7. You finish finals and are home for the winter break. Your mother is going to make your favorite meal, frying pan-seared (cooked) steak. When your mother takes the package out of the freezer the meat is brown in color. After seeing the meat, she exclaims that the meat has gone bad and it must be thrown out. You tell mom that the brown color is not a problem, and after she cooks the steak, it has that great color, flavor, and aroma, and that tasty dark brown crust that you love.
a. Please explain to your mother what happened to the meat color in the freezer and why is it still OK to eat.
b. How does the temperature of the frying pan affect the flavor, texture and color of the steak? (Be sure to include elements of the Maillard reaction)