Hawaii Bouillon Cubes

Description: A Bouillon Cube is known as a Stock Cube that is a Flavor Powder that contains stock that has become a staple of kitchens through modern food science. A Bouillon Cube is portioned and easy to cook with as it is made of dehydrated ingredients, a small portion of fat, salt, and seasoning all in a cube. When you look at it the cube holds so much flavor from the stock and seems almost unbelievable, but it makes cooking a lot faster for those in a rush. The word Bouillon (French) is a clear seasoned soup and is broadly known as a broth. Bouillon is not only in the form of a cube, but also a powder, which is how it is used in commercial kitchens.

Convenience is what makes it so important not to mention the cost-effectiveness for its shelf life and potent flavor-enhancing abilities. They serve as an instant, concentrated base, quickly dissolving into a broth that provides immediate depth  to countless dishes, with many ingredients being seasonal it is not always easy to have everything needed for a homemade stock. Sometimes making a stock is hard when the ingredients aren't available. Looking at history there are different sorts of Bouillon that was made from: Basic Broth that has only the most necessary of flavors, Seasoned Broth that has seasonings for more deliciousness, and a Complex Stock that has everything already to go inside of it as a nice package to flavor the water. Their versatility makes it a practical addition to any economical pantry and democratizes the access to richer and more complex tastes for cooks of all skill levels. 

The common argument is Scratch-made Stock vs Bouillon Stock. It seems like a trade-off where a individual prioritizes immediate stock from the even tastier scratch-made laborious stock. While they taste different it doesn't make them bad as they were first made from dehydrated ingredients from as far back as the eighteenth-century European cookbooks by Vincent La Chapelle (The Modern Cook) with the recipe for "Broth Cakes" — mentioned by Escoffier and invented by Julius Maggi (1908). And then by home cooks all around the world as the shelf version became widespread. They were first made by a stock-reduction into a demi-glace that would dry out in the oven and would be the perfect thing for convenience in the kitchen, saving both time, and made the necessary ingredients available. So in essence the original was a scratch-made stock, so how did we get to the modern ones that are on all the shelves in the markets?

The Salt is on the Inside, the secret to Bouillon cubes is salt and in modern day recipes is at least half of the recipe. Its also made with starch: cornstarch, wheat flour, cassava flour (West Africa). Since 2012, these little bouillon cubes have been fortified with iron in markets where anemia is, and the savory umami kick is from the monosodium glutamate. So add that with the all important salt and things get tasty, but they are basic and not yet seasoned. Hawaii is big on its salts with a selection of: Hawaiian Sea Salt, Alaea Red Sea Salt, Uahi Black Sea Salt, Ohe Green Sea Salt, Kālika Garlic Sea Salt, Limu Seaweed Sea Salt, and Kiawe Smoke Sea Salt. The most common sorts of monosodium glutamates consist of the flavors found in saimin mixtures called Dashi Wai (MSG Water): Hondashi Wai, Shrimp Dashi Wai, Scallop Dashi Wai, Clam Dashi Wai, Beef Dashi Wai.

The Seasoning, for those looking on the back of a package or looking for recipes they will likely find all sorts of dried vegetable powders, herbs, and spices are added and customized by region. Hawaii has onion, garlic, herb, and black pepper; France has cilantro, pepper, and clove; the Middle East gets white pepper, turmeric, and coriander. Just think that even if the ingredient is Beef, Pork, and/or Chicken it can be different depending on the place. Also it depends on how they add the chicken flavor, since sometimes there are dehydrated chicken meat and chicken fat, sometimes dehydrated ham hock meat and pork fat, or even dehydrated short rib meat and beef fat. The tastes are not always the same all over the world and that is what makes bouillon complicated to cook with, even though it is easy to access.

Industrial amounts of Bouillon are made by companies like Maggi "Hundred million cubes daily" that purchases additives produced by industrial flavoring that is chosen by food scientists. What the company is trying to do is make things more affordable by designing flavor compounds to mimic the flavor of the meat ingredient without actually putting meat in it. There are actually flavor scientists that employ a formula that tastes like long-simmered dish; and Hawaii has these mad scientists of the kitchen that work to making these flavor mimics to add to the concoction, the Bouillon cube. The non additives are mostly pre-dried ingredients that are weighed out, dropped in a mixer with oil and water added for the binding, usually no longer than a few minutes. They literally make thousands of pounds of the stuff.

The convenient cube, four-grams, fourteen millimeters on each side, a magic cooking piece. The powder is placed into a mold with a carefully calibrated pressure, not too much force, but just the right amount of force so that the cubes dissolve when a consumer cooks with them, but it still got to be solid. The machinery shapers can process sixteen cubes per second, which includes wrapping, dropped into containers, and sent for a quality check with a metal detector or scanner to make sure there isn't anything contaminating the cube at the end of it all. Knowing this is important in understanding the entire process of what goes into making bouillon cubes as it is not only interesting, but a way to understand the magic that goes behind the scenes.

Bouillon Cubes have become a foundational home cooking flavoring agent and is found all around the world — There is no inherent barrier to preventing Hawaii from developing and locally producing bouillon as a part of food security, sustainability, and economic diversification that people have talked about before in the olden days. It was back when people at Columbia Inn were talking about the possibilities of a Salt Industry as well as a Local Bouillon Industry that could lessen the workload of local workers in the kitchen. The Bouillon that would be made from Hawaii recipes would have its own compelling story of being a taste of Hawaii in a cube, but those who grew up with the flavors of Hawaii would be able to cook dishes quickly. In the kitchen, on the island, and even other parts of the world would have access to a particular flavor of Hawaii.