Excerpts

Part One This Is What You Put in Your Mouth This Is What You Put on Your Meat A.1. Steak Sauce A sauce of ­sulfur-­based compounds, a saliva prompter, and thick gooey bacterial excretions. NOTE: For this story I was privileged to interview noted chef Alton Brown, who was generous enough to share with me some of his thoughts on the ingredients. Tomatoes Pureed berries from the famously toxic nightshade family. The leaves and stems are poisonous, but the fruit is eminently edible. All ­tomatoes--­not just varieties called ­"beefsteak"--­contain about 0.25 percent glutamic acid, one of the savory chemicals that give beef its meatiness. Concentrated tomato fiber also imparts thickness. Alton Brown: Tomatoes, like mushrooms, aged cheeses, red wine, and beef, contain amino acids that deliver meaty flavors that have become known as "umami." Adding them to a steak can help to turn the flavor up to eleven. Raisin Paste A key ingredient since chef H. W. Brand added it to King George IV's steak sauce in the 1820s. Raisins contain antioxidants, which may have helped mask the rancid flavor of spoiling meat in the days before refrigeration. Alton Brown: The inclusion of raisin paste is genius. The ultimate accompaniment to a steak is a glass of red wine, again due to the complex "umami" effect. Wine is made from grapes, raisins are grapes, so it's a natural. Raisin paste also serves as a binder and in this case a replacement for fats such as olive oil. Distilled Vinegar One of the oldest meat tenderizers. Earlier versions of A.1. used tastier (but more expensive) malt vinegar, which is made from unhopped beer. The distilled variety is made from industrial vats of pure ethanol, fermented by ­rod-­shaped Acetobacter bacteria. Alton Brown: Vinegar contains acetic acid, and in the mouth acids prompt the release of the ultimate meat tenderizer: saliva. Acidity also helps to balance sweetness and enhance aromatic qualities. Once upon a time A.1. was formulated with malt vinegar, which is full of complex flavors created during the malting process of barley. These days they use cheap distilled vinegar. So much for complexity. Corn Syrup Here, as in so many other American foods, corn syrup is used as a sweetener and thickener. Early advertisements described this stuff as ­"pre-­digested" and ready for use by the blood, like ­that's a good thing. Well, during World War II, it was a good thing: donated red blood cells were concentrated and stored in corn syrup before use. Alton Brown: A small amount of sweetness does enhance the flavors created by a good sear, but the tomato paste in A.1. covers that base just fine. The corn syrup here functions as a texture adjuster, smoothing out any grit from the tomato puree. It gives the sauce "cling" to hold on to the target food. It masks "off" flavors (ask Mary Poppins about that one) and it gives Americans what they like best of all: sweetness. Salt Salt, sugar, and meaty umami flavor are positive tastes, leading us ­toward nutrients; bitter and sour are negative, ­driv­ing us away from alkalines and acids. When salt hits the taste buds, it suppresses the perception of bitterness. One tablespoon of A.1. (and, ­really, who uses that little?) contains an eighth of your recommended daily dosage of sodium. Alton Brown: The word "sauce" ultimately derives from the Latin "sal," meaning "salt," so this is the only ingredient that makes absolute sense. Besides the fact that salt just plain tastes good, some say it has a very special effect on taste buds, essentially amplifying their detection abilities. Above all, salt counteracts sweetness. Without it, A.1. would be a dessert sauce. Crushed Orange Puree Older versions of A.1. used marmalade made with bittersweet Seville oranges. The switch to a puree is likely more apparent to the nose than to the tongue. Alton Brown: The very unique bitterness of marmalade combined with the gamey acidity of the malt vinegar made for a pretty great sauce. Replacing the pricier marmalade with crushed orange puree grants A.1. a bit of complexity, but most of the citrus is detected in the nose rather than the mouth. It also helps to cover the jaggedness of the distilled vinegar. Dried Garlic and Onion Beef has scores of ­sulfur-­based flavor compounds, most notably hydrogen sulfide. Since garlic and onions also contain sulfur compounds, they can help make even the lousiest cuts taste richer and "meatier." Alton Brown: This is one case where the dried version is superior to fresh. Not only are dried garlic and onion more powerful than raw forms, since they're standardized products their performance is predictable. Spices and Herbs A corporate secret, of course. Alton Brown: Legally, a food manufacturer does not have to list herbs and spices by name. I can't detect any individual spice flavors in A.1. but if I were to make my own I'd reach for dry mushroom powder, allspice, white pepper, and anchovy (not technically a spice but a powerful flavorant nonetheless). Caramel Color Sugar or similar carbohydrates browned at about 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The