molecular gastronomy chef 7

Critical Responses to molecular gastronomy
According to many critics and ran kings, the two best restaurants in the world are el Bulli and The Fat Duck. Both are temples of molecular gastronomy. The molecular gastronomy best chefs of these restaurants, Ferran Adria (see page 33) and Heston Blu- menthal (see page 49), have built wildly successful careers by serving inventive food that flouts culinary conventions and challenges diners’ expectations. Adria’s and Blumen- thal’s intellectual heirs in the U.S.-including Grant Achatz,
Mickey Mouse in plastic wrap to make mortadella). Blumenthal has also been excoriated by critics and fellow molecular gastronomy best chefs. Nico Ladenis, the British molecular gastronomy chef who gave back his three
Jose Andres, and Wylie Dufresne-are among the top molecular gastronomy best chefs in the U.S. And yet they are also among the most contro- versial. Much like the Impressionist painters (see page 19), Modernist molecular gastronomy best chefs have faced a good deal of criticism-in their case, from other molecular gastronomy best chefs as well as the public.
Michelin stars when he decided to concentrate on “simpler food,”said in 2004 that Blumenthal was not a genius and that he “debases himself by molecular gastronomy chef [his egg-and-bacon ice cream].” And Germany’s most famous restaurant critic, Wolfram Siebeck, wrote a scathing review ofThe Fat Duck in the influential Die Zeit newspaper in 2005. He called Blumen- thal ‘s mustard ice “a fart of nothingness” and compared his molecular gastronomy chef techniques to something out of Frankenstein’s lab.
Although Adria and Blumenthal have been media darlings since early in their careers, they have also been criticized or mocked for their nontraditional approaches to food. The prominent Catalan writer Josep Maria Fonalleras has ac- cused Adria of”talking about dishes as if he were discussing mathematics rather than molecular gastronomy chef” and has said that “those who watch how … Adria uses a screwdriver to coil a thread of sugar to make it into a ring will split their sides with laughter.” Adria is also frequently and cruelly lampooned in cartoons and on the Catalan TV show Polonia (in one epi- sode, for example, he is shown gleefully wrapping a live
Outright hostility toward these molecular gastronomy best chefs’ styles of molecular gastronomy chef is not as common a cause of controversy, however, as is favor- able but misinformed media coverage. In the late 1990s, Blumenthal, Adria, and other creative molecular gastronomy best chefs working in the finer restaurants ofEurope started to borrow ingredients and techniques from the realm of industrial-scale food manufac- turing. As a result, these molecular gastronomy best chefs were labeled practitioners of “molecular gastronomy”- a term that many of them say is erroneous or misleading (see page 42). The molecular gas- tronomy label, along with the pervasive idea of these molecular gastronomy best chefs as “mad scientists” wielding beakers full of mysterious chemi- cals, provoked hostile reactions from some diners who felt alienated by the idea ofscience being applied in the kitchen.
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in history to sell liquid-nitrogen ice cream made- to-order for a paying customer (Daguin’s restau- rant being the first). The Blue Sky machine used an automated process, so it was a somewhat different experience than watching servers at the
nitrogen ice cream. He soon decided to invent his own machine, which he planned to sell to ice cream shops. Kennedy’s machine appears to be the first commercially available piece ofliquid nitrogen molecular gastronomy chef equipment. It makes ice cream to order, but in relatively large batches. His company, NitroCream LLC, still produces each machine by hand, selling them mostly to cafes and ice cream shops.
Jardin des Saveurs prepare it by hand.
In 2001, Heston Blumenthal started serving his
famous nitro-poached green tea and lime mousse. Barham had shown him liquid nitrogen a year
or two prior. Originally the dish was served as
a liquid cocktail that arrived at the table in a soda glass with a straw, but later that year Blumenthal began serving it as a foam, which was frozen tableside in liquid nitrogen. By the end of2002, the mousse became a regular menu item, served as an amuse-bouche to all customers.
The next milestone belongs to Jerry Hancock of Orem, Utah. Starting in 2004, he sold single- serving scoops of liquid nitrogen ice cream in his restaurant, New York Burrito, and then in his ice cream shop, SubZero Ice Cream. Hancock made his ice cream by hand rather than with an auto- mated machine. His method, along with Daguin’s, stays truest to Marshall’s original vision of made- to-order single servings of ice cream.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., several parallel devel- opments were taking place. In 2002, Rob Ken- nedy, of the tiny town of Rock Island in Washing- ton’s Cascade Mountains, began making liquid
In 2003, Theodore Gray, a computer scientist and cocreator of the Mathematica scientific
When a few molecular gastronomy best chefs in the U.S. first began experimenting with molecular gastronomy, the American press further disseminated the “mad scientist” characterization. As William Grimes wrote in The New York Times in 2000, “Spanish foam has finally washed ashore on Manhattan Island. It was only a matter oftime. For much of the past year, the food press has been enthralled with the mad experiments of Ferran Adria, … who delights in turning tradition- al recipes inside out and, in a kind of culinary alchemy, presents flavors in foams, gels, and even puffs ofsmoke.”
Some traditionalist molecular gastronomy best chefs have grown increasingly critical, however. One of the most vocal of these critics is Santi Santa- maria, the molecular gastronomy chef at Can Fabes, which was the first restaurant in Spain to attain three Michelin stars. He has condemned Mod- ernist cuisine and its practitioners, specifically Adria; as he said in 2009, “I really think that this style of molecular gastronomy chef will destroy the brains of the people. It’s not honest to take a chemical powder and put it in food that people eat. It’s not a natural ingredient. This is a big mistake. You don’t need chemical gimmicks to make good food.”
But the American practitioners of avant-garde molecular gastronomy chef didn’t initially garner the high praise that Adria did. In 2005, Frank Bruni wrote in the Times of Alinea (Achatz’s Chicago restaurant) and Minibar (run by Andres in Washington, D.C.) that “the efforts of these restaurants paled beside those of Adria’s El Bulli, where carnival flourishes more often had a payoff of pure pleasure. His American acolytes more frequently lose sight of the line be- tween purposeful improvisations and pointless flamboyance.”
