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 ;)

This is confusing..(off topic)

[utenaslashed]

Every reply has "Reply to This"... and 'This et al.' could be abbreviated as 'These'..endless fun..pun?

Re:Confused

[irishstallion]

You are wrong, sir. This is his name.

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"

Re:Grammar?

[The Clockwork Troll]

This "this" is not that this. That "this" is this but this "this" is This. Got that?

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

[uohcicds]

Blumenthal's restaurant (complete with a research kitchen) The Fat Duck in Bray was named the Worlds' Best Restaurant in 2005 by "Restaurant" magazine (see http://www.theworlds50best.com/). It also came second in 2004, 2006 and 2007. I always enjoyed the columns he wrote for the Guardian (he now writes for the Sunday Times), which I found fun, interesting and not pompous at all, unusually for the food industry. He's recently done some TV in the UK in a series called "In Search of Perfection", where he tries to put new spins on traditional foods, such as spaghetti Bolognese, Black Forest gateau, roast beef, fish & chips etc.. The piece where he effectively created a sandblaster to coat the Black Forest Gateau with chocolate was something indeed to behold.

Re:We have Heston Blumenthal

[julesh]

One thing I've tried and loved is Blumenthal's ideas for low temperature cooking. There's something about a joint of beef, roast for 10 hours at 55 degrees, that is hard to imagine until you've tried it...

Re:We have Heston Blumenthal

[sjwaste]

If anyone's interested in this and is in the DC area, you can taste it affordably. Central Michel Richard, I think on 12th and Pennsylvania, has short ribs on the menu cooked sous vide. And it'll only set you back like $25. I had 'em, definitely the best thing on the menu.

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.

Re:We have Heston Blumenthal

[jfengel]

Also, chef Jose Andres at Cafe Atlantico among others. One of my favorites: his "magic mojito", consisting of a ball of mojito-flavored cotton candy and a wad of "lime air", which is an intensely-flavored foam with a consistency of soap bubbles. (It's got to be some sort of edible emulsifier and lime oil.)

Next week I'm going to his Minibar, basically a 30-course showoff of molecular gastronomy (and a lot more than $25, I'm afraid. It's a birthday present to a foodie friend of mine and a once-in-a-lifetime experience, at least at that price.)

Re:We have Heston Blumenthal

[ChrisMaple]

As you are a good scientist, by 55 degrees I realize you mean 55 degrees Kelvin.

But does it taste good?

[DrogMan]

There was a (UK) TV program on recently with a bloke who specialises in puddings (Sweet Baby James or something it's called and he makes the most fantastic easy to make puddings!!!) and he challenged a scientific chef and Mrs Farmhouse cook to bake a Victoria sponge cake... The boffin at HQ went to great lengths about how important it was to measure the ingredients and combine them in such a way and timed the cooking to the second... Mrs. Farmhouse woman just put in some of this and enough of that and beat it up with a hand whisk until it looked OK then baked it "until it's done".

Then they took the cakes to the cake buyer/tester in Harrods. Guess which one tasted and looked the best? The Mrs. Farmhouse one, of-course!

There's also a series on right now hosted by some scientific cook bod - it's quite entertaining, (especially when he deep fried a whole chicken in the last series - left it in a second too long and it caught fire) but I can't help thinking his name ought to be a "new millenium" substitute for "Gordon Bennett"... It's "Heston Blumenthal".

Re:But does it taste good?

[transiit]

you're getting bogged down in the sensationalism.

An understanding of some of the chemical or molecular interactions in your food can be handy knowledge. It'll keep you away from the old Swedish Lemon Angel debacle at least.

My limited experience with food scientists suggests that they rarely think about measuring things to infinite precision, but rather think about the underlying systems. More of a hacker mentality.

