| February 24, 2006 THREE days in the last TWO weeks, someone has spit in the gravy! What the hell am I talking about? Well the cafeteria serves biscuits and gravy for breakfast a few days a week- one of my favorites. But several times I've moved to scoop gravy on my plate and almost puked; the gravy had broken down into a runny discharge-colored soup barely recognizable for what it once was. How do I know someone spit in it? A friend once told me a story about a restaraunt that had trouble with its gravy recipe because it would keep breaking down as I described above. They had chefs and teams from the nearby branches come in to see what this one place was doing wrong. They followed the recipe to the letter, used the same utensils, cleaned them properly, stored the ingredients perfectly, and so on but could not figure out the problem. Then one person noticed that the head chef would taste the stirring spoon and continue using it in the gravy, a not uncommon practice among chefs for other foods, and due to the huge amount of gravy, it carried minimal germy hazards. Well the expert team concluded that was the problem- it only took less than a drop of saliva in contact with the gravy to break down the whole batch into a runny discharge-colored soup barely recognizable for what it once was. I didn't know whether this was true, so I did a little research to support the story. "Most people have lots of alpha-amylase in their saliva, which starts the process of breaking down starch.." (1) A common recipe for gravy requires "2 Tablespoons of fat, 2 Tablespoons of flour, and 1 Cup of liquid." (2) Flour is made from starchy products such as wheat. (3) Therefore, when the alpha-amylase in saliva comes into contact with the key starchy flour ingredient of gravy, it begins to break down into runny discharge-colored soup barely recognizable for what it once was. So I'm fucking pissed as hell because some dumbass has been spitting in the gravy in the cafeteria, ruining my favorite part of the day- breakfast. Grawr! Sources: 1. http://www.science-projects.com/enzymes.htm 2. http://www.allthingsfrugal.com/h_gravy.htm 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour |