Heat and Meat Texture

Appears in
On Food and Cooking

By Harold McGee

Published 2004

  • About
The texture of a food is created by its physical structure: the way it feels to the touch, the balance of solid and liquid components, and the ease or difficulty with which our teeth break it down into manageable pieces. The key textural components in meat are its moisture, around 75% of its weight, and the fiber proteins and connective tissue that either contain and confine that moisture, or release it.