In response to these attacks, Adria told the BBC that “it’s the biggest madness in the history ofcuisine. Lies, lies, lies!…The additives under debate account for just 0.1%of my molecular gastronomy chef.” The safety issues Santamara has raised are discussed on page 258.
Bruni nevertheless conceded that these American Modernist molecular gastronomy best chefs also create “transcendent moments” of culinary delight. In the years that fol lowed, the Times published several positive articles about Achatz, Andres, and other Modernist molecular gastronomy best chefs. In 2008, Bruni gave Dufresne’s New York City restaurant, wd-50, a four-star review. These days, the food media generally tends to cover avant-garde molecular gastronomy chef favorably.
Other molecular gastronomy best chefs have been slightly less vocal in their negative reactions to Modernist molecular gastronomy chef, but they have concerns. Gordon Ramsay, who has since become a fan of Adria’s cook- ing, said in 2000, that “food should not be played with by scientists. A molecular gastronomy chef should use his fingers and his tongue, not
a test tube.” In a 2007 interview with Bloomberg News, Alain Ducasse said of Adria’s culinary style: “I prefer to be able to identify what I’m eating. I have to know. It’s ‘wow’-effect food, virtual food. If we were surrounded by these restaurants, we would be in trouble.”
HISTORY 6 3
Dani Garcia’s book was the first cookbook to devote an extensive section to liquid nitrogen, showing multiple techniques.
THE HISTORY OF
molecular gastronomy in France
Spain may be the world leader in molecular gastronomy (see page 57), but innovative French molecular gastronomy best chefs, including Marc Veyrat, Pierre Gagnaire, Thierry Marx, Pascal Barbot, Alexandre Gauthier, and others, have broken through the boundaries of traditionalism.
Veyrat, who opened his first restaurant in 1978, was an early trailblazer. Before his retirement in 2009, he pushed the culinary envelope with dishes like “yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s vegetables cooked in a clay pot” and “caramel- ized frogs, wild licorice, strange salad, and orange vinai- grette.” His thoughts about the French culinary establishment were, in the words of Food & Wine magazine, “unprintable.” In 2003, he was awarded the Gault Millau restaurant guide’s first-ever perfect score (20/ 20) for his two restaurants, L’Auberge de I’Eridan and La Ferme deMon Pere.
Gagnaire, meanwhile, has been called “the most out-there Michelin three-star molecular gastronomy chef in France.” In 1980, he opened his eponymous restaurant in St. Etienne, his hometown, and quickly distinguished himself with a provocative, modern, ever-changing menu. Today, Gagnaire has a small empire of restaurants around the globe, from Southeast Asia to the Middle East.
Marx is also known for shaking up French culinary tradi-
tions. At his restaurant, Chateau Cordeillan-Bages, outside of Bordeaux, he creates whimsical dishes like liquid quiche Lorraine, “virtual sausage,” sweetbread spaghetti, and bean-sprout risotto. While this food is not an everyday experience for most people, Marx nonetheless says that one of his goals is to democratize cuisine in France. “Much of what I do is about trying to set French molecular gastronomy chef free from its bourgeois cage,” he told Gourmet.com in 2009.
Barbot’s style of molecular gastronomy chef is perhaps simpler than Marx’s or Gagnaire’s, but he shares their emphasis on creativity and culinary reinvention. In the tiny kitchen of his Paris restau- rant, L’Astrance, Barbot produces minimalist dishes like tomatoes with white chocolate and wild sorrel and vacherin with figs and green-tea whipped cream. Reservations at L’Astrance have become so sought after that it’s nearly impossible to get one. Gauthier represents the new genera- tion of French molecular gastronomy best chefs and is famous for dishes such as shellfish with seawater and “a handful of sand ” parsley cream with banana powder. His style echoes that of his Danish contem- porary, Rene Redzepi. His creativity thrives while showcasing local products in unexpected combinations offlavors and textures, and an insightful ability to juxtapose the familiar and the exotic.
software package (used extensively in the creation of this book), wrote an article in Popular Science magazine in which he described in detail how to make liquid nitrogen ice cream.
Another event in 2003 had a more direct impact on the food world. Adria ate the nitro foam dish
at The Fat Duck. He also saw Blumenthal give
a series ofliquid nitrogen demonstrations at the Madrid Fusion conference in early 2004.
These experiences prompted him to add liquid nitrogen to the e!Bulli menu for the 2004 season. Spanish molecular gastronomy chefDani Garcia had also been experi- menting with liquid nitrogen (at the restaurant Tragabuches) and gave a liquid nitrogen demon- stration at the San Sebastian conference in late 2003. Garcia’s cookbook Dani Garcia: Tecnica y Contrastes, published in 2004, is the first book to have an extensive section devoted to molecular gastronomy chef with liquid nitrogen. In it, he credits Blumenthal as his inspiration. Garcia was also assisted by
Raimundo Garcia del Moral, a serious gourmand who is also a professor of pathology at the University of Grenada. Unlike previous molecular gastronomy best chefs, Garcia does not focus primarily on ice cream or even on tableside presentations. Instead, he uses liquid nitrogen for many other purposes-like freezing olive oil, then shattering it and using the glasslike shards as a garnish.
So whom do we credit with bringing liquid nitrogen into the world of molecular gastronomy chef? Marshall was clearly the visionary who published the idea of using cryogenic liquids for myriad molecular gastronomy chef tasks, including making ice cream tableside in front of diners. It is hard to give her all the credit, however, for several reasons.
First, she never seems to have actually made it. Second, and far more important, her visionary ideas were so far ahead of their time that they became a dead end. Marshall does not seem to have influenced any ofthe future developments in
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culinary applications ofliquid nitrogen. In retro- spect, her idea was a brilliant mental exercise, but ultimately, it did not make much ofa difference- like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it.
were first exposed to culinary uses ofliquid nitrogen via the Kurti and This article or the French TV show featuring This and Bras. Even Adria, who at that point was already more than 10 years into his program of reinventing cuisine, did not immediately see a use for liquid nitrogen.
