SEA 



SCIENCE 



Science in the Kitchen 



Tasty Technology Behind 

 Scallop Medallions 



By Jeannie Faris Norris 



s 



Small scallops are 

 mixed with 

 a protein gel. 



teak-urns, Chicken McNuggets 

 and Hardee's roast beef sandwiches. 



What could these popular fast foods 

 have in common with a sizzling entree of 

 scallop medallions? They certainly don't 

 share any resemblance in flavor, texture or 

 appearance. But they do have similar 

 origins — each is a marketing masterpiece 

 bom of emerging food science technology. 

 Before they were ever introduced to the 

 kitchen, these dishes had to pass muster in 

 the laboratory. 



Each of these foods began as a 

 handful of meat pieces that were bound 

 together into a product with a texture 

 and taste similar to the real thing. After 

 all, what's more appealing — chicken 

 pieces or a neat nugget? Tiny scallops or 



Bound by the gel, 

 the scallops are stuffed 

 into casings. 



a mouth-filling medallion? 



Equal parts science breakthrough and 

 marketing genius, the upscale scallop 

 medallions and convenient fast-food meats 

 are created by a process called restructur- 

 ing. Until last year, the process was used 

 only when the meat was cooked because 

 the pieces had to be "glued" together by 

 heat processing. As a result, this food has 

 been marketed frozen or precooked to 

 maintain its structure. 



And while frozen and pre-cooked 

 meats are fine for fast food businesses, they 

 don't appeal to many restaurateurs and 

 grocery shoppers who want their buys — 

 especially seafood — to be fresh (unfro- 

 zen). They want to smell the product and 

 see its color, says Tyre Lanier, a food 



The casings 

 are chilled for 

 six to 12 hours. 



science researcher at North Carolina State 

 University and a Sea Grant researcher. 



"People prefer to buy fresh," says 

 Lanier, who helped develop the technology. 

 "So this really limits how we market these 

 products." 



Wanchese Fish Co. knows this better 

 than anybody. The Dare County seafood 

 company launched the scallop medallion on 

 the East Coast when it began looking for 

 ways to market its surplus of small sea 

 scallops. 



"It was hard to sell (the smaller 

 scallops)," says David Green, a seafood 

 technologist at NC State University's 

 seafood laboratory. "They couldn't compete 

 with similar products that were coming in 

 from China and other countries." 



24 EARLY SUMMER 1998 



