Variations on ‘Roast Dinner’ are eaten for different occasions all over the world – a roast joint of meat, potatoes, vegetables and gravy, often followed by a stodgy pudding such as an apple pie.
This
is a meal that consumers look forward to so it is important that the
texture of each component is no less than perfect. This analysis would
be carried out for the purpose of calculating ideal cooking times, in
the case of a supermarket or a chain restaurant, or to test the quality
of supplied ingredients.
Texture Analysers are made in the South of England, where afternoon tea stacked high on a triple tiered cake stand is a staple for any big celebration.
Our customers around the world may be surprised to find some items here that aren’t so different from their own national food.
The
first component of afternoon tea is a large, fluffy scone, cut in half
and spread with sticky jam and clotted cream. There are regional
arguments for whether jam or cream should be applied first, but in both
cases cream and jam that are hard and difficult to spread cause the
scone to break up under the knife, which is very undesirable. The
softness of the inside of a scone can be assessed by preparing a cubic
sample, having cut the crusts off, and performing a compression test
with a large cylinder probe. A soft sample will yield under a low force.
A sandwich, a bag of crisps and a can of soda – the lunch eaten by millions of people around the world every day.
They
are not aware of the meticulous testing that has gone into every stage
of their meal, from the packaging down to the wheat flour used to make
their bread. It is no surprise that food manufacturers focus so much of
their effort into tailoring these items so they are a perfect compromise
between cost and quality, to be pleasing to the customer but not
expensive to manufacture.
