Today we’re going to talk about transglutaminase. It’s an enzymatic glue with which you can stick two proteins together. Doctors and biologists call it Factor VIII, and it is one of the many amino acids involved in one of my favorite biological events, the clotting cascade. When you cut yourself shaving, all sorts of cellular firemen leap into action to staunch the bloodletting, and Factor VIII is one of them.

Fortunately or unfortunately, enterprising food entrepreneurs figured out that you can also use transglutaminase to glue various parts of food products together. The two examples that come up most frequently on Google are imitation crab meat and fish balls. Neither of which is high on my list of weeknight supper dishes. In any event, when used by these enterprising entrepreneurs, the enzyme is called “meat glue.”

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