Molecular Gastronomy from a scientific perspective

Fujisan wrote:At the IFT annual meeting last month in Orlando, Alton Brown was the keynote speaker. Someone asked him what he thought about molecular gastronomy, and he went off about how he doesn't like that trend. Someone also asked him if fast food companies should be held responsible for the obesity problem, and he replied that there is no such thing as bad food, just bad parenting, and that big mac didn't force itself down your throat. Pretty entertaining stuff.

Mr A Brown wrote: “You have to understand that [IFT's] place in the earthly matrix is changing. Your influence on food from a business or academic standpoint is no longer what your mission should be. Food is related to just about every single challenge people have living on this planet,” he said.

“The challenge for the entire science community is that the doors are all open. The [food science] community is no longer cloistered. You can no longer hide behind politicians and academic structures. If you are going to do your job you are going to have to learn how to communicate outside your field,” he added.

Doug Peckenpaugh wrote:But back to Alton. To toss some context into this concept, he noted that if a product like single-malt Scotch whiskey was created today, it might have quite an uphill battle in terms of consumer flavor acceptance. To the unaccustomed palette, Scotch often, well, tastes terrible--at first. Over time, the palette gains a level of distinctive education and becomes more discriminating. Other products he grouped into this category included bitter, dark chocolate, coffee and--on a slightly different tack--the traditional, mushy, blue-cornmeal chaquegue of the Aztec Native Americans of the Southwest.

This latter example might provide some insight to what Alton was driving at with his somewhat-startling recommendation regarding flavor. After much consideration yesterday-which included a bit of an animated editorial throw-down last night involving several editors from the leading food-industry trade magazines who were gathered around a table of food and libations (something familiar to we denizens of the trade press), all trying to make sense of this idiosyncratic comment....

Tim Hayward of the Guardian Unlimited wrote:
Molecular gastronomy

A term coined in 1969 by a French physicist called Hervé This, who was attempting to popularise science through cooking. Foodies have embraced this as the nearest thing to a movement currently available. "Molecular gastronomy" is to blame for foams, food eaten blindfold, liquid nitrogen in the kitchen and desserts served in syringes. Only a real foodie can say "Molecular gastronomy" with an entirely straight face and without making little quotation marks with his fingers.

ScienceMag wrote:HERVÉ THIS PROFILE:
The Joy of Evidence-Based Cooking
Martin Enserink

Molecular gastronomist Hervé This is trying to demystify cooking in a country whose cuisine is famous worldwide

PARIS--Is it true that pears turn red in covered copper pans lined with tin? Do you always have to whip cream in the same direction? Does the skin of suckling pigs really get more crackling when the head is cut immediately after roasting? What of the old French wisdom that mayonnaise, a delicate emulsion of oil and water, will fail when prepared by menstruating women?

Such are the questions that occupy the mind of French celebrity scientist Hervé This, who studies the science of cooking. This (pronounced "Teess"), who has dual appointments at the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) and the Collège de France, wants to know whether common rules of cooking are science-based or just bogus. (The answers to the above questions, in case you are wondering, are no, no, yes, and no, respectively.)

This is the most prominent spokesperson of a small but growing research field known as "molecular gastronomy," or, as famed food science writer Harold McGee from Palo Alto, California, puts it, "the science of making delicious things." He studies what happens in pots, pans, and ovens to create that divine flavor and texture. And in the process, he's trying to give cooking a more solid scientific basis, which means getting rid of some age-old wisdoms.

ScienceMag wrote:In another attempt to bring rigor to the messy process of cooking, This has developed a system for "classification of dispersed systems," which describes each dish as a formula, based on the state of its ingredients (gas, liquid, or solid) and the preparation process. (In this system, puff pastry becomes ((S1/S2)0.5BETA ((W/O)/S3)0.5)BETA729.) The formulas--a bit like those Lavoisier developed to describe chemical reactions--can be used not only to classify dishes, This says, but to invent new ones as well. "He's the first one ever to try that, and it's something to be proud of," says Van der Linden.

Although he says he's more interested in research than in cooking, This does have close ties with a three-star chef, Pierre Gagnaire of the eponymous restaurant in Paris. Every month, This sends him an idea from the lab--for instance, an egg cooked at 65°C, which is far less rubbery than those cooked at 100°--which Gagnaire then turns into a recipe. (The entire collection is available on Gagnaire's Web site.)