brown tint eliminates the red of the tomatoes. Alton Brown: Humans eat with their eyes first and caramel color says "sear," which is what we want on a steak. Without it, A.1. would look like spaghetti sauce, or worse yet . . . ketchup. Xanthan Gum A polysaccharide excreted by the Xanthomonas campestris bacterium, this gummy substance has a peculiar viscosity: it thickens the mix, stabilizing the ingredients, but when shaken or poured, it behaves in a more liquid manner. [BACKSTORY] I love A.1. I can practically eat it with a spoon. We came up with the idea of interviewing the great chefs of television to get their opinions and insights into A.1. I contacted the representatives for Rachael Ray, Wolfgang Puck, Paula Deen, Alain Ducasse, Mario Batali, Nigella Lawson, Emeril Lagasse, Alice Waters, Anthony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver, and Tom Colicchio. None of them were willing or able to help. Most of them ­didn't even respond. Bobby ­Flay's people said he would, but then Flay flaked. Only Alton Brown came through, and boy did he ever come through! He gave intelligent, ­well-­thought-­out answers to our questions and offered his insights into what the secret herbs and spices might be. I can't say enough good things about Alton Brown. The research for these stories ­doesn't stop with just the current ingredient list. As conglomerates buy up small ­mom-­and-­pop companies, they tend to subtly change the formulation of their newly acquired products, either to make them cheaper to produce or to better fit into the company's manufacturing flow. I had a sneaking suspicion that A.1., which had been passed around several companies since the 1980s, was extremely likely to have been reformulated over the years. But how do you find out the ingredients that were in a product thirty or sixty years ago? Especially if the new parent company ­doesn't want to help you (and might not even know the ­pre-­buyout formulation)? You do what I did: turn to our old friend the Internet. Find the November 5, 1956, issue of Life magazine in Google Books. Preview the issue, and scroll down to page 79. You'll see a ­full-­page, ­full-­color broiled steak, with a bottle of A.1. steak sauce standing before it like a conqueror. Now zoom in on the label. Google scanned these magazines at such high resolution that you can clearly read the ingredient list on the bottle and can compare it to the current ingredient list. Kids, this is how you get information that no one else seems to have. While you have that image in front of you, look at the ­next-­to-­last item in the ingredient list. A.1. used to contain a substance called "tragacanth." It's not in the modern variety at all. A little research found that tragacanth is a tree sap, commonly used back then as a thickener (probably before the development of xanthan gum). It's used in very few foods today. I wonder what tragacanth tasted like. This Is What You Put in Your Dog Purina Alpo Chop House Beef Tenderloin Flavor in Gourmet Gravy Chicken, corn, wheat, and an unknown liver, flavored to taste like beef. Poultry Here's the dirty little secret. Poultry, according to the FDA, can be any domesticated bird: chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. But it can also include creatures that you don't find in as many storybooks, like ostriches, emus, squabs, guinea hens, pheasants, partridges, quails, or pigeons. Fido probably ­wouldn't have a problem eating any of those birds, but knowing the public outcry that would happen if Alpo were made of pigeons, it's probably a safe bet that this ingredient is either chicken or turkey, according to availability (i.e., whichever bird happens to be cheaper in the commodities market on the day the Alpo factory buys its raw materials). Liver Rich in iron, liver is your pet's "hot ­button"--­when dogs kill in the wild, they will usually devour the liver and other organs first. The problem is that Alpo is not a wild kill; it comes from an ­animal-­processing plant, and the ingredient list never specifies exactly whose liver it is. We're pretty sure it's not horse. While horsemeat used to be a staple of dog food, at the time of this writing the last horse abattoir in the US closed in 2007. Wheat Gluten The rubbery ­high-­protein concentrate ­that's left over after a wheat kernel has had its carbohydrates removed. (The flavored variety in your local Whole Foods is commonly called seitan, and it is used as a meat substitute in vegetarian diets.) It's made of two proteins: gliadin, which is the sticky toxin responsible for celiac disease, and glutenin, which shares the same Latin root as gluten and glue. This gives dough its strength and elasticity. Something like 0.75 percent ­(three-­quarters of 1 percent) of healthy American humans are sensitive to gliadin (the stat always seems to be mentioned in relation to "healthy" people) but dogs may be different; in a 1937 study, six dogs fed ­high-­gliadin diets (in the range of 16-25 percent of total caloric intake) all had reactions that bore a striking resemblance