Re:But does it taste good?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Cooking, molecular or otherwise, is not about getting the recipe right to the nth decimal. As someone wrote in another post, you'll always have variations in products, temperatures, cooking ware etc. Completing a recipe to perfection has a lot to do with reacting to feedback: knowing your ingredients, smells, texture, taste. Mrs. Farmhouse got it right with her "looks ok" approach; the "scientific chef" was being a silly. If you ignore the feedback and just watch the egg timer, it won't come out as good.

Cooking science is about understanding what happens to food when we prepare it. It won't give us a runbook to achieve that perfect flavour, but it will help us to understand the process so that we get better at managing it.

Re:Grammar?

[Gordonjcp]

An object-orientated chef?
 

$this->makeMousse('chocolate');

harold mcgee

[romit_icarus]

One of the best books to offer the basics of the 'science' of cooking is Harold Mcgee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. http://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Ki tchen/dp/0684800012/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-1551306-21 10061?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186389795&sr=8-1

Science and cookery

[19061969]

This article reminds me of a course that used to be run at Bristol University called, "The physics of a Black Forest gateau" by Peter Barham. By all accounts, it was tremendously popular and always fully booked, so much so that other culinary treats were dealt with in the same manner (http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2005/874.html)

Re:Lab Snacks

[pla]

Come on, this is Slashdot. Half of the people here live off food that was flavor-engineered in a lab and vacu-formed into some sort of food-like eXtreme cheese thing.

I highly recommend the book "Twinky, Deconstructed" to elaborate on your point. Informative, and despite the subject matter, makes for a light, enjoyable read.

I've always cared about what I eat and could identify at least the basic purpose of most items on an ingredient label ("Sugar, sugar, an emollient, another sugar, preservative, etc"), but this book really taught me quite a lot. I can't say it did much to improve my apetite for mass-produced snack foods, but most of it blew me away as to why, for example, they use so many different sugars (short reason for a lot of the less obvious ingredients - the less water they use, the longer food stays fresh).

It also surprised me how much of our food production qualifies as a matter of national security. Or how much of it comes from a mine rather than a farm (really!).


(I have no connection to the author or publisher).

lab vs home made.

[timmarhy]

There very good reasons that home made always tastes better then anything manufactured in a lab, and it's nothing to do with love or "vibe" or any of that hippy crap.

one reason, is that at home we have the ability to adapt to variations in the raw product, which you will get no matter how hard you try to control in a lab.

the other, is that the taste and smell receptors in our mouth are many factors more sensitive then lab equipment, meaning cooking "till it's done" is just a laymans way of saying a good cooks sense of smell is a much better indication of when food is ready then any lab insturment.

so while the IDEA that food can be scientifically expressed is correct, we are a LONG way from being able compete with those old nanna's down the road who make that awesome apple pie.

Re:lab vs home made.

[DecPascal]

Do not missunderstand This. His purpose is knowledge of what append while cooking, not the way or where it is done.
One of his first discovery was the yellow part of an egg is cooked at 68C and white part at 63C. It seems nobody ever wonder about it!
The direct application of this knowledge is to make "perfect" boiled eggs. Simply put eggs in an oven at 65C. (You can do it at home, like I did ;-) )
Other example: He discovered that quicker an ice cream was frozen, smaller were cristals in it, and smaller critals are, better it taste.
Application: Some restaurants make "liquid nitrogen" ice-cream (you are breathing 4 time more nitrogen than oxygen, so no nitrogen is no dangerous). More diffcult to do at home :-s
This do not care about application (well, at least, he does not felt responsible of it). The knowledge is a key, that can open many doors. Some of his research are used for cooking jam or better cork (to avoid corked wine), not for try to poison the whole planet ;-)

Are there many Slashdot geeks who cook?

[pandrijeczko]

I must say that working (and playing) with computers all of my life, I thoroughly enjoy cooking as a welcome diversion from the world of silicon into the world of the organic.

