Cooking by sound

A friend was over at my house one day when I was baking a cake. When I took the pan out of the oven I held it to my ear. Puzzled, my friend asked what I was doing. I told her I was listening for the cake to tell me it was done. She didn’t believe me at first, but it was true. There is a whisper of sound emitted by any cake when it is properly baked. If the sound isn’t there, the cake is either under- or over done. There are many instances where cooks use more than sight or smells to judge foods as they cook or bake. NPR recently had a segment that explained how Nigerian-born chef Shola Olunloyo uses sound when making jollof rice.

Olunoyo, based in Philadelphia, is a technical consultant in the food industry, which means he is a problem solver for restaurants and chefs. NPR’s Justin Kramon put to the test Olunoyo’s ability to judge the doneness of the dish by sound alone. Olunoyo guides Kramon through several sounds that emanate from a bubbling pot in his backyard, ranging from a wet bubble to a soft sizzle as the rice begins to brown on the bottom.

Two expert taste testers were standing by to see how Olunoyo did. Philadelphia restaurant critic Craig LaBan and owner and founder of Suya Suya West African Grill Dera Nd-Ezuma tasted the end result. Both proclaimed it a success, with LaBan noting that when Olunoyo is making the dish, which the chef ate growing up in Nigeria, he begins “with a memory of home” – and that memory includes the sounds along with the flavors.