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Food Fights
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The best way to whip egg whites
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 Whether you need egg whites for your killer eggnog or your lemon meringue pie, you know how important it is to have nice stiff peaks on those mountains of snowy egg whites. Should the peaks look like the Matterhorn or more like Mount Saint Helens? Cookbooks give varying advice about the whole process, including the temperature of the eggs, the equipment for whipping, and the critical moment to stop beating.
Here are a few definitive words on egg-white whipping from cooking expert Judy Gorman, author of The Culinary Craft, sadly out of print.
Temperature: Eggs separate more easily when cold, but whites whip to greater volume when they’re warm. So try to wait an hour after separating before whipping.
Equipment: Unlined copper or stainless steel bowls are the best containers for whipping egg whites. A large balloon whisk is the best implement, but electric mixers are fine unless you tend to overbeat.
Stages: Egg whites first turn foamy, white with tiny bubbles. (You can add a pinch of salt at this point to help strengthen the structure.) At the next stage, called soft-peak stage, the surface will still look moist, but the tops of the peaks will droop over when you lift the whisk or mixer. This is the best stage for folding egg whites into another mixture, or for adding sugar to make a meringue. At the stiff-peak stage, the surface takes on a shiny gloss and the peaks stand up straight. This is the time to stop! The next stage, dry, is a synonym for disaster. The whole business collapses, liquid is released, and the only thing to do is to start over with new egg whites.
What cooking techniques or food habits do you wonder or argue about? Write to us at foodfights@digitalhearth.com and we’ll try to find an answer.
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Last Bite
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The Return of the Light
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In our artificially illuminated world, the winter solstice is a good reminder of our ties to our solar system and Sun. The hours of darkness have been encroaching on the light ever since last June, when the northern hemisphere began to tilt away from the Sun. On December 21, this year’s winter solstice, we finally begin, imperceptibly at first, to move toward greater amounts of sunlight, peaking in those long and glorious June days six months from now.
In nearly every human culture as far back as we can go, people celebrated the winter solstice, and reminders of those ancient celebrations are all around us. The Yule log (to be burned constantly during the 12 days of Christmas) is really an ancient symbol of light and life. Our Christmas and Hanukkah festivals, one celebrating the birth of the "Light of the World" and the other the "Festival of Lights," do not happen by accident at the solstice, but replace older pagan celebrations.
Food is part of that celebration, too, a reminder that despite the cold and the dark, fertility and abundance will reappear, as surely as the planets move in their orbits around the Sun. So every time you nibble on a richly frosted Christmas cookie, or eat a plate of crisp latkes with fresh applesauce, know that you are part of a long line of humans celebrating the return of the light.
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