Description
Abdoulaye Traore, Senior Technical Service Manager, Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate. Presented at the 2017 conference
Since the discovery of fire by mankind, food preparation has slowly but surely evolved to use fire and heat treatment in a variety of ways. In almost every society on the planet, food preparation often involves the use of heat. Today, heat treatment is used to produce food that is flavorful, safe and shelf-stable. Heat is also used to create a variety of food ingredients and flavors for a range of applications in the industry. When heat is used for cooking food, the most noticeable impact on the food is flavor and sensory changes. In many cases, cooked food develops a complex combination of flavors that make it taste good and unique. At the core of that flavor creation is a chemical process that is still being studied 100 years after its discovery by the French scientist Louis-Camille Maillard. This chemical reaction, called “The Maillard Reaction,” has been studied over the years in academia but is often forgotten or undervalued by many food processors. This presentation will take us on a journey of rediscovering the Maillard reaction and how it impacts chocolate making in a more fundamental way than we think.
