| |
For
some people, puff pastry is something they take time to carefully
make by hand, to
result in the flakiest of pastries. For others, it is something
that comes folded and frozen in a box, preferably made with
butter only but not always. For others still, puff pastry
can be summarized as (S1/S2)(((W/O)/S) (S1/S2)729---French
scientist Hervé This’ formula for the dough.
This, who holds the only doctoral degree in molecular gastronomy
in the world, works in a lab funded by the French government
rather than in a restaurant kitchen, but his work is closely
followed by chefs who are interested in improving upon classic
dishes by understanding the processes that take place when
manipulating ingredients and techniques. Some of these experiments
include studying how many gallons of mayonnaise can be produced
with a single egg yolk, or what should be added to water
to cook a perfect batch of pasta, for example.
Chefs’ preoccupation with the scientific aspect of
food and cooking is nothing new: “When I give a talk
on the state of cooking today,” said Harold McGee,
author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the
Kitchen, “I point out that you can find books on the
chemistry of food and cooking that go back centuries. The
idea that it is something new is just an indication of how
short our memory is.”
However, it is over the last two to three years that this
experimental approach to cooking has received increasing
media attention. The opening of Grant Archatz’s restaurant
Alinea in Chicago in early 2005 was extensively documented
before the first meal---with dishes as deceptively named
as PB&J, which consists of peeled grapes on the stem
with a peanut butter coating, wrapped in brioche and broiled---was
even served, for example. Also in Chicago, Homaro Cantu’s
technological explorations at his year-old Moto have attracted
the attention of NASA for example, with whom Cantu now has
a contract for space-ready food. In addition to his restaurant,
Cantu launched Cantu Designs, which uses some of his patent-pending
technology for applications ranging from tableware to pharmaceuticals.
José Andres put Washington D.C. on this explosive
culinary map with the tasting dinners offered at his 12-seat
Minibar, one of his many restaurants in the capital. In and
around New York, experimental cooking appears in the kitchen
of WD-50, for example, or in Will Goldfarb’s creations
at Room 4 Dessert and James George Sarkar’s dishes
at Venue in Hoboken. In Europe, Heston Blumenthal works out
of London, while Pierre Gagnaire closely collaborates with
This in Paris for monthly experiments that result in him
serving dishes such as the Faraday of Lobster, named after
the 19th century physical chemist Michael Faraday.
The patron
saint of them all is Ferran Adrià, of
El Bulli outside of Barcelona in Spain, who has been experimenting
with his cooking since the early 1990s. While food adventurers
have long followed his work, it is only over the last five
or so years that his restaurant has become a destination
for foodies the world over. Accomplished chefs take time
off to go apprentice with him for free, and his name adds
much value to many a restaurant opening’s press release.
Professor
This describes the principles of molecular gastronomy, which “have changed because some clarification was
needed,” as exploring first the “love component
of cooking,” second its art component, and third its
technical component. This last step is further divided into
two “subobjectives”: shaping the “definitions” offered
by recipes, such as defining the meaning of cooking, and
collecting and testing what This calls culinary “precisions,” i.e.
old wife tales and other dictums.
The scientist’s preferred appellation for this culinary
style is not in favor everywhere. Per Se and French Laundry
chef Thomas Keller said that molecular gastronomy is a label
coined by the media. He prefers to call it---which is not
reflected in his kitchens---contemporary cuisine. “I
think it’s an unfortunate term,” McGee said. “It
doesn’t really describe accurately what people are
doing or what their approach is. A lot of the people doing
cooking of that type don’t like to be associated with
that term.”
“ These chefs are right,” said This. “They
do not do molecular gastronomy, because molecular gastronomy
is science, not cooking. Some can apply the results of molecular
gastronomy, some just change the ingredients, methods or
tools, and it's only modernization of culinary techniques.”
But Molecular Gastronomy is the English title of This’ first
translated work and as such, the term stands the chance to
be used even more broadly, even if not with its true meaning.
Columbia University Press, the book’s publisher, has
had to return to print twice within the first two months
of the volume’s North American release, speaking to
the demand for material on scientifically based cooking.
Cantu,
who has created an edible paper on which he prints anything
from sushi to the evening’s menu to make for
an intellectually awakening first course, calls what he does
postmodern cuisine, “the art of taking something old
and making it new,” he said. “Our food got so
strange at one point that we decided to make old things new
again, to give them flavors that they had before.”
“ That term has been more of a label,” said Sarkar,
chef and owner of Venue in Hoboken, New Jersey. “We
try to think of ourselves as a progressive American restaurant.
For some reason, restaurants like mine, Alinea, El Bulli,
have gotten that label. Because of the ingredients we use,
such as xantan gum, lecithin, alginate.”
Some chefs also question the soundness of manipulating food
to the extent that cooking no longer has much to do with
the process. During a recent lecture by This at the Institute
of Culinary Education, Colin Alevras, chef and owner of the
Tasting Room, a New York restaurant known for its farmers’ market-inspired
cuisine, asked This what this meant people were actually
ingesting. This, Cantu, and Sarkar are unanimous in responding
that there is nothing unnatural in dishes that have undergone
a more complex process than what most cooks and diners are
used to, and that ingredients such as gums and alginate,
which are used as stabilizers, for example, are all entirely
natural.
While McGee believes that progressive cuisine has
a long way to go before dominating the American culinary
scene,
Sarkar and Cantu unequivocally predict that within 10 years,
half the restaurants in the United States will offer that
type of cuisine, and that chefs not adopting it will be left
in the dust.
What they all agree on, however, is that home
cooks will not be practicing molecular gastronomy---under
any label---anytime
soon. Professor This says that certain facts that come out
of his experiments, such as being able to make a chocolate
mousse without using egg whites or that the temperature of
the eggs and the oil does not matter when making mayonnaise,
could save cooks time and/or money and might thus transfer
into home kitchens, but not on a much larger scale. The lack
of special equipment, such as the carbonators, emersion circulators,
and dehydrators that Sarkar uses at Venue, also impairs home
cooks.
More importantly, what unites all these practitioners
of a new form of cooking, and of thinking about food, is
a love
of what they do and a desire to create a different type of
experience for diners.
“ Confucius said that men (and women) are not tools,” This
concluded. “In
education, we should not restrict to technique, but also
teach art, and primarily love!”
-Anne E. McBride
|
