant. And it takes almost a year for a vanilla bean to mature on the plant. And in that year when the, when the plant flowers, it's so finicky that on a vanilla farm, a human has to go and hand pollinate each flower to ensure that like enough vanilla will be produced. Because there's, I think, something like a three day window for that flower to be pollinated. So if they were left to the bees and nature, you know, probably you would get a much smaller yield of vanilla. So for one thing, like that step already is so sort of, wow, you've got humans, literally, you got humans hand pollinating, but also in this very small time window, right? So you have to get that right. And then you have to wait however many months. I think, I think it's upward of eight months for the seed pod to ripen and then they're picked. And then there's a multi step, basically process, fermentation process. Because when they're picked, it's not the pod, it's not the vanilla bean that we know, it's still not usable. So it has to go through a multi step sort of drying and fermentation process to become the fragrant pod that we know. So when you understand that and then layer onto that a whole other understanding that these places where vanilla is endemic are among the most vulnerable to climate disaster. Like you start to learn, oh, right. Like, wow, this is a, an incredible treasure for humankind that actually is on the verge of extinction. And, you know, it can only grow in this very limited climate. And if we do not protect those climates, those people who live there, the plants, then we will lose this and we will likely lose vanilla. Probably not in my lifetime, but probably in the next generation's lifetime, like, it will probably not. Vanilla, chocolate, coffee, like bananas. There are a lot of foods that we sort of don't think about that are not long for this world.
- [46:09]
Wendy Zuckerman
When you look at the food trends out there, you know, whether it's Soylent or robots serving us food.
- [46:16]
Samin Nosrat
Oh my God.
- [46:17]
Wendy Zuckerman
Various diets. Ketogenic, carnivore.
- [46:21]
Samin Nosrat
Yeah. Oh, my God.
- [46:23]
Wendy Zuckerman
What, what terrifies you the most?
- [46:26]
Samin Nosrat
Oh, my God. What terrifies you? I'm like anxious. All the things you just listed make me so anxious. Oh, God. I mean, I think what really, this isn't really a trend. But I think what I'm going to turn the. Sorry, I'm not going to answer your question. I'm going to turn it inside out. I feel so protective. And of the people who grow produce and make our food that we get to eat. They're such unglamorous. It's such unglamorous work. It's such low paying work in general, across cultures, across countries, across populations. And also it's this, right? Like food is this thing that gets valorized in TV shows like the Bear and Top Chef and whatever. But in this country in particular, there is such a flawed system for food production that serves really just a few large interests at the cost of the environment, at the cost of the people who produce the food. And so there is just this kind of way where we as a population have been trained to expect our food to be very cheap. And I say that understanding we're like on the brink of a recession and a lot of people face like sort of economic precarity in their lives. So I'm not necessarily out here saying everything should be more expensive, but I am saying, like, I, it's kind of just built in that we expect that we should be able to go get a taco for this much, a burger for this much, you know, and it should be cheap. But when you sort of take a step back and think about it, you're like, how are the people, the many people who worked on producing this thing to get it to us, making a living and you know, paying for their basic needs. And I worked in kind of the fanciest restaurant in America for a while and like, you know, I did not achieve financial stability in my own life until I had like a miracle situation and sold a book and had a Netflix show, right. Like I was existed in economic precarity as well. Totally. But like in this moment that we live in, in this like late capitalism, like everything at the touch of a button available to us, everything so digitized and separate and we're so removed from the process of making and like having anything made for us. I really believe, like, food and restaurants are kind of one of the last vestiges in our daily lives of having an experience of something be handmade for you, right? Like, and having this like, human to human, like somebody, I made this for you. That doesn't happen anymore. Like with so many of the goods in our life, right? Like we're so far you don't meet the person who made your shoes or your clothes or your headphones, right? But you are a room Apart from the person who made you this plate of food, sometimes they're handing it to you. And so it is kind of this, like, incredibly valuable and beautiful thing that we still have, like, a little bit of access to in our lives. And I'm just so sad that every force in our lives and in the world is sort of hell bent on eradicating even that from. From us and letting us appreciate it. And I don't know. There's no solution that I know. You know, I don't know that there's an answer. I'm not criticizing anyone for buying or eating any food. I just. It kind of breaks my heart. Yeah.
- [50:07]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah.
- [50:08]
Samin Nosrat
It's a real depressing note. Sorry.
- [50:10]
Wendy Zuckerman
Well, we can't end there. We can't end there. How about we end here? Why is spaghetti the very last place a meatball belongs to?
- [50:22]
Nordstrom Advertiser
Direct.
- [50:23]
Samin Nosrat
Quiet. It's so funny. It really is.
- [50:29]
Wendy Zuckerman
My editor was like. We had this on my question, and she was like, you asked that question, Wendy.
- [50:36]
Samin Nosrat
It's very important. Well, and I say that quoting the song, on top of spaghetti all covered with cheats, right? Like. Like, I'm just like, no, no. Have you ever had a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs? Have you ever had one?
- [50:51]
Wendy Zuckerman
We, at our house, we actually do it with macaroni. It's macaroni.
- [50:54]
Samin Nosrat
Okay, well, there we go, because so already you're making a better choice.
- [50:59]
Wendy Zuckerman
My mom will be very happy. It's a grandma's recipe. Okay.
