The Delicious Dilemna

This unit is about how mechanics and technology play their roles in processing our food. Throughout this unit, we also discussed how mass producing corporations get their profits. In this assignment, we were asked to pick any dish and write a review on the dish when it came from the restaurant and then we were supposed to make it at home and compare the two. It was amazing to me how similar the two dishes were, it makes me realize that I can make my favorite dishes at home and know what's in my foods because I made it! After this unit, I like to analyze foods a lot. To know what these industries are doing with our food is astonishing. I definitely am more careful with the foods I put into my body, now.

Food Review 1 (Restaurant):

LR, "BBQ Bacon Cheddar Wedges at The Italian Pizza Kitchen" 5/23/14, Chicago

This is my view on the dish from the restaurant: I ate at the Italian Pizza Kitchen on 1433 N. Dayton St. My dish was one of their big money makers: The Chipotle Bacon Cheddar Wedges. They used to be a bit too spicy for my liking. I asked around and some people thought it would be smart to substitute the Chipotle sauce for Barbecue sauce. It was such a brilliant idea that I tried it the next time I went. These wedges with the BBQ sauce are quite soggy, but not too soggy. It feels as if it was drenched in sauce with a layer of different ingredients on top. The dish seems to have an assortment of different ingredients. The bacon gives the dish a wonderful kick of salt and crunchy texture. Since I like bacon a lot, it came to my attention that everything else on the dish stood out more in taste than bacon did. You could feel the bacon in your mouth, but you couldn’t taste it. It gave the wedges a crunch but all you taste is Barbecue sauce and cheese. Now the smell is a whole different story, you can definitely smell the bacon in the dish. It had a Barbecue bacon smell. The barbecue outweighed everything in the smell department but you could still smell the bacon. The two smells combined, making some type of barbecue bacon smell.


The tangy taste from the Barbecue sauce made the dish a bit sweet also. This dish, being more salty than anything, is definitely unhealthy. I’m sure when we think of healthy foods, pigs, cheese, and potatoes don’t come to mind but we do have to keep in mind that good, healthy food is hard to come by nowadays. Aside from my dish being unhealthy, it was quite fresh. As opposed to any dish from McDonalds’ industrial food choices, it looked steaming hot and the holding container was foggy. When you open it up, smoke comes out immediately, unleashing the beautiful aroma of the Barbecue bacon. Imagine crispy wedges with melted cheddar cheese spread across the top of them. Smoke coming off of the well-cooked bacon like it just came off the stove, on top of everything happening, the wedges are also drenched in barbecue sauce.


At the Italian Pizza Kitchen, Home of The Barbecue Bacon Cheddar Wedges, the wedges cost $5.00 +tax. For my homemade version of the wedges, the bacon alone costs more than the dish at the restaurant ($5.99)! The prices speak for themselves; the quality determines the price, which determines the profit. If a restaurant knows that they have low quality ingredients then they can sell their food at a price that will guarantee them a profit. These restaurants are focusing on “quantity over quality.” This means that these people that work for these companies are mass producing food at the expense of nutritional value. Most of us don't take into consideration the quality of our food but just look at the price. A reason why it was better to make my food at home is because I know what I'm putting in my food. I thought the restaurant dish had too much salt, so I bought better quality, low-sodium bacon instead. 

Food Review 2 (Homemade): 

DR, "Homemade Loaded Wedges" 5/26/14, Chicago

The homemade version of my Loaded Wedges were quite tasty. Although I didn’t acquire all the ingredients of the restaurant version, I think I did a pretty good job. They tasted similar. The biggest difference had to be the barbecue sauce; it wasn't the taste, it was the amount! Although Garland Jack's Barbecue Sauce is not very unique, I taste a little bit of a difference in the two barbecue Sauces. The barbecue sauce I used for the homemade dish was sweeter, as opposed to the restaurant’s BBQ sauce which had a stronger taste. One ingredient in my barbecue sauce was Potassium Sorbate which is actually safe to consume and is used to prevent the growth of mold. Maybe the restaurant BBQ sauce is homemade, that could make a huge impact on the comparison of the two. My homemade dish was not organic but pretty fresh. The BBQ sauce was pre-made and processed but the cheddar had a very strong smell. When I picked up one of the fries it started to break apart and fall off the fork. The freshly cut wedges hit your mouth with a very cheesy taste. As barbecue dripped off the wedges, you could smell the fresh potatoes. 

Recommendation/ Preference:

I would prefer the homemade meal over the restaurant meal because of the freshness of the ingredients. When I bite into the very delicate, fresh cut, potato wedges you can taste all the ingredients working together. As opposed to the restaurant meal, you can taste the fresh cheddar and you feel more secure eating food that you make your self.

