The Father of Molecular Gastronomy Whips Up a New Formula

An anonymous reader writes "French chemist and cook Hervé This maintains his quest to find the scientific precision behind great tasting food. Chef This is just one of a growing number of cooks that approaches food from a scientific perspective; making recipes in a lab instead of in the kitchen. The difference is that This was one of the pioneers of the field. 'This and a colleague, the late Oxford physicist Nicholas Kurti, conducted the experiments in their spare time. In 1988, the pair coined a term to describe their nascent field: molecular gastronomy. The name has since been applied to the kitchen wizardry of chefs like el Bulli's Ferran Adria and Alinea's Grant Achatz. But This is interested in basic culinary knowledge -- not flashy preparations -- and has continued to accumulate his precisions, which now number some 25,000.'"

Comments

Re:Grammar?

[rm999]

The guy's name is "This." Yes, you probably do need some sleep, and I do too because I thought the same thing at first ;)

More on This

[dargaud]

He has a monthly page in the french edition of Scientific American (Pour La Science) and several books out:

• Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor
• Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking
• In the Kitchen with Pierre Gagniere and Louis XIV

He's also a nice guy and I've exchanged cooking tips with him by email !

Re:More on This

[ivano]

Or go to the bible: McGee's "On food and cooking"

We have Heston Blumenthal

[simong]

And his restaurant. He has become notorious for his creations such as smoked bacon flavoured ice cream and snail porridge (which is actually supposed to be a snail risotto made with oats). He also says that Molecular gastronomy is dead, so who do we believe?

Re:We have Heston Blumenthal

[otie]

As the article you linked says, Blumenthal just said the term "molecular gastronomy" is confusing and elitist. He doesn't mean the actual field where scientific precision is used to examine cooking is dead.

Re:We have Heston Blumenthal

[sjwaste]

Barbecue is very similar, but the method I think we're talking about is sous vide. Basically, the meat is sealed up in a vacuum bag and cooked at even a lower temp than bbq generally is done, usually at the "done" temperature of whatever it is you're cooking. So for a medium rare piece of beef, you put the pouch in 130 degree water for sometimes days until its done.

Barbecue uses slightly higher temperatures and smoke as its dry heat source. Also, the meat is not sealed up with its juices. So you get something similar (and delicious), but not quite the same. If you ever come across it, give it a shot.

McGee On Food and Cooking is the bible

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Mod parent up.

Even better, a link to the book at Amazon: McGee On Food and Cooking (Hardcover). (The hardcover version is worth getting).

Rich.

Buy this book: Cookwise

[gosand]

One of the best cooking books I own (note: it isn't just a cookbook) is Cookwise by Shirley O. Corriher. You Good Eats fans would recognize her as the portly grey-haired lady that has appeared on some episodes. This book is absolutely fantastic, and describes the WHYs of cooking. It also has some great recipes. Ever wonder what makes cookies chewy, crispy, puffy, or flat? It shows a great chart in that section that shows "more of this" leads to "more of that". e.g. if you want to make your cookies chewy, use more brown sugar and bread flour.

I think that the right tools help immensely with cooking. Get 3 very good knives, and keep them sharp. I would recommend Wusthof: 8" chefs knife, paring knife, and a bread knife. Get 3-4 plastic cutting boards of decent size. That will get you started, and try to avoid all the gadgets that you see. Learn good techniques, like how to do basic chopping/dicing, and you won't need the gadgets to do it for you.

Next, I would suggest you try some classic recipes. Use good ingredients, and learn what everything tastes like. And enjoy it!

How many geeks like to cook?

[spun]

Okay, I have a theory that a certain number of geeks love to cook and are really very good at it. I've been cooking since I was eight and I can make almost anything without looking at a recipe. I may be wrong, but I imagine some very good cooks post here.

One resource I can't recommend highly enough is Cook's Illustrated magazine, put out by the folks who do the PBS show, America's Test Kitchen. It has no advertisements, just in depth recipes and reviews you can trust. In each recipe, the highlight common problems and the solutions they've found through experimentation. They also tell about the failures and why they failed, and the science behind what went right and wrong.