Marlene Parrish - What Einstein Told His Cook 2

Dogs, however, do cool themselves through the mouth by sticking out their long, wet tongues and panting to evaporate the saliva. You might want to try that; it should be more effective than eating an ice cream cone.

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IN CELEBRATION OF INFLATION

I left about half a cup of unfinished ice cream out of the refrigerator overnight and it melted down into only about a quarter of a cup.

Why did it shrink so much?

It was half air.

Federal regulations specify that the amount of “overrun” in ice cream must be less than 100 percent. Overrun is the increase in volume between the product’s ingredients and the final, air-whipped product. A doubling of volume, known as 100 percent overrun, means that the product is 50 percent air.

Oh, you didn’t know that your ice cream may legally contain as much as 50 percent air? Yep. The amount varies widely among ice creams, but the practice is not considered cheating because air adds smoothness. Without beaten-in air, a brick of ice cream would be almost as hard as a frozen stick of butter. On the other hand, an ice cream containing much more than 50 percent air would strike you as watery and inferior.

Store-bought ice cream, whether soft-serve or regular, must legally weigh no less than 4.5 pounds per gallon, or 18 ounces per quart. Try weighing a quart of your favorite kind. If it weighs about 27 ounces, it contains roughly a 50 percent overrun, or 25 percent air. If it weighs less than 18 ounces, call the cops.

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PITTSBURGH CREAM CHEESE?

Just for fun, I counted almost two dozen kinds of cheese in the cheese section of my “gourmet” market, and I’d guess there are hundreds more in the world. But two old standbys from my childhood seem to be different from all the others: cream cheese and cottage cheese. When I was a kid I didn’t know anything else. What makes them so different? Are they purely American?

Not purely American, but primarily so.

What cream cheese and cottage cheese have in common, along with French Neufchâtel and a few others, is that they are not aged or ripened. The milk or milk-and-cream mixture is curdled by an acid (usually lactic acid), and the curds are ready to eat as soon as they are separated from the whey.

Variations of cottage cheese, probably the simplest of all cheeses, are made throughout the world, presumably in cottages, although no one seems to know the origin of the name. It has been known as pot cheese, farmer cheese, bonnyclabber (in Ireland), and Schmierkase (“spreading cheese” in Pennsylvania Dutch), with several variations in spelling.

In the United States, where cottage cheese is most popular and where it was first manufactured commercially early in the twentieth century, it is made by adding a culture of Streptococcus lactis to pasteurized skim or low-fat milk. These bacteria feed on the milk sugar and produce the coagulating lactic acid. Usually, another bacterial culture, Leuconostoc citrovorum , which produces flavorful compounds but no acid, is also added. After a fermentation period of several hours, the curds are cooked and some of the water is drained off, leaving loose, crumbly clumps of curd. That’s cottage cheese. If even more water is removed to make a drier product, the product may be called pot cheese. Press the curds into a cake or loaf and it’s called farmer’s cheese.

Because cottage cheese is quite moist (up to 80 percent water), it is very perishable. As a good growth medium for any pathogenic bacteria that may alight upon it, it must be kept refrigerated.

One cup (226 grams) of 2-percent-fat cottage cheese contains 203 calories, while a cup of 1-percent-fat cottage cheese contains 163 calories. Both kinds have a protein content of 28 grams, or 12.4 percent. That’s why cottage cheese has a reputation as a diet food: It’s high in protein, low in fat and carbohydrate.

Cream cheese is quite a different story. It is indeed an American invention, as you might guess from the fact that there seems to be only one brand, named for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to Kraft Foods, which owns the brand, cream cheese originated in 1872 at a dairy in Chester, New York. In 1880 it was branded “Philadelphia” by a New York distributor because at the time Philadelphia had a reputation for high-quality food products. (Pittsburgh cream cheese apparently didn’t make the cut.)

Today’s cream cheese has a minimum fat content of 33 percent and a maximum moisture content of 55 percent. The Philadelphia brand is 34.9 percent fat and contains 810 calories per cup. Its unique creamy-gummy consistency doesn’t happen automatically, however. It is produced by any of several additives, including algin, a thickener derived from seaweed; locust bean gum from the seeds of the carob tree; gum tragacanth, obtained from various Asian and Eastern European plants; and guar gum, derived from the seed of a leguminous shrub. Smoothness has its price.

Best Damn Cheesecake

This velvety, creamy cheesecake is a cinch to make and never cracks in the oven. Serve with fresh berries, Rhubarb Coulis (chapter 3), or bottled fruit syrup. For best results, use regular Philadelphia brand cream cheese. Do not use a whipped or low-fat variety.

CRUST:

About 10 long graham crackers

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter, melted

FILLING:

3 packages (8 ounces each) regular cream cheese, at room temperature

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

TOPPING:

2 cups (16-ounce container) sour cream (not low-fat)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1.Place a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Spray a 9-inch springform pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2.Make the crust: Place the graham crackers in a food processor or in a zipper-top plastic bag. Whirl to make crumbs, or finely crush with a rolling pin. Measure 1 cup crumbs and place in a small bowl. (Discard any remaining crumbs.) Add the sugar and butter and toss with a fork to mix and moisten the crumbs evenly.

3.Spread the crumbs evenly over the bottom and about ½ inch up the sides of a springform pan, pressing lightly with your fingertips. Refrigerate the crust while you prepare the filling.

4.Make the filling: In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the cheese for 1 minute. Add the eggs, vanilla, and sugar and continue beating for 2 minutes, or until the mixture is creamy.

5.Pour the batter into the crust-lined pan. Place the pan on a baking sheet or pizza pan for stability. Place in the oven and bake for 35 minutes.

6.Make the topping: In a medium bowl, mix together the sour cream, sugar, and vanilla with a rubber spatula until smooth.

7.Remove the cheesecake from the oven. It will be somewhat wobbly in the center. Using a tablespoon, drop portions of the topping over the surface of the cheesecake, working from the outer rim toward the center, until it is evenly distributed and covers the entire top. Return the cake to the oven and bake for 5 minutes.