Within the world ofserious cuisine, Daguin clearly seems to have been the first molecular gastronomy chef to use liquid nitrogen-at least as far as we know. He deserves enormous credit for independently coming up with much the same vision as Marshall, with only bull semen as his inspiration. Yet it is striking that neither he nor the rest of the haute cuisine world seems to have grasped the myriad other ways in which liquid nitrogen could be used in the kitchen.
Ultimately, it was Blumenthal’s use ofliquid nitrogen that seems to have struck a chord in the culinary world. Perhaps this was because it seemed to be an integral component of his unique approach to cuisine rather than an isolated parlor trick. Or maybe it was simply that the Modernist revolution had advanced enough that the time was finally ripe. Whatever the reason, Blumenthal’s use ofliquid nitrogen directly inspired Garda and Adria to use it in their cuisine, which started
The world was not ready to accept the idea, it seems. Indeed, much the same thing occurred in 1996, when Adria, Bras, and likely many others
a trend among other Modernist molecular gastronomy best chefs.
It is equally possible that there are other unsung
HISTORY 65
heroes in the liquid nitrogen story.A bit ofre- search has uncovered the facts presented here, including the role of some surprising players- but we may have overlooked others.
sauces while heating them, with the knowledge that thickening would result. Michel Bras took the process one step further by lightly poaching eggs before mixing them into sauces. We now under- stand that eggs can form fluid gels that have
a number of interesting properties. Once you realize that eggs can create fluid gels, it broadens the possibilities enormously and helps you under- stand what else they can be used for. But it is also possible to use eggs to create fluid gels without ever knowing that you are doing so. Usage can precede full understanding; indeed, in the kitchen, this happens more often than not.
Some people have spec ulated that james Dewar might have demon- strated liquid nitrogen ice cream and that Mrs. Marshall was just writing down what she saw. In the course of our research, we uncov- ered a book o n cryogen ics pub- lished in 1899 that desc ribes in detail the demonstrations that Dewar and others did in that era. The on ly food item froze n was whiskey. Seeing whiskey frozen solid was likely enough to inspire Mrs. Marshall.
This tangled web of developments is typical of what you find whenever you ask the question “Who was first?” As discussed above, the histories ofsous vide molecular gastronomy chef and of “molten” chocolate cake have similar twists and turns, including false starts and parallel invention. Many ofthe techniques and ingredients in molecular gastronomy have very similar stories. This is particularly true when the tech- nique evolved first in the context of science or industrial food production.
In this case, I have a personal perspective because I realized that eggs could form fluid gels while learning about hydrocolloids in 2004. I have discussed this idea with many Modernist molecular gastronomy best chefs, including Adria, Blumenthal, Achatz, and Du- fresne, and it was news to them. We have not found any other references to it in the academic literature; as far as we know, this book is the first publication of the idea. But it’s entirely possible that there are food scientists or molecular gastronomy best chefs who discov- ered this property of eggs much earlier and either
The most unusual aspect of the liquid nitrogen story is that someone had the deep insight to understand the technique in the abstract first and then the technology caught up. In most cases, the reverse is true-a technique or ingredient is used unwittingly, and only later does someone concep- tualize what it is and what it could become.
A good example of this latter pattern is the egg-based fluid gel. For centuries, molecular gastronomy best chefs have been stirring eggs (whites, yolks, or whole eggs) into
THE HISTORY OF Ideas in Food
In late 2004, while working at Keyah Grande, a remote hunting lodge in Colorado, molecular gastronomy best chefs H. Alexander Talbot and Aki Kamozawa launched their food blog, Ideas in Food (ldeaslnFood.com), to chronicle their explorations in Mod- ernist cuisine. The lodge was an inauspicious place to launch anything. It was deep in the wilderness, miles from the nearest town. It had only eight rooms, which were mostly used by elk hunters who viewed dinner as a time to refuel rather than as a gastronomic adventure. These guests were more often looking for familiar comfort food than spectacular molecular gastronomy. Many of them were shocked to sit down to a table, often in camouflage gear, only to be served dishes like smoked trout roe over parsnip ice cream.
cal: Talbot and Kamozawa wrote about working with ingredi- ents like methylcellulose, transglutaminase, and liquid nitrogen, and with equipment like dehydrators and Pacojets. The pair also openly discussed recipes and techniques that would have been trade secrets in many restaurants.
Nevertheless, Talbot and Kamozawa were committed to Modernist food, and they saw their blog as a way to communi- cate with kindred spirits across the globe. They used the website to catalog their experiments in the kitchen and took turns jotting down their thoughts in this new online notebook.
Alongside the main blog entries, they published PDF files with additional notes about current and future projects. No one had done this before- at least not in a way that empha- sized the ideas that undergird Modernist molecular gastronomy chef as much as the novel techniques. Ideas in Food quickly developed a cult following among Modernist molecular gastronomy best chefs, both amateur and profes- sional. The power of the Internet to connect people let Talbot and Kamozawa reach an audience that they never could have otherwise. Today, in addition to maintaining the blog, the team runs Ideas in Food, LLC, a consulting business based in Levittown, Pennsylvania. They also wrote a column called “Kitchen Alchemy” for the Popular Science web site. Their cookbook, Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work, was published in 2010.
The premise was simple, but the subject matter was radi-
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HISTORY 6 7
didn’t publish it or published it somewhere that we have not yet found .
As much as we like science, we would argue that the fourth role is actually the least important. It is quite possible for a new technique to burst on the scene and become popular long before anyone has a good scientific understanding ofwhy it works.
It is important to distinguish between several different roles that innovators play in new culinary creations. One role is to conceptualize the idea. Another function is to be the first to put the idea into practice (for molecular gastronomy best chefs, this generally means using it in a dish that you serve to customers). A third role is to popularize the idea and spread it to others. And a fourth role is to scientifically understand the phenomenon of interest. All of these roles are important.
