Texture refers to the structural properties of a material.

For food, it is often commonly referred to as taste.

Although sometimes the texture can actually be judged by visual inspection, only when you eat it can you be convinced and satisfied.

The texture of food comes from its physical structure: how it feels when you touch it, the proportions of solid and liquid components, and the ease with which your teeth can tear it into pieces.

Since it is the nature of the material's structure, the structure must be understood first.

We will still explain the important feature of texture as a food from plant-based food and animal-based food.

The texture of fresh fruits and vegetables, some are crispy, some are soft, some are powdery, and some are tough. These qualities actually reflect how the chewing action disintegrates plant tissue. The state of disintegration of plant tissue depends on two major factors: the cell wall.

The structure also contains the contents of the cell.

First, let’s look at brittleness and softness. The cell wall is a strong and elastic container that covers the cell.

When the water content of the cell is very high, the vacuole expands and pushes the surrounding cytoplasm toward the cell membrane, which in turn squeezes the cell wall.

This creates a pressure called turgor pressure.

Flowers open because of turgor pressure, and fruits grow round instead of square because of turgor pressure.

This pressure can reach fifty times the peripheral air pressure, so the fruits and vegetables are very plump. When you take a bite, the cell walls that originally bear the pressure will easily rupture, which is reflected in the crispy and tender texture.

However, if the water content of the cells is insufficient, this pressure will disappear, and the tissue will shrink and become soft. At this time, biting down will only press the cell walls together, and it will take more pressure to bite off.

Let’s talk about powder next. This situation is usually because the cementing material of adjacent cells is very fragile. As soon as we chew the cells, they break away from each other instead of being bitten. So in the end, we have many small separated cells in our mouth.

I feel very pink.

But some people prefer this kind of powder.

For example, when it comes to apples, some people prefer red Fuji, while others prefer golden delicious.

There is also a kind of powder called chalk powder.

This is determined by the contents of the cells.

Generally speaking, the vacuoles of ripe fruits are filled with sugary solution, but this is not the case in potatoes. Their cells are full of starch granules, giving them a hard texture similar to chalk.

Do you think the juice will leak out when heated?

Won't!

When starch is heated in hot water, it will absorb water and gelatinize, so the potatoes will never be tender and juicy, but will become mushy.

Finally, let’s talk about toughness. Toughness is caused by tough cellulose and lignin.

Cellulose is the main component of the cell wall and forms a network structure, which is externalized into hay stubs in winter.

For example, the cellulose in celery will also gather on the stems to provide structural support, making the vegetable very strong.

The only solution is to remove it from the organization.

Lignin is the main component of wood and is rarely found in food. Most vegetables are harvested before lignin forms a detectable amount. However, occasionally we encounter lignified asparagus. The only remedy is to decisively remove it.

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For example, immature vegetables and young meat-producing animals are the most tender and delicious, while mature vegetables and adult animals have hard meat.

But it's different with fruit, which is unattractive when it's not ripe.

There is a difference between fruits and fruits. For example, cucumbers are fruits, but they are generally eaten when they are young. At this time, the fruits are treated as vegetables.

Fruit must undergo a post-ripening process to develop a unique flavor and tender texture that transcends the category of vegetables.

No matter how crisp, tender and juicy the texture of plant-based delicacies is, in the minds of many gourmets, it may not be as tender and juicy as the tender and juicy texture of animal-based delicacies!

Next time, the meat will be tender and juicy.

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