As far as soda and the like go, one usually doesn’t know what is on the inside. And after picking up this Mr. RootBeer Root Beer Kit you still might not know what is on the inside, thanks to the inclusion of the mysterious “Root Beer Mix.” But, you’ll still have two gallons of the stuff. Product details (and oh, very well, the ingredient list) continue on below…

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Image source: Diana Banana (clickable)

Time for some good weekend reading. Checking out my RSS feed, I find a nice little list of 10 food additives and what they are used for. Yum!

8. Caramel Coloring

When you don’t have real cocoa to put in food, but you want to make it look like you did, you add caramel coloring. This is sometimes added to mixes and cake batters to make them look chocolatey. Mostly, though, caramel coloring is added to cooked meats, sodas and gravies to give them the golden-brown look that people find appetizing. It’s made by cooking up various sugars with agents like ammonium or alkali. Although it’s possibly carcinogenic, it hasn’t been yanked from shelves, because people love brown food. Love it.

If you want to find out what gives popcorn that (not exactly) buttery taste, or what alkali does to chocolate, check out the source link below.

(Via io9)

Click above to be taken to Serious Eats to see a full-size image detailing what went into making that burger--including sous vide lettuce.

“The most important book in the culinary arts since Escoffier.” –Tim Zagat

Still hot of the press, and already Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cookingis creating a stir. Eliciting comparisons to the Auguste Escoffier tome, Le Guide Culinaire is no small feat. (Ironically, that 100-year old text has an upcoming release date for a new revised English translation.) Consisting of six volumes and almost 2,500 pages, Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Maxime Bilet combines stunning photography with detailed explanations, giving the modern cook a true guide to the culinary arts.

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Find out what goes on behind closed doors in the kitchen. The closed door of the oven, that is. Cooking for Geeks, written by Jeff Potter, is a cookbook that goes beyond recipes and adds a little more spice to the mix. In it, you will learn:

• Why medium-rare steak is so popular.
• Why we bake some things at 350° F/175° C and others at 375° F/190° C.
• How quickly a pizza will cook if we overclock an oven to 1,000° F/540° C.
• How to initialize your kitchen and calibrate your tools.
• Important reactions in cooking, such as protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, and caramelization, and how they impact the foods we cook.
• How to play with your food using hydrocolloids and sous vide cooking.

Read on for a couple of sample recipes.

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No fancy tricks here, just science. Order your own disappearing spoon, but don’t think that’s water you’re drinking. (It’s full of gallium!)

(Via Boing Boing)

Some people need to watch their caffeine intake, others may want to. Well, the way to do that quickly and easily is with the Laboratory Beaker Mug. With a capacity of about 12-ounces, the glass beaker-that-looks-like-a-mug is sure to keep coffee drinkers alert, awake and paying attention to anything and everything.

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