Experimental Taste Test

In my "Food" course this unit we explored the different ingredients used for baking. We discovered that something called a leavening agent was one of the 5 essential ingredient to baking. Leavening agents are assigned to raise the dough so it looks nice and fluffy. We left out the leavening agents for a holiday named "passover" where the jews didn't have time to use leavening agents for their cooking while they ran from. We cooked one batch of cupcakes with a leavening agent; Baking Soda. We then cooked a batch of cupcakes without a leavening agent. For this assignment, we were asked to substitute the leavening agent for two other ingredients. One group of cupcakes being the controlled group and one being the experimental group. I chose Lemon Juice and Olive Oil to substitute for the missing leavening agent.

The Cupcake Experiment

1. Introduction

We are trying to figure out if a acid-base reaction will help the cupcakes rise like a leavening agent would. Baking powder is a leavening agent. When a leavening agent reacts with heat and liquid, it produces carbon dioxide and causes the dough to rise. For our controlled group, we followed the recipe precisely, adding the exact amount of ingredients, mixing our batter until it is smooth, preheating the oven, and baking our cupcakes for 20 minutes in 350 degrees Fahrenheit. For our experimental group, we substituted the baking powder for lemon juice and olive oil. We decided to choose an acid and base because baking powder contains cream of tartar, an acid, and baking soda, a base. Using that logic, we wanted to create an acid-base reaction and therefore, our group chose lemon juice, which has a pH of 2.2, and olive oil, which has a pH of 8. We put in different amounts of lemon juice and olive oil in each of our 6 cupcake trials to see which cupcake rises the most. The ultimate test to see whether we successfully replicated the effects of baking powder is to measure the height of our cupcakes in our experimental group and compare it to the height of the cupcakes in the controlled group.

2. Research Question

Will an acid-base substitute help cupcakes rise like a leavening agent?

3. Hypothesis

If I substitute baking powder for lemon juice, pH of 2.2, and olive oil, pH of 8, in my cupcake recipe, then my experimental group cupcakes will rise less than my control group cupcakes.

4. Materials:

• Sugar
• Butter
• Eggs
• Vanilla Extract
• Flour
• Milk
• Baking Powder
• Lemon Juice
• Olive Oil

5. Procedure

For Control Group:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Grease and flour a 9×9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
4. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.
5. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
6. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth.
7. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
8. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

For Experimental Group:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Grease and flour a 9×9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
4. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.
5. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
6. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth.
7. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
8. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

6. Data

Cupcakes	Amount of Lemon Juice (tsp)	Amount of Olive Oil (tsp)	Cupcake Height (cm)
1	1/16	1/16	3.5
2	0	1/8	3.5
3	1/8	0	3
4 (Favorite)	3/32	1/32	3
5	1/64	7/64	3.5
6	7/64	1/64	2.7
Controlled Group	--	--	3.75

7. Graph

8. Recipe in Metric

Ingredients	Amount in Cups/Tsp	Amount in mL
Sugar	1/12 cup	20 mL
Butter	1/24 cup	10 mL
Eggs	1/6 egg	--
Vanilla Extract	1/6 tsp	0.82 mL
All-purpose Flour	3/24 cup	30 mL
Milk	1/24 cup	10 mL
Lemon Juice	3/32 tsp	0.46 mL
Olive Oil	1/32 tsp	0.15 mL

9. Conclusion

From this experiment, I learned that an acid-base replacement for Baking Powder, really does rise the pastry! While my trial cupcakes did not rise as high as the ones in the controlled group, one trial cupcake was only 0.75cm shorter than the controlled group cupcakes. This was the 4th cupcake where I put 3/32 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1/32 teaspoon of molasses. I believe that the 4th cupcake was one of the more shorter cupcakes because the batter was more acidic than alkaline. Given that baking powder is slightly more basic, pH of 8.5, my batter would also have had to be slightly more basic to replicate the effects baking powder has on the pastry. Therefore, my 4th trial cupcake proved my hypothesis right because the height difference was less than less than the controlled group’s cupcakes. In conclusion, while the 4th cupcake was the lowest among my experimental group, I decided to submit my this cupcake because it tasted the lemony delicious and quite different. It’s hard on the outside and moist on the inside. This project has led me to experiment with my cooking more.

The Life of Garlic Mild

This unit is about how different foods and ingredients get to their destination. Throughout this unit, we also discussed the environmental and social effects that each step of their journey, has on the world. In this assignment, we were asked to pick a specific food and create a presentation on how they get to their destination, using an advanced system called, Prezi. I never realized how careless some companies can be with their food. I also realized how many of the foods I eat are actually grown. I definitely look at my food differently due to the fact that people don't check crops all the time.