- [51:03]
Samin Nosrat
Spaghetti is an insane choice of shape to eat with a meatball. For one thing, a meatball is like this huge thing. You have to sort of break it down. Spaghetti is this long. Whatever. You're never gonna get the right amount of meatball on the fork with the right amount of spaghetti. It's like, it's bad. So either, like, I'm like, if you're gonna do pasta, choose a different shape that's, like, more amenable. Where, like, the. The stabbing works for. But you know what I mean? Like, and. Or. Or, like, eat it on a bowl of polenta. Eat it with some grilled bread. Do something else with your time. Like, I'm. Eat a meatball sandwich, but not on a spaghetti, Please, for the life of me. Because also, like, you're like, you have a whole bowl of spaghetti, and then what? You have three meatballs on it just looks wrong. You're like, I don't know.
- [51:51]
Wendy Zuckerman
All right, lightning round. Thank you. Thank you very much.
- [51:56]
Samin Nosrat
All right, hit me.
- [51:57]
Wendy Zuckerman
Lightning round of oddball questions. What is the most dangerous thing you've done for a book.
- [52:07]
Samin Nosrat
Ooh, I don't know. Oh, my God. I feel the pressure of the lightning. And I don't have an answer for you right now. I mean, I do all sorts of dangerous things that I would never recommend. I mean, I've probably eaten. You know what I've probably done that's the most dangerous?
- [52:21]
Wendy Zuckerman
What? Eaten the cheese that you tried to cook.
- [52:25]
Samin Nosrat
So I've definitely had stuff where I'm like, is this salad dressing still good? 3 and a half months later, I'll try it. Why not? Like, I think I've definitely taken my life into my own hands eating, like potentially rotten food. But also I'm still here, so it's fine.
- [52:39]
Wendy Zuckerman
Exactly. Exactly.
- [52:40]
Samin Nosrat
Yeah.
- [52:42]
Wendy Zuckerman
All right, finish this sentence. Now that I know blank, I'll never look at my blank the same way again.
- [52:48]
Samin Nosrat
Oh. I mean, I think now that I know how long it takes to make a vanilla bean, I'll never look at a vanilla bean the same way again. Yeah.
- [52:57]
Wendy Zuckerman
Funnest object sitting in your house.
- [53:00]
Samin Nosrat
Oh, oh, oh. Oh. My friend gave me. My friend gave me the coolest thing. It's a set of like Russian style dolls. But instead of being Russian like dolls, there are vegetables. So like it's like a broccoli and, and then a bok choy and then like, I can't remember what the. Oh, narda choke. And then a cucumber and then a pea pod and then the peas.
- [53:25]
Wendy Zuckerman
Oh, that's so cute.
- [53:28]
Samin Nosrat
It's so cool. It's like hand painted wood. It's so beautiful. Yeah.
- [53:32]
Wendy Zuckerman
Oh, what a joy. Biggest mistake you've made while cooking.
- [53:37]
Samin Nosrat
I mean, there are million to choose from, but I mean, there was one time. I don't know, is this kind of a mistake? Well, yeah, it is a mistake. I was in a rush and I chose to. I like very consciously chose to use not the safest knife for cutting into a butternut squash. Because the knife in the restaurant where I worked, I always had a two handled knife, which is the knife you use when you cut into a wheel of parmesan or anything sort of unwieldy because that way you're seesawing your way into it instead of jamming a knife in that could slip out.
- [54:16]
Nordstrom Advertiser
Oh, yeah.
- [54:16]
Samin Nosrat
And injure you. So our, for some reason, our large two handled knife had gone missing for a few days, which is. Is very weird. And so I was too. And I had even made a mental note like, get a new one of those before someone hurts themselves. But then I was in a rush and I just Instead of choosing the next safest knife, which would have been a very big one, I just grabbed the closest one, which was little, and I went into my butternut squash and I stabbed myself in the hand and I had to have surgery.
- [54:43]
Wendy Zuckerman
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
- [54:46]
Samin Nosrat
No, but, yeah, it was very intense. I truly. Yeah, I was very intense.
- [54:50]
Wendy Zuckerman
Wow.
- [54:51]
Samin Nosrat
That was a big mistake. That was a mistake. Is it true?
- [54:53]
Wendy Zuckerman
Because I did a. I had to go to emergency for trying to cut a bagel with.
- [54:58]
Samin Nosrat
Oh, yeah. And I've heard the bagel and the avocado are two of the most. I knew a hand surgeon and he said bagels and avocados were like the two of the most sort of common injuries. Yes. That brought people to hand surgery.
- [55:10]
Wendy Zuckerman
Thank you so much, Sabine.
- [55:11]
Samin Nosrat
Oh, thank you.
- [55:12]
Wendy Zuckerman
So lovely.
- [55:13]
Samin Nosrat
You're so great. Yep.
- [55:14]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah.
- [55:15]
Samin Nosrat
Thank you.
- [55:15]
Wendy Zuckerman
You, It's. Yeah. I really appreciate your time and your work and your new book and it's really.
- [55:21]
Samin Nosrat
Oh, thank you. I definitely was like, am I the science or am I the verses? Because I'm not a scientist.
- [55:30]
Wendy Zuckerman
Yeah. Thank you so much.
- [55:33]
Samin Nosrat
Thank you. Nice talking to you, Wendy.
- [55:35]
Wendy Zuckerman
Lovely to talk to you. That was the award winning cook, Samin Nossrat. Her new book is called Good Things. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.
- [56:18]
Samin Nosrat
The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently. I am Robert Ince and I'm sat next to Brian Cox, who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series. Primarily eels. And what else that. It was fascinating though. The eels. But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit with it. Brain computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud science of the North Pole and eels. Did I mention the eels? Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the Sargasso sea. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.