They combine foods with water or another liquid, and they make the liquid thicker and more flavorful. Another example is nonfat milk, which suspends milk-proteins in water. Jellies, ice cream, and even vegetable shortening are types of suspensions, and so are chocolate drinks. Suspensions also serve a vital purpose in the kitchen. They can be used to thicken another ingredient. For example, adding a puree to a soup or sauce to thicken it. They can be used to blend ingredients together to form a new type of food, like nut butters and chocolate, and they can be used to bind things together, such as with mayonnaise. They create flavorful sauces like hollandaise that add a new dimension to a food, and they create healthful drinks when they combine to make smoothies. Special suspensions like emulsions are often a combination of two or more types of solutions or suspension. Author McGee notes, "The sauces that cooks actually make are seldom simple suspensions, molecular dispersions, emulsions, or foams. They're usually a combination of two or more" (McGee 596). Thus, suspensions are often more complex than two ingredients, and they can be classified in other ways, as well.
The theories behind suspensions are both scientific and creative. Suspensions are mixtures that will settle out again, and they can be solid or liquid. If they settle, you can shake or stir them to mix them up again. As shown, suspensions fall into the category of solutions, and they can be extremely complex or quite simple. For example, forcemeat is an example of a suspension/emulsion....
Forcemeat itself is used to create many other products, like sausages, meatballs, and pates, so suspensions added to other ingredients can create a myriad of different products and foods.
Scientifically, suspensions form the basis for many food items, and they are used everyday in all types of cooking. The main thing to remember about them is that they can be strained to separate the ingredients again, and they create texture due to the size of the particles mixing with the liquid. Suspensions and their relatives indicate how much science there really is in the art of cooking, and that is what makes it so interesting. Many people think cooking is just mixing ingredients together, but suspensions show that the chef has to understand how the ingredients mix together for the dish to work.
In conclusion, suspensions are a vital aspect of cooking, because they are so flavorful, versatile, and they occur so frequently. They create texture, flavor, thicken, and combine with other ingredients to create literally thousands of dishes.
References
Editors. "Colloids, Gels, and Suspensions." Science in the Kitchen. 2010. 29 April 2010. .
Editors. "Cooking: The Exhibition." Liberty Science Center. 2010. 29 April 2010. .
Lowe, Belle. "Experimental Cookery from the Chemical and Physical Standpoint." Chest of Books.com. 2010. 29 April 2009.
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McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004.
