Particularly MIT: Food Science
PRESENTER: Back in the 1890s, William Underwood, of the Underwood Canning Company, had a problem with odors in some of their canned clams. He came to MIT to find a scientist to help figure out what was going on. He was teamed up with young MIT grad, Samuel Prescott, who brought an understanding of microbiology and bacteriology into safe canning procedures.
In the 1920s, Prescott, now well-known for his expertise in food technology, was approached by the National Coffee Roasters Association, seeking answers to growing criticisms of the beverage. With their $40,000, Prescott created a coffee research laboratory. Prescott told the coffee roasters that study at MIT would be scientific, that MIT's name could not be used for advertising purposes, that he could not promise an outcome, and that the results of the research would be published, favorable or not.
He assembled tasters among the lab workers, secretaries, filing clerks, and more. Coffee was brewed under an enormous variety of conditions. Even though it's obvious to anyone now, he was the one who determined that the ideal cup of coffee should be made in glass or stone, not metal, with coffee freshly ground, and water a few degrees below boiling. He also found that coffee was not only not harmful, but, he said, it could give comfort and inspiration and augment mental and physical activity. The coffee industry rejoiced.
The former Building 20 was the site of much of MIT's food technology research, fast becoming a highly respected department, with its golden years in the half century from the early 1930s to the late 1980s. The focus was on applied research for industry and the military. MIT worked with the US Army Labs in Natick on the irradiation of food as a way to preserve food where refrigeration wasn't possible.
MIT worked with food companies to develop some of the postwar food staples we take for granted today, such as frozen, concentrated orange juice, instant coffee, microwave heating, dehydration freeze drying, and on flavor testing as well.
In the midst of this flourishing of food science, a 1950s MIT brochure sought graduate students, advertising the possibilities. Under the leadership of Bernard Proctor in the 1950s, the food technology department focused on food texture. Among other products, Procter oversaw MIT's studies with Gorton's Seafood Company on ways to improve their fish sticks. Aaron Brody created a robotic chewing machine to quantify food texture, chewiness, crispiness, and more. He also developed processes of food packaging.
MIT helped in the feeding of astronauts, the creation of pre-cooked, preserved foods for the military and the space program.
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-We have here a variety of the types of foods available for both the Gemini and Apollo missions-- some rehydratables, shrimp cocktail, potato soup, and a beverage, a grapefruit drink in this case. The bites we have are like a beef sandwich, compressed items, such as a peanut cube, which could also be a cereal cube of some sort, and even a fruitcake.
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PRESENTER: In 1961, Nevin Scrimshaw, a medical doctor, led the department in a focus on nutrition, seeking new sources of protein to feed the developing world, including synthetic meats from algae and ground up fish. The department was dissolved as MIT moved on to other cutting-edge frontiers. But there is no doubt that the MIT department researchers and staff were pioneers in the field of food science and technology, and helped change the very way we eat.