The Fungus Taste-Capture Hypothesis

We’ve been working hard in the Robscooking.com lab to distinguish and document small differences in cooking styles and processes to show you all the difference any small variation in a recipe can make. Jay and I were hanging out the other day and when we got hungry, we decided to make ourselves some mini pizzas. You’ll recall in this post I linked to a cool recipe online where you can make your own pizza. We simplified it a bit, but it raised some poignant questions.

I turned to Jay and said “Hey man, do you want mushrooms on yours?” and he said “for sure.”

Didn’t know that would turn into any point of discussion or argument at all.

See, I’d like to think that toppings go underneath cheese when it comes to pizza. When I started putting the mushrooms on his pizza, he got all in my face, like “hey man what are you doing? Aren’t you going to put the cheese on there first?” We decided it was time for an experiment:

What tastes better: Mushrooms under the cheese, or Mushrooms on top of the cheese?

Here are the parameters of the experiment:

1. We each make 2 Pizzas
2. Take pictures
3. Each of us has to eat the other’s remaining pizza
4. Each of us has to eat one of our own pizzas
5. We make the pizzas the way we like them (cheese over mushroom for me, mushroom over cheese for him)
6. All the toppings have to be exactly the same, in the same quantity and quality
7. ???
8. Profit!

So what happened? Pizza #1 was made by Robby and pizza #2 was made by Jay. Now, an excessive number of pictures:

In order to make sure things were happening on an equal playing field, we agreed that we would both drink some pepsi to start, from some 70’s novelty glasses. This would insure that our palettes would be equal and clear of interference from any tastes.

We both started with PIZZA #1 – Rob’s version, Cheese over Mushroom

nom nom nom

We take a second to analyze the tastes…

…And the results.

Peace. These Photos make us look related, but I swear we’re barely even pretending to be cousins.

My novelty glass is of the Great Muppet Caper, his is Darth Vader in the Empire Strikes Back.

And you can clearly see that it was less delicious than the previous one. Objective results only.

So what are we getting at?

It’s not a joke. The pizzas were actually different. I liked mine way better and he shared a similar experience; he liked the mushrooms differently.

But Why?

With the Mushrooms under the cheese:

• The cheese melts over top of the mushrooms
• The taste gets mixed into the tomato sauce and the cheese
• Less moisture is released, giving the mushrooms a softer texture

With the Mushrooms over the cheese:

• The mushrooms settle down into the melting cheese
• The taste is preserved in the mushrooms themselves, maybe a bit in the cheese
• Most of the moisture evaporates, making the mushrooms chewier and giving them a bumpier/rougher texture

Just these 3 small changes make a world of difference in our recipe. our point here is that if you are following a recipe, follow it exactly. If it says to mix *all* the dry ingredients together before adding the wet ingredients, don’t leave out the salt for the sake of convenience. You might just find that your cake tastes like mushrooms.

Just a little tip from the labs at Robscooking.com – more on this later!