My general rules for cooking are as follows:

1. The wok is my best friend - in it I can do anything from simple stir fries to complex curries & other Asian dishes.

2. Stir, stir and stir some more.

3. Despite being a techie and part time programmer where accuracy and preparation are paramount, I NEVER obey a recipe. Cooking is always about tasting and making things up as you go along, I cannot stand the formality around eating - serve it up with a nice wine or two to friends and just get on with enjoying it.

4. Unless you do something really silly, or try to make a recipe that's far too complex, it's impossible to mess things up. Again, it's all about making it up as you go along with a rough knowledge of what herbs go with what meats or fish.

Any other programming cooks reading this?

Re:Are there many Slashdot geeks who cook?

[TheJasper]

Actually I know a lot of cooking nerds. In fact, Andrew Tanenbaum has even written a cookbook called 'How to prepare your input'.

My rules are:

1. Taste it. Taste it raw, taste it cooking and taste it done. Taste herbs, spices, meat, fish, oil, vinegar. basically everything. Am I being clear on this?

2. Nothing makes up for good ingredients and good materials. I generally don't like aluminum pans because the thermal properties suck.

3. Because of being a programmer where accuracy and preparation are paramount, I NEVER obey a recipe. You see, recipes don't take into account local variations. Thus they are only guidelines. Following a recipe to the letter is often a prelude to disaster. anyway most recipes aren't even that exact. A pinch of salt. Medium heat.

4. Cooking is easy. Most of it is a question of technique. This requires practice. Some techniques are difficult. Most aren't. Don't be afraid. Just do. And pretend that whatever comes out of the kitchen is exactly as you'd planned it.

Re:Are there many Slashdot geeks who cook?

[GoofyBoy]

This is the first thing I think about when I hear that someone has a wok at home.

Go to any Chinese restaurant and take a peak at their woks. The heat source is literally a series of blowtorches in a circle. You can't get that sort of consistent heat at home.

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.

Re:McGee On Food and Cooking is the bible

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, even better, Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor

One-liner book review

[Stavr0]

If you're a science geek get these books
If you're a cooking geek ('foodie') get these books

If you're a science geek and a cooking geek you already have these books.

Molecular Gastronomy would make an excellent Slashdot book review.

Re:One-liner book review

[wirelessjb]

Any reading of food as a science must start with Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's 1825 treatise, "The Physiology of Taste: Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy" brilliantly translated in 1949 by the equally impressive food writer MFK Fisher. Brillat-Savarin meditates on every aspect of food including the benefits of sugar and chocolate (new discoveries at the time), cures for thinness and obesity, the social value of restaurants, why beautiful women should be included in any dinner party*, and how to recognize a gourmand by their facial features. Fisher adds her own glosses with 20th century examples of the "professor"'s proclamations, playful chiding of the man's 19th century mentality, and obvious deep respect for his writing, his knowledge, and his love for gastronomy and desire to see it studied like the other "-onomies" that were becoming so fashionable at the time. Looks like it only took 182 years.

The author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Anthelme_Brillat -Savarin

The book: http://www.amazon.com/Physiology-Taste-Meditations -Transcendental-Gastronomy/dp/1582431035

The translator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._F._K._Fisher

* had to get the /. crowd's attention somehow

Let's not forget Ferran Adria

[spun]

His El Bulli restaurant beat out Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck in the Restaurant Top 50. He is also considered a pioneer of molecular gastronomy and has written several books on the subject. He was featured on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, with dishes like cotton candy fish.

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.

That is what This deserves!

[RealProgrammer]

This ambiguity comes from this This (and all Thises). These Thises should know better than to be named for a demonstrative pronoun like "this".

This is another example of misnominy, the practice of naming people in really unfortunate ways. Movie stars started this trend by naming their kids after fruit and physical abstractions ("Apple", "River", "Moon", etc.) Now it's spreading to scientists and cooks.

Someone, please stop the insanity! For the children!

Sous Vide

[edsel]

Amanda Hesser did a NYT piece on Sous Vide cooking a while back. Pretty good overview of the technique along with some history.