So you think you know how to cook properly, eh?
Because one of your parents, or grandparents, or a second-degree relative taught you how?
Then think again, because I’ll bet they either weren’t an engineer-type, or were an engineer-type who refused to read or research what the published experts and authorities have to say on the subject. Most likely, this left you with a fear or dislike of cooking (especially of cleaning pots & pans afterwards) for the simple reason that their techniques were vague, hard to replicate, and produced food that wasn’t as tasty as your favorite restaurants could produce.
CFOG’s goal is to break that cycle by going back to the experts and first principles, and figure out the best modern ways to cook—how to do it reliably, safely, and more easily than how your momma taught you.
Those famous geek cooks (Alton, ATK, Kenji, Meathead) have done a bunch of the heavy lifting already, but there are so many more fundamental and interesting things they have not yet addressed. For example, as much as I admire and have learned from them, I’ve almost never seen a one of them talk about cooking or safety standards.
So that’s my job, now.
- BPIM: The keeper of the International System of Units (abbreviated SI, the official name for the Metric System since 1960). The International Bureau of Weights and Measures is an organisation based at Sèvres, France that has custody of the International Prototype Kilogram, and provides metrology services in support of the SI.
- IEC: International Electrotechnical Commission is concerned with international electrical and appliance standards, including IEC 60335-2-6:2014 Household and similar electrical appliances – Safety – Part 2-6: Particular requirements for stationary cooking ranges, hobs, ovens and similar appliances. Also, IEC 60705, IEC 705, IEC 62301,
- ISO: International Organization for Standardization, which designs and publishes standards ranging from manufacturing to music, and includes International System of Quantities (ISQ), a.k.a. ISO 8000, which codifies the SI units along with numerous other ones, such as the binary prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, etc., originally introduced by the International Electrotechnical Commission to standardise binary multiples of byte such as mebibyte (MiB), for 10242 bytes, to distinguish them from their decimal counterparts such as megabyte (MB), for precisely one million (10002) bytes.
- ASTM: ASTM International was originally formed as American Section of the International Association for Testing Materials, and publishes standards for many cooking-related things, including ASTM F2834 – 10a Standard Specification for Induction Cooktops, Counter Top, Drop-in Mounted, or Floor Standing. Also ASTM Standards F1275, F1361-99, F1605, F1496, and F1484-99.
- NFPA: The National Fire Protection Association designs and publishes the National Electrical Code for the U.S. (also known as NFPA 70), which defines minimum required practices for installing electrical wiring and devices inside residential and commercial buildings. They also publish NFPA 96: Standard for Ventilation Control and Fire Protection of Commercial Cooking Operations, which provides preventive and operative fire safety requirements intended to reduce the potential fire hazard of both public and private commercial cooking operations.
- UL: Formerly known as Underwriters Laboratories, UL is a safety consulting and certification company, whose main goal is to research and publish standards that reduce losses of life and property from fires, mechanical failures, and electrical failures.
- NIST: The National Institute of Standards and Technology publishes such things as A Study on the Performance of Current Smoke Alarms to the New Fire and Nuisance Tests Prescribed in ANSI/UL 217 8th Ed. and Metric Cooking Resources.
- Code of Federal Regulations is the repository of nearly all official U.S. Government regulations. Among them is 10 CFR 430.23(i), TEST PROCEDURES FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF ENERGY AND WATER CONSUMPTION