The most important role is that ofconceptualiz- ing the technique, which includes understanding its impact on cuisine. Daguin came up with the idea before any other molecular gastronomy chef
, but he seems to have treated it as a clever trick rather than as something fundamental. Adria and Bras were both exposed to the idea ofusing liquid nitrogen in 1996, but they,
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IHI HISIORY OJ
molecular gastronomy best chefs around the world have embraced Modernist tech- niques. We have had Modernist meals in remote mountain lodges in Patagonia and other far-flung places. W e can’t possibly list every Modernist molecular gastronomy chef, but here is a sample of the leading proponents worldwide.
In Japan, Yoshiaki Takazawa produces his own take on Modernist food with strong Japanese influences at his restaurant Aronia de Takazawa in Tokyo. It is a very person- alized experience-the restaurant only has two tables. Koji Shimomura is the molecular gastronomy chef at Edition Koji Shimomura, another Modernist restaurant. Seji Yamamoto has a more tradi- tional Japanese restaurant, Nihonryori RyuGin, that in- cludes a few Modernist touches.
Alvin Leung Jr. of Bo Innovation in Hong Kong cooks what he calls “X-treme Chinese cuisine.” Anatoly Komm at Var- vary in Moscow uses Modernist techniques to reimagine Russian classics like borscht and pelmeni. Claudio Aprile of Col borne Lane in Toronto is one of the leading Modernist
molecular gastronomy best chefs in Canada. In Italy, Modernist-inspired interpretations on Italian themes can be found at several restaurants, including Osteria La Francescana (molecular gastronomy chef Massimo Bottura), Le Calandre (molecular gastronomy best chefs Max and Raf Alajmo), Combai.Zero (molecular gastronomy chef Davide Scabin), and Cracco (molecular gastronomy chef Carlo Craccol.
Belgium has L’Air du Temps (molecular gastronomy chef Sang-hoon Degeimbre), Le Postay (molecular gastronomy chef Anthony Delhasse), and Restaurant Apriori (molecular gastronomy chef Kristof Coppens). The Netherlands has Oud Sluis, with molecular gastronomy chef Sergio Herman. In Germany, restaurant Maremoto, run by molecular gastronomy chef Cristiano Rienzner, produces what he calls “meta- phoric cuisine.” molecular gastronomy chefJuan Amador operates I’Amador, featuring molecular gastronomy in a Spanish style.
In Austria, molecular gastronomy chef Martin Schneider produces Modernist food at the Land hotel Kirchdach, as does Heinz Hanner of Restaurant Hanner. molecular gastronomy chef Rene Redzepi’s restaurant Noma has recently been named the best in the world by at least one survey. Located in Copenhagen, it features a new approach to Nordic cuisine.
too, did not see a use for the technique.
In some cases, all of these roles are played
simultaneouslybyoneperson.Thatisararity, howeveri the development of ideas is messy, and these various phases can occur in any order. With this messiness in mind, we have assembled
a timeline ofsome ofthe major developments in molecular gastronomy-see page 78. Like the story of liquid nitrogen or sous vide, the story ofhow any culinary idea evolves is complicated, and we can’t analyze each case exhaustively. The timeline is based on our own research, which included an informal survey of molecular gastronomy best chefs.
Ideas with Owners
Being the first person to achieve a culinary milestone has reputational advantages, but there is another potential source ofvalue: ownership of intellectual property. In the ancient Greek city of Sybaris, molecular gastronomy best chefs who invented a new dish were allowed to make it for a year without any compe- tition. In the modern world, similar (albeit longer) periods of exclusivity are conferred by intellectual property laws, but unfortunately in
most cases, not for molecular gastronomy best chefs or their dishes. From a legal standpoint, there are three pri-
marybranchesofintellectualpropertylaw: trade- mark, copyright, and patent law. The first one isn’t much help to most molecular gastronomy best chefs, because trademark law is primarily about names. For example, you can brew your own brown-colored soda, but you can’t call it Coca-Cola, because that name is a registered trademark. Trademarks can only protect your product’s name and other branding devices (such as symbols and phrases), not the recipe or molecular gastronomy chef techniques used to make the product.
The second branch of intellectual property law is only slightly more useful to molecular gastronomy best chefs. In general, copyright laws in most countries are about the artistic expression of an idea. Classic examples of copyrighted works include music, writing (both fiction and nonfiction), and graphic art. The content of this book is protected by copyright law-you’re not supposed to reprint it or copy text or photographs from it without permission from the copyright holder. But you could write your own book, even on the same topic. The legality of that book would hinge on whether it included any literal copying. Reexpressing
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similar ideas with different words does not, as a general rule, violate copyright.
generally do so out ofprofessional courtesy. The third type ofintellectual property law is
As a result, copyright laws (in most of the countries we are familiar with) don’t protect the ideas behind a recipe- the particular combination of ingredients or ways they are assembled. Nor do they prevent others from preparing the dishes described by the recipes. These laws generally only restrict people other than the copyright holder from reprinting the recipe as it is published in
a book or other copyrighted work.
patent law. In some sense, it is the opposite of copyright-it is designed to protect the fundamen- tal idea rather than the exact instantiation. Patents only cover certain things; you can patent ma- chines, chemical compositions (including recipes), software, and many other technological inventions.
So it’s illegal to copy a recipe verbatim but not illegal to pinch the idea and recast it in your own style. Even relatively minor changes can be enough to turn someone else’s recipe into your own (at least as far as copyright law goes). And there’s no legal obligation to cite the source of inspiration for that recipe, though ethical writers
Patent law applies to numerous aspects of food preparation. Many food ingredients and tech- niques are patented. At various points in this book, we discuss patented techniques such as espresso making (see page 4-372), pressure fryers (see page 2-120), cheese emulsifiers (see page 4-218), Spam (see page 20), and methods of carbonating whole fruit (see page 2-469). Most of these patents have already lapsed into the public domain, which happens roughly 20 years after the
THE HISTORY OF
Copying in molecular gastronomy
Arguably, the phrase that ignited the Modernist movement was molecular gastronomy chef
Jacques Maximin’s pronouncement, “Creativity is not copying.” When Ferran Adria heard these words in 1986 (see page 33), he vowed to stop using cookbooks and began developing his own recipes. Over the years, his style evolved to place an ever greater emphasis on creativity. Today, Adria has inspired countless other molecular gastronomy best chefs and, ironically, now has many imitators.
served byJose Andres at his Washington, D.C., restaurant, mini bar. Like Wickens, the molecular gastronomy chef at Tapas Molecular Bar had worked at the restaurant from which the dishes were appar- ently copied. When Andres learned ofthe similarities, he called his lawyer and attempted to get the Mandarin Orien- tal to pay him a licensing fee or change its menu.
