Bubbles!

The Negative Space of Food

In This Issue

Why Bubbles? Fixed Bubbles Foamy Bubbles Free Bubbles Bubble Gear

Why Bubbles?

Lightness. Levity. A little frivolity. These are the words we thought of when the idea of bubbles first came up in a brainstorming session for this digital issue many months ago. It felt right, especially as a follow-up to the moody visual tone of our first digital issue dedicated to the wok.

Ha. What fools we were!

Bubbles may not weigh much, but there's nothing lightweight about them. It's probably not an exaggeration to say that scientists have a better understanding of how to land robots on Mars than they do of the physics of bubbles in our food. But we pushed ahead anyway to create this tribute to—if we may borrow an art-world term—food's negative space.

Fixed Bubbles

Welcome to the world of bubbles in solid foods. These foods include breads, cakes, and other stable and airy structures, which are technically defined as "set foams." While it's a stretch, we're also including bean-induced gas here because it's "trapped" in the digestive system.

Baking With Bubbles

From Birth to Bake: A Scientific Bubble Biography

Beans, beans, the magical fruit...is there a way to prepare them so that you don't toot? We teamed up with Harvard's Science and Cooking program to put some of the most common tips for bean-gas reduction to the test. Our data tells the true story of what works and what doesn't.

Read Feature

Foamy Bubbles

Soft, spreadable, and ethereally light, these foamy foods deliver textures and flavors that are the definition of heavenly. From whipped cream in its many forms to meringues made from aquafaba, let's take a close look at these bubbly wonders.

Get Whipped

The Science of Aquafaba Meringues

Working toward a more stable meringue made from the liquid in a can of chickpeas.

Free Bubbles

Free bubbles are fleeting, fizzing their way out of beer, soda, seltzer, and fermented foods of all kinds. At times they're there for our enjoyment, and other times they're just a byproduct, but either way, we love 'em.