practical living
comfort food, but we’re now seeing that, with Baby Boomers,
there must be more choice and up-to-date dishes.
You’ve written this book, but are there obstacles in
implementing the recipes in aged care facilities or hospitals?
That’s a good question. With the first two books, we’re seeing a lot
of the recipes being harnessed by hospitals and aged care. We’ve
had a lot of interest in the UK. We did a tour of the UK, Northern
Ireland and Scotland two years ago with the first two books, and
they were really well received. Over here, you see bits and pieces
– the use of moulds now for moulding pureed foods is happening,
and the molecular foams for people with swallowing difficulties.
Yeah, you are seeing that there is a lot of interest and it’s very
difficult. All three books have been company-authored with a
speech pathologist and a dietitian. They’re clinically accurate. The
first book, Don’t Give Me Eggs That Bounce, a research book,
they’re using that in Flinders University for speech pathology and
dietetics as a reference book. That was a great win.
One thing I hadn’t really considered before I started reading
the book was taste for patients who are nil by mouth. How
challenging was it coming up with recipes for that situation?
It’s a simple, molecular controlling process, where it’s like an
air. You use a little aquarium air filter pump and you’ve got, say,
strawberries and cream, and a thickener is put into that. Then you
start the air filter and you get all these lovely bubbles, and you
scoop the bubbles from the top of the liquid and they hold on a
spoon, so you can just put them up to a person’s nose and they
can smell what you’re offering them. Then you put some on their
tongue and it just dissipates. They don’t swallow anything, but they
get this flavour situation. It’s a bit like basal stimulation.
For lots of people, having a thickened fluid is quite challenging.
The thickest fluid is almost like a nectar. If you had thickened
water, it’s quite confronting drinking really thick water. It’s quite
surreal. But get 300ml of grapefruit juice and a little bit of sugar,
some vanilla maybe, and strain that through a sieve, and then add
a jelly thickener – it’s like a molecular compound; it’s xanthan gum
and maltodextrin – and put it in one of those cream-whipping
guns. You can charge that with nitrous oxide and it turns into a
really delicious foam. It turns it into a mousse which holds in the
mouth, so it’s great for somebody with swallowing difficulties.
We also trialled just lemon curd and that works really well. There
are lots of chilled soups as well. Basically there’s a lot of dishes
that I eat on a daily basis. One of those I really like is a chicken and
ginger congee. I still can’t get my head around eating congee for
breakfast, but for a light evening meal, that recipe is tasteful and
not overpowering. It’s really light and refreshing.
I feel like the molecular gastronomy style of aged care food
exemplified in your book wouldn’t have been possible 20 years
ago. What’s the next step for food in aged care?
I think we’re going to see a lot more precision cooking, which offers
more choice. There are some exciting new pieces of equipment
coming out in the next year which will benefit people in the aged
care and hospital sectors. It’s like a precision cooking oven where
you can hold things for a length of time. It works on time and
temperature. There’s less wastage, and you can offer more.
I think the big thing now, particularly in American hospitals, is
à la carte-type offerings. I think that’s where we will eventually
go. As for molecular gastronomy, I think everything has been
harnessed.
In the new book, there’s a lot on the benefits of dehydrated
fruit. It packs more power, and certain things can be turned into
powders to boost the flavour of things.
There’s