Why does supermarket meat last longer than meat from my butcher?
Why does meat from the supermarket last longer than meat from my butcher? L. Duggan
Because your butcher doesn't have a great big machine that can pack the meat into a plastic container and flush it with gas. Your supermarket does. Air and light are the biggest killers to the appearance of freshness.
Firstly, air whisks away moisture from the cut face of the meat, which dries it and hardens the surface. Oxygen reacts with pigments in the meat under light to form metmyoglobin, a brown or gray pigment. You could eliminate the oxygen altogether but this would create an environment perfect for Clostridium botulinum to thrive. This is a bug that produces a toxin that causes botulism.
The food industry has worked out that keeping the meat in a sealed plastic box, flushed with high oxygen concentrations, helps to keep the red pigment stable in the muscle for twice as long as meat exposed to air.
Studies have shown a mix of 70 per cent oxygen and a massive amount of 30 per cent carbon dioxide sees meat keep fresh for three weeks at 0°C. Normal atmosphere is 78 per cent nitrogen and 21 per cent oxygen and just 0.4 per cent carbon dioxide.
How do I remove the hair from corn? M. Hellier
In polite company, it is called 'silk' and is actually the pistillate flowers of the corncob. The pollen from the tassels or male flowers is carried by wind and captured by the silk and is carried down to fertilise each kernel. Now, enough of the corn porn.
I always buy corn in the husk, feeling the pointy end to make sure the kernels are full and ripe. I boil the corn in the husk and until recently peeled the husk and, like you, struggled to depilate the corn of its silk. Then one of Australia's great food writing doyens Cherry Ripe had a quiet word in my ear.
"I was at the farmers market at Woodend in Victoria," she said.
"The corn man there told me to cook the corn in the husk, then slice the corn at the very end of the cob near the stalk. Remove this and gently squeeze the corn fat end out first."
I tried it and she was right. Out came the corn as smooth as a Victoria's Secret model.
Can I soak my dirty potatoes and beetroot in water prior to cleaning without ill effects? L. Johnson
Try this little experiment. Take a shrivelled root vegetable from the bottom of the drawer or crisper. (It is nothing to ashamed of if you do have shrivelled vegetables. We all lead busy lives) Place it some cold water. Leave. Return several hours later. The vegetable should have plumped up.
Osmosis will see water drawn across the skin into some of the cells to rehydrate. Water-soluble particles in the dirt or residual chemicals that are small enough to pass through the walls of the cells will also migrate across with the water. So soak vegetables in water to loosen dirt in the nooks and crannies after you have given them an initial clean under running water.
Send your vexing culinary conundrums to brainfood@richardcornish.com.au or tweet to @Foodcornish.