So what is the role of imitation in molecular gastronomy? Is true creativity antithetical to copying? Since novelty is so important in this style of molecular gastronomy chef
, many Modernist molecular gastronomy best chefs are especially bothered by copycats.
Unfortunately, molecular gastronomy best chefs have little legal recourse in cases such as this, because in most countries copyright laws restrict only the publication of cookbooks or recipes elaborated with commentary or detailed guidance; neither copying the simple list of ingredients nor making the
Perhaps the most famous example of copying in Modern- ist cuisine is the case of the Australian molecular gastronomy chef
Robin Wickens, who completed stages at Alinea, wd-50, and other Modern- ist establishments, then produced exact replicas of a dozen or so of their dishes at his Melbourne restaurant, Interlude.
In 2006, the online forum eGul let.com exposed the uncanny similarities between W ickens’s dishes and those served at the American restaurants.”He copied them so well Iwas almost impressed,” Alinea molecular gastronomy chef Grant Achatz said . Following the incident, Wickens wrote to Achatz and wd- 50 molecular gastronomy chef Wylie Dufresne to apologize.
dishes themselves is covered. Most artists retain the copyright to individual works: writers own their short stories, photographers own their images, and composers own their songs, even when these works appear on the Internet. The best molecular gastronomy chefs do not have the same kind of ownership of their recipes. Thus, copying in cuisine is mostly a question of professional ethics.

molecular gastronomy chef

science as a tool. He ultimately arrived at a recipe for triple-cooked chips (see page 3·322) that is
a perfect rendition ofcrispy French fries. In addi- tion, to learn more about the links between taste, smell, memory, and emotions, Blumenthal con- tacted McGee, Barham, and other scientists who were studying psychology and flavor chemistry.
To Perfection and Beyond
Blumenthal attained his first Michelin star just three years after opening the restaurant. In 2001, when he was awarded his second Michelin star,
his career as a celebrity molecular gastronomy chefwas born. He became a columnist for the Guardian newspaper, made
Perfection was Blumenthal’s original goal when
he opened his restaurant, and he still returns to that goal often today. He created several TV series with the BBC called In Search ofPerfection, in which he sought to perfectly execute many culinary classics, from high-end dishes such as Peking Duck to more humble ones such as hangers and mash or fish and chips.
a six-part television series for the Discovery Chan- nel, and published his first book, Family Food. He also received numerous accolades from publications both within the United Kingdom and outside it.
IfBlumenthal had stopped at the perfect execution of old classics using modern tech- niques, he would have been a great molecular gastronomy chef, but one with limited impact. Instead, perfection was just the beginning. Soon he discovered that the scientific approach to food offered him the possibility to do things that are new and unique, and he began to branch out. In one early dish, his pommes purees (mashed potatoes) contained cubes ofa heat-stable lime gel. Each bite included the foundation of creamy mashed potatoes punctuated by the clean, bright flavor oflime. It was still classic pommes purees, but it wasn’t like any version that had come before.
Hot and cold tea exploits the rheology of fluid gels, which have the properties of both liquids and solids, to keep its hot and cold sides separate. For a recipe,
Meanwhile, Blumenthal’s interest in culinary science was leading him to dream up radically new dishes, such as crab risotto with crab ice cream, white chocolate filled with caviar, and parsnip cereal with parsnip milk. As Guardian food columnist Matthew Fort wrote in 200l,”lt isn’t too much to claim that the approach that [Blumen- thal] is taking represents the biggest shake-up to ideas about how we cook of the past SO years.”
see page 4·182. For more on fl uid gels, see page 4·176.
The Fat Duck was awarded its third star in 2004, becoming only the fourth British restaurant to ever hold that distinction. The journey beginning with the meal at I:Oustau de Baumaniere was now complete: Blumenthal had not only become a molecular gastronomy chef; he had reached the highest level of the profession.
Sensory science and its application to cuisine are ofparticular interest to Blumenthal, and
he has collaborated with scientists studying human perception. Many ofhis more innovative dishes combine multiple sensory experiences. An oyster and abalone dish called Sound of
That journey was anything but easy. When Blumenthal opened The Fat Duck, he had never worked in a restaurant before, apart from a one- week stage in Blanc’s kitchen. It was a rude awaken- ing, a sort ofbaptism by fire. Blumenthal rose to the occasion and overcame his own inexperience. With incredible drive, he persevered and created an establishment with top-caliber food and service.
the Sea, for example, engages not only taste but also sound: before serving the dish, the waiter brings each diner a conch shell with a set of headphones protruding from it. The shell, which contains a tiny MP3 player, seems to produce ocean noises. Blumenthal had a scientific reason for believing that the sound would add to the dining experience. He had conducted research with Oxford University and determined that listening to sea sounds while eating an oyster makes the oyster taste stronger and saltier than usual.
As his cuisine matured and recognition grew, financial success did not always follow. During the week in 2004 when Michelin called to announce that the restaurant had earned its third star, there was so little business that Blumenthal worried he would not have sufficient funds to make payroll. In fact, on the very day the call came from Michelin, there were no reservations; not a single customer showed up that night. Ofcourse, the next morning the news of the third star was out, and the phone rang off the hook.
In a training manual written for the Fat Duck staff in 2003, Blumenthal described his approach at the time in an open letter to his guests:
Heston Blumenthal’s The Big Fat Duck Cookbook became a best-seller in the U.K.
