it is molecular cooking
Today I attended a demonstration and book signing by Hervé This at the show room of Le-Sanctuaire. Fanny send me an email last week and I was able to take off.
For those who don’t know Hervé This see the wiki entry here.To make it simple we shall call him the father of molecular gastronomy. Mr. This is a physical chemist, very energetic and has a clear vision of the future of cuisine and how kitchens will be transformed. There is much more to know about Mr. This, and all this can be googled, here at google.com.
There was a lot of information in very short time, so I am trying to decipher my notes right now. I will elaborate on some more on the future. One of the greates take aways is that waht we (chefs) do is not molecular gastronomy, it is molecular cooking. Molecular gastronomy is what scientist like Hervé This are doing. He also put the scientific aspect into perspective and made me thing about many things I just stopped thinking about long time ago when I gave up the idea of studying chemistry before I started cooking. One of the things Hervé This pointed out was the nonsence of measuring volume when we actually should give weights in recipes. I made an blog entry about this earlier this month.
my notes
- molecular X
Molecular gastronomy – scientists experiment and analyze food in an controlled environment, labs, the result is not consumed by anybody in or outside the lab. The findings are shared with chefs. New technologies might evolve
Molecular cooking – chefs create dishes around that knowledge
Molecular technologies – are the tools used to do the cooking, thermal-circulator, separatory funnel, ultra-sonic bath to make hollandaise, etc
- NYU – experimental cuisine.(link to the homepage)
- culinary formalism
yes recipes are like novels a lot of words not much info. Mr This compared a average recipe with the book Ulysses. taking out all the non essential information ot comes to 10% information needed to recreate a dish/recipe. Well and that can be even expressed in formula. (More about that in the near future)
- science looks for the mechanisms of phenomena
- culinary constructivism
It is to act first from the artistic idea, then to place technique at the service of this idea. Some have named that “molecular cuisine”, or molecular gastronomy, that is not right, because molecular gastronomy is a science, and not one technology, and not one technique, nor an art.
Thus, I propose to you that we name this new movement,
“CULINARY CONSTRUCTIVISM”
And culinary art will be always grander if art passes before its realisation: Picasso said “When I have no more red, I take blue.”
Long live culinary art, long live chemistry, amongst persons (and people), and long live knowledge in general.
- gibbs – emulsion of egg white (or as Mr This calls it egg yellow) and oil. adding any sugar and flavor, cook or microwave
- culinaire moderne
- l’oeuf entier
- constructed and non fugurative cooking
- chocolate chantilly 200g water, 250g chocolate, cooled over ice and whip (chocolate is an oil so we can do the same with foie gras, beurre noisette, etc)
- perfect meringue cook at 140C until curst builds, reduce heat to 100C until cooked
- emulsify with ultrasonic probes
- ascorbic acid
- add pepper to stocks 8 minutes before finish
- grilled four does not need to be cooked anymore, perfect for tarts, cakes of mille feuille
- we perceive consitency of foods on the surface,hard chocolat on the outside with mousse in the inside and vice versa
- perception of complimentary colors – how can we apply this to food like sweet to sweet or sweet to acid
- un plat abstracte -abstract plates