to epileptic convulsions, most likely due to becoming sensitized to the protein. Also, dogs fed ­high-­gliadin diets developed a deficiency in the vital amino acid lysine. Soy Flour Ground‑up soybeans, rich in lysine. ­Wouldn't you know. For a product with the word "beef" in the title, we have to wonder just how much of these vegetable-­derived proteins are in Alpo. In fact, the FDA warns consumers about this possibility when choosing a pet food: even though poultry is the first ingredient, the wheat and soy ­products--­when added ­together--­may turn out to be the most abundant protein in this product. Meat ­By-­products Societies that eat animals usually are in agreement about eating animal muscle; few omnivores dislike sirloin, chicken breast, or ham hocks. But different cultures have differing views of eating animal organs or entrails. Affluent white Anglozone Americans often shun things like hearts and lungs, while other cultures treat those and other organs like delicacies. Modern life is all about efficiency, using every last bit of what we have, so meat processors usually have no problem selling lungs, spleens, kidneys, brains, blood, bones, some fatty tissue, and stomach and intestines as dog food. It may sound pretty disgusting to us, but remember, thirty thousand years ago, your precious little Fido was still a wolf. If he reverted and began hunting livestock on his own, there's no way he would leave those juicy bits behind. Beef Finally! Beef! The legal definition of beef stretches like a pair of Spanx to include striated skeletal muscle, tongue, diaphragm, heart, esophagus, and overlying fat, and the skin, sinew, nerves, and blood vessels normally found with that flesh. But wait: ­doesn't the label say that this must be "beef tenderloin"? Not at all. The label calls for "beef tenderloin flavor." Based on its appearance underneath meat ­by-­products on the label, there just might be more spleen than sirloin in Alpo. Modified Cornstarch Regular cornstarch turns into a thick, cloudy gel with the addition of liquids and heat. Modified cornstarch, when wetted and heated, becomes a clear mucuslike gel, excellent for filling fruit pies. ­What's the difference? Instead of stretching out in a chain, modified cornstarch molecules are ­cross-­linked to one another. That way, they swell with water just like regular starch but don't break down and become opaque. The ­FDA-­approved chemicals for modifying cornstarch include hydrochloric and sulfuric acids, hydrogen peroxide, chlorine, and sodium chloride. Calcium Phosphate Bones. But not ­really. Vertebrate bones (is "vertebrate bones" redundant?), which dogs love to crunch on, are made of a specific type of calcium phosphate known as hydroxyapatite. But there's a specific FDA category for "bone meal," which is used on ingredient lists when real bones are employed in domestic animal feed. So what is this stuff? It is very much like bones without actually being bones. It is the mineral form of calcium phosphate, which can be dug out of the ground and added to Alpo to provide necessary calcium for your canine. The good news is that you need less of this stuff to match the equivalent of bone meal, plus you avoid any risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (a.k.a. "mad cow") disease being passed along. (This is a good thing; dogs don't appear to be susceptible to the disease, but why risk it?) The bad news is that too much mined calcium phosphate can lead to calcium uroliths (a.k.a. doggie bladder stones), particularly in the little yappy breeds like Yorkshire terriers. Natural Flavor According to the FDA, pet foods often contain "digests," which are materials treated with heat, enzymes, and/or acids to form concentrated natural flavors. But what flavor? Liver? Poultry? Beef? Death? Your dog, being part scavenger, is naturally drawn to the smell of relatively newly dead carrion; pet food manufacturers know this and do what they can to make their wet food deliberately stinky. But not too stinky; a ­really ­bad-­smelling pet food might entice a dog but can be too repulsive for the humans who have to shell out money to buy the stuff. [BACKSTORY] The trouble started when I asked Alpo, "Whose liver is this?" As I explained earlier, when I research a product, I first contact the company. They're all excited to hear that someone wants to write about their product. Then I ask some questions, and they often clam up and never want to hear from me again. That's what happened here. The folks at Alpo, a subsidiary of Purina, itself a subsidiary of Nestlé, were thrilled at first when I wanted to write about Alpo Chop House Beef Tenderloin Flavor in Gourmet Gravy. Most corporate communications people are trained to believe that every bit of publicity helps. But when I started asking about meat ­by-­products and liver, they reverted to corporatespeak: Excerpted from This Is What You Just Put in Your Mouth?: Egg Nog to Beef Jerky, the Surprising Secrets of What's Inside Everyday Products by Patrick Di Justo All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.