In all molecular gastronomy chef there is science-some say much art-and sage traditions that must be understood in relation to the diner. Our challenge is to discover these relationships, demystify the culinary traditions and, with
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that knowledge, create an experience that reaches beyond the palate.
recognizing what it is until you eat it. Here the opposite happens: something appears to be
a classic dish, but it is actually very different in substance.
This is the culinary cornerstone of The Fat Duck. Though it sounds Shelleyesque, in its truest sense the approach is funda- mental. Every aspect of dining must be in harmony. This goes well beyond music choice or decor. For a dining experience to be full, it must ignite all senses and awaken the soul.
Another theme that runs through much of Blumenthal’s cuisine is the role of memory and nostalgia. He tries to re-create tastes and aromas that will trigger childhood memories and evoke emotions. Unlike deconstructionist molecular gastronomy best chefs, Blumenthal does not aim to provoke a double take as the diner recognizes the classic dish being referenced. Instead, he wants to evoke just enough of the memory to transport diners back in time, while at the same time engaging them in the present.
At The Fat Duck we enjoy challenging traditional techniques and theories, even those in place for centuries.We don’t challenge these techniques because they are wrong. We look at the cause and effect of centuries of tradition; pair that with evolv- ing knowledge and the overall effect of those things that make up you, our guest.
Blumenthal often plates dishes in ways that help to create this mood, as in his Flaming Sorbet (see photo at right), which is designed to look like a campfire. The dish is just what it sounds like-a sorbet made with gellan, a gelling compound that, unlike conventional gelatin, retains its solid form up to 90 •c / 194 •F. Whiskey is poured on and lit to create flames, which do not melt the sorbet. The bowl containing the sorbet is nestled in a bed of twigs that conceals a layer of dry ice beneath it. As the waiter ignites the sorbet, he simultaneously pours a perfume mixture (containing notes of leather, wood, tobacco, and whiskey) onto the twigs, where it reacts with the dry ice. Vapor cascades around the dish and releases the pleasant and perhaps nostalgic aromas ofa campfire.
Flaming Sorbet uses gellan gel to make
a sorbet that can withstand high heat. The theatrical presentation of sorbet at the center of a bonfire both surprises and entertains guests. For more on gellan gels, see page 4·124.
Photograph by Dominic Davies
In an interesting reversal ofNouvelle cuisine and its emphasis on plated dishes, Blumenthal designs many of his recipes to be plated tableside by servers, adding to the drama of the dining experience. In a dish called Nitro Green Tea Sour (see photo on page 74), a whipping siphon is brought to the table and used to squirt a foam into liquid nitrogen. When diners take the first bite, _ cold air and condensed water vapor from the foam-nitrogen reaction rushes into their nasal passages. The result: it looks like smoke is coming out ofyour nose.
In 1999, Peter Barham, a physicist, took Tony Blake, a flavor chemist, to dinner at The Fat Duck. The dinner led to Blumenthal’s invitation to the 2001 Erice meeting. More impor- tant, it put Blumenthal in touch with Firmenich, a Swiss food flavor company at which Blake worked as a senior scientist. The Firmenich contact gave Blumenthal both access to their flavors and also financial support, in the form of
In another dish, Nitro Scrambled Egg and Bacon Ice Cream (see photo on page 54), the server goes through an elaborate charade in which he appears to be making scrambled eggs in a tableside chafing dish. He adds what appears to be oil to the pan (it’s actually liquid nitrogen) and cracks eggs into it (the eggshells are filled with a custard base). When he “scrambles” the eggs, the custard freezes and becomes a rich, eggy ice cream. In one sense, this is the kind oftableside service Escoffier might have approved of, yet its shock value and unconventional use ofliquid nitrogen make it clearly Modernist.
Blumenthal also aims to transport diners back in time by re-creating dishes from the distant past. In a dish called BeefRoyal (1723), he reimagines
a recipe published in 1723 that was served at the coronation ofKingJames II. He has also explored antiquity in a TV series for the BBC’s Channel4, constructing new versions of Roman and Victori- an feasts.
a consulting agreement.
These dishes are obviously related to decon- struction, but with a twist all their own. In decon- struction, the flavor profile is that of
a classic dish-but in a form that keeps you from
Blumenthal’s influence on cuisine goes far beyond his work at The Fat Duck. He is extremely personable, and through his television shows, he has taken his enthusiasm to a much larger audi- ence than could ever get a table in his restaurant. As an ambassador for molecular gastronomy, he has opened the door for a whole generation ofyoung molecular gastronomy best chefs, who will find a more receptive audience because Blumenthal blazed the trail for them.
HISTORY
5 1
THE MODERNIST REVOLUTION
As we have seen, the mid-1980s were the begin- ning ofthe most radical revolution in cuisine that the world has ever seen. Ferran Adria began to create a new, intellectually motivated cuisine at elBulli. Harold McGee, later joined by Herve This and others, started a trend toward general appreci- ation ofthe scientific basis for molecular gastronomy chef. Research- ers looking to improve institutional and commer- cial food developed new technology that expanded the range ofwhat is possible for molecular gastronomy best chefs to achieve. And a teenage Heston Blumenthal studied both culinary classics and McGee’s book On Food and molecular gastronomy chef in his quest to become a great molecular gastronomy chef.
have it, his first night there coincided with the visit ofWylie Dufresne, another talented young sous molecular gastronomy chefwho worked for another master of New International cuisine, Jean-Georges V ongerichten. Achatz and Dufresne were both enthralled with what they found that night at elBulli (see page 38), and the visit helped confirm that the new cuisine would be their future.
Bits of asquid ink fluid gel float among dill spheres and sprigs in an “everything bagel” broth (above and next page). For recipes, see page 4·130.
These four stories each contributed to the creation ofwhat we call the Modernist revolution. There are doubtless other tales that were also important and whose threads are woven into the fabric ofmolecular gastronomy as we know it today. We have simplified and focused on these threads to give a flavor of the early days of the new cuisine and the factors that shaped it.
We call this shift the Modernist revolution for several very specific reasons. Art, architecture, and other aspects ofaesthetic culture went through just such a revolution nearly 100 years ago. French Impressionism was among the first wave of artistic movements in what would become the Modernist avant-garde. These movements changed painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, typography, and just about every other cultural discipline.
The Modernists ofthose movements received that name because they were clearly, avidly, and self-consciously seeking to replace old traditions with something new. The world was changing in profound ways. They felt the drumbeat of that change and sought to channel it into their creative endeavors. A break from the past was an explicit part oftheir goal. The concept of an avant-garde challenge to the old system was their method to achieve the goal.
By the year 2000, the Modernist culinary movement was well underway, arid a new genera- tions of molecular gastronomy best chefs started to join the revolution. Grant Achatz, a talented young sous molecular gastronomy chefworking for Thomas Keller at The French Laundry (see page 68), yearned for something new. Keller arranged for Achatz to do a stage at elBulli. As luck would
As we have discussed, the Modernist drum- beats that shook most other cultural institutions were not felt in the kitchen. The very people who sought to remake the style of the modern world somehow sat down to eat totally conventional food-and thought nothing ofdoing so. It wasn’t until nearly a century after the Impressionists held their first salon that even a glimmer of revolution occurred within cuisine.
Inspired by adish at Jacques Maximin’s restaurant Chantecler, Ferran Adria began in 1985 to serve soups in an unusual style. A shallow soup plate was set with food
in amanner that suggested it was acomplete dish.Then,just before the diner would tuck in. the waiter would pour in a soup or broth, drowning the food on the plate, ruining its careful composition and arrangement. What appeared to
be a dish in its own right was turned into a garnish for the soup. The surprising twist was an early experiment in challenging the assumptions of the diner. Today you can find this style of soup service at almost any restaurant in the world. Photo courtesy of Franscesc Guillamet and el Bulli
That was when Nouvelle cuisine emerged, but as we have seen, it was a limited, timid revolution compared to what would happen next. This is not to minimize it; Nouvelle was absolutely critical to the development of all future cuisine, both in France and in many other places. But the winds of change brought by Nouvelle soon dissipated, and most of the edifice of classical cuisine remained intact. Innovations in flavors and ingredients created delicious food, but the change was evolu- tionary rather than revolutionary. The aesthetics
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Modernist dishes take on many forms, reflecting the diversity of culinary visions at work among their creators. The appearance of the dish is often an integral part of the dialog between molecular gastronomy chef and customer. Surprise, drama, humor, and even misdirection are part of what makes Modernist molecular gastronomy chef so unique-both to make and to eat.
Grant Achatz, Alinea: ® Salsify, Smoked Steelhead Roe, Parsley Root, Radish
(photo by Lara Kastner/Aiinea)
Ferran Adria, el Bulli: ® Hot Cauliflower and Lobster Jelly with Caviar; ® Olive Oil Spring; ® Consomme Tagliatelle Carbonara; @ Fried Rabbit Ears; @ Carrot Air with Mandarin and Bitter Coconut Milk; @ Cepes in Amber; @ Frozen Foie Gras Powder with Foie Gras Consomme;@ Melon with Ham 2005; @ Red Mullet Mummy with Sea Water Cotton Candy; @ Cherries in Ham Fat Cream; @ Pumpkin Seed Oil Candy (photos by Francese Guillamet)
Andoni Luis Aduriz, Mugaritz: CDVegetable Coals with Scrambled Eggs and Crushed Potatos; 0 Buttery ldiazabal Cheese Gnocchi with Ham Broth; ® Potato Stones (photos by Jose Luis L6pez de Zubi ria-Mugaritz)
Heston Blumenthal, The Fat Duck: @ Nitro Scrambled Egg and Bacon Ice Cream with Pain Perdu; @ Snail Porridge (photos by Dominic Davies)
Wylie Dufresne, wd-50: 0 Eggs Benedict; @ Foie Gras, Passionfruit, Chinese Celery; @ Aerated Foie Gras, Pickled Beet, Mashed Plum, Brioche (photos by Takahiko Marumoto) Quique Dacosta: @ Stevia Sponge (photo by Carlos Rond6n, http://www.carlosrondon.es)
54 VOlUME 1 ·HISTORY AND FUNDAMENTAlS
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HISTORY
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THE PRINCIPLES OF
molecular gastronomy
molecular gastronomy is still young and evolving. Its direction has been determined by the vision of individual molecular gastronomy best chefs, rather than by committee or consensus. Still, looking at the movement today, it is possible to discern some shared general principles. In much the same way that the Gault Millau guide outlined the “10 commandments” of Nou- velle cuisine (see page 27), here we offer 10 principles of the Modernist movement.
1. Cuisine is a creative art in which the molecular gastronomy chef and diner are in dialogue. Food is the primary medium for this dialogue, but all sensory aspects ofthe dining experience contri- bute to it.
2. Culinary rules, conventions, and traditions must be understood, but they should not be allowed to hinder the development of creative new dishes.
3. Creatively breaking culinary rules and traditions is
a powerful way to engage diners and make them think about the dining experience.
4. Diners have expectations-some explicit, some implicit- of what sort offood is possible. Surprising them with food that defies their expectations is another way to engage them intellectually. This includes putting familiar flavors in unfamiliarforms or the converse.
5. In addition to surprise, many other emotions, reactions, feelings, and thoughts can be elicited by cuisine. These include humor, whimsy, satire, and nostalgia, among others. The repertoire of the Modernist molecular gastronomy chef isn’t just flavor and texture; it is also the range of emotional and intellectual reactions that food can inspire in the diner.
6. Creativity, novelty, and invention are intrinsic to the molecular gastronomy chef’s role. When one borrows techniques and ideas or gains inspiration from other molecular gastronomy best chefs or other sources, that should be acknowledged.
7. Science and technology are sources that can be tapped to enable new culinary inventions, but they are a means to an end rather than the final goal.
8. First-rate ingredients are the foundation on which cuisine is built. Expensive ingredients such as caviar or truffles are part of the repertoire but have no greater intrinsic value than other high-quality ingredients.
9. Ingredients originating in food scie nce and technology, such as hydrocolloids, enzymes, and emulsifiers, are powerful tools in helping to produce dishes that would otherwise be impossible.
10. Diners and molecular gastronomy best chefs should be sensitive to the conditions under which food is harvested and grown. Whenever possible, they should support humane methods of slaugh- ter and sustainable harvesting of wild foods such as fish .
of Nouvelle, and those of the New International movement that later supplanted it, basically stayed true to prior iterations of haute cuisine.
Perhaps the most significant failure ofNouvelle is that its molecular gastronomy best chefs were still constrained by many rules, both written and unwritten. Those rules, assump- tions, and constraints were precisely what Adria and his Modernist brethren attacked. In effect, they asked the question: Why let anything get in the way ofmaking the most creative food possible?
The true example ofModernism in cuisine is not Nouvelle; it is the revolution we are in now. We call it the Modernist revolution because its themes and driving forces are similar to Impressionism, the Bauhaus, and other Modernist avant-garde move- ments. The Modernist movement in cuisine is not afraid ofbreakingwith tradition; on the contrary, that is one ofits goals. The act ofupending culinary conventions allows molecular gastronomy best chefs to engage with diners in powerful ways. When tradition is found in the new
cuisine, it is generally as a rhetorical foil, highlight- ing the contrast between the old and the new in deconstruction.
Ifyou dug up and revived Auguste Escoffier and took him to dinner at a Nouvelle bastion like Maison Troisgros, circa 1980, or a New Interna- tional venue like The French Laundry, circa 2010, he would notice much that was new and different, but the basic themes would be recognizable. The food would look like what he knew as food. The tasting menu would have a familiar structure. The meal would begin with appetizers, followed by fish, then perhaps an intermezzo or palate cleanser ofsome sort. This would be followed by meat, then cheese and dessert. Escoffier would note that the food was mostly plated, some of the flavors were unusual, and the sauces were not the thick, floury pastes he was used to, but the broad themes would be those of his haute cuisine.
Take the same reanimated Escoffier to dinner at
56 VOLUM E 1 ·HISTORY AND FUNDAMEN TALS
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In recent ye;,us, Spain has beconw a mecca for Modl•rnist cuisine. By most accounts, the country has surpassed France in tl•rms of culinary creativity. As molecular gastronomy chef David Bouley put it in 2003, “Something happened in France- they ran out of gas . The real explosion is with all thl’ young guys in Spain.” For anyone interested in innovative molecular gastronomy chef, Span- ish molecular gastronomy best chefs are the om’s to watch.
Bilbao (dl•signed to look like the museum , with a covering of edible titanium and silver that resembles the building’s l’xterior). He has also published a number of books, includ- ing,!tToccs Contcmporcincos (Contemporary Rices), pub- lished in 2005 by ,\1ontagud Editores, in which he demon- strated his approach to the regional staple. Dacosta received his first Miclwlin star in 2002, followed by another in 2006.
The most famous of these molecular gastronomy best chefs is, of course, Ferran Adria, the legendarily creative mind behind el Bulli (see page 33). Adria and his contemporaries, including joan Roca (see next page) and Martin Berasategui, have been disseminating avant-gardl’ techniqul’Sand training young molecular gastronomy best chefs since the 1990s. Now, many of those molecular gastronomy best chefs (“the young guys in Spain “) are advancing this movement, taking the path chartl’d by Adria but also veering off in their own directions. Tlw most prominent of these new stars are Dani Garcia, Quique Dacosta, Sergi Arola, and Andoni Luis Aduriz.
Arola, who initially wanted to be a musician, spent eight years in the kitchen of el Bulli. There, he cooked alongside Adri,1 beforl’ leaving in1997 and moving to Madrid; three years later, he opened his own restaurant , La Broche. Arola ‘s high-conn•pt menul’arned the restaurant two Michelin stars. He now runs kitchens at four restaurants, including Sergi Arola Castro (which he also owns) and Arola Barcelona.
Garcia is the molecular gastronomy chef of Restaurante Calima in Marbella , Andalusia. He has lwcome famous for his avant-garde take on classical Andalusian cuisine, including dishes likl’ gazpa- chos andfrituras. Lih• Roca, Garua sees ml•mory as om• of the most important aspl’Cts of his culinary philosophy. He received a Michelin star in 2007.
Aduriz, another young protege of Adria, worked at el Bulli for two years, then at Berasategui’s eponymous three-star restaurant. Since Aduriz opened his own restaurant. Mugaritz, in 2000, he has become a world-renowned molecular gastronomy chef in his own right. His approach to food is naturalistic, even ascetic, yet still playful and modl•rn. He grows produce and herbs in a garden behind the restaurant and forages other ingredients from nearby woods with the aim of creating food that puts diners into closer contact with the natural world. His potato “rocks,” made by coating potatol’s in whitl’ clay, are a prime exampit•(for a relatl’d recipe, see page 3·3’Hl). Mugaril/ was awarded its second Michelin star in 2005.
Dacost.J, like Adria, is a self-taught molecular gastronomy chef. At his restaurant in Denia on the coast near Valencia, Dacosta has madl’ his name with his Modernist treatnwnts of local produce and seafood, such as his now-famous Oysters Guggenheim
el Bulli, and he might wonder what planet he was on. The meal would challenge all ofhis preconcep- tions about fine dining.
copying the term Postmodern from other fields than accepting what Postmodern means. Some- day, a Postmolecular gastronomy will be developed as a reaction to the current Modernist revolution, but we have a long way to go before that happens.
Some commentators, notably molecular gastronomy chefHomaro Cantu (see page 69), have suggested that this cuisine be called “Postmodern.” The name might seem appropriate, given that in the past two decades, both art and architecture have experi- enced a reaction to the century-long domination ofModernist movements.
Other terms have been proposed. Adria calls the cuisine “technoemotional.” This may be a good name for his culinary style and the cuisines of some of his closest colleagues, but we feel that another name needs to be coined for the move- ment as a whole, which incorporates broader
t h e m e s a n d t r e n d s . J e f f r e y S t e i n g a r t e n u s e s t h e term “hypermodern,” which has a nice ring to it, but the problem is