If you miss french fries that aren't cooked in animal fat and wish pesky health mullahs would stop trying to ban things and get something productive done, there is hope for the future. Science is out to make a better french fry, not just a healthier one that tastes like cardboard (we're also talking to you, Frito's).
Writing in Scientific American, W. Wayt Gibbs and Nathan Myhrvold cover recent french fry science, including treating the potatoes with an enzyme which helps break apart the pectin in the fries and yields a smoother feel in the mouth - and a better way to cook: the fries are vacuum-sealed with 2 percent salt brine in bags to keep them intact during boiling and then bombarded with ultrasound at 40 kilohertz, which causes the surface of each fry to crack and blister with myriad tiny bubbles and fissures.
The cook next vacuum-dries the pretreated potato sticks to adjust the water content of the exterior and then briefly blanches them in oil at 340 degrees Fahrenheit to tighten their network of interlaced starch molecules.
Yum!
Ultrasonic French Fries By W. Wayt Gibbs and Nathan Myhrvold, Scientific American
