https://www.eater.com/23552129/what-is-in-store-bought-chicken-stock
"When I was growing up, my family would occasionally buy canned or boxed
chicken broth, and my mom would always say, “but it’s not as good as the real
thing.” The real thing being, of course, homemade: that golden, translucent,
endlessly versatile nectar with tiny circles of fat shimmering on its surface.
I was raised to love this liquid, the best versions of which ensure that
chicken soup tastes nuanced and complex rather than just salty. I still, as
often as possible, make giant batches of homemade stock in the biggest pot I
have, then freeze it for future meals. I even wrote about the virtues of
homemade chicken stock in my upcoming cookbook,
The Don’t Panic Pantry
Cookbook. But when I set about trying to explain, in the recipe’s headnote,
why homemade stock was better than store-bought, I realized that I didn’t
actually know. I wondered,
How can two things that are supposed to be the
same, taste and feel so wildly different?
My quest to find the answer started simply enough, and in a state of what was,
in retrospect, blissful ignorance. I had no intimation of what was to come: the
billion-dollar multinational flavor and fragrance companies, the “spray-dried”
broth, the “clean label protein solutions,” the “kitchen-like ingredients,” and
the corporate dream of a “fully sustainable chicken stream.” A whole new world,
at once surreal, banal, and depressingly inevitable, was hidden in the watery
depths of store-bought chicken stock, just waiting for me to jump in.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before the chicken streams and corporate word
salad, there was the grocery store, where I stood in the chicken broth aisle
and began reading ingredients lists. Again, simple enough. And yet, no matter
the ingredients list, no matter whether the broth came in a box or a can, I
discovered a striking common denominator in almost every major brand I looked
at: The very first ingredient in chicken broth is... “Chicken Broth.” The only
consistent variation? Sometimes the first ingredient would read simply as
“Chicken Stock.”
I’m sorry, what?"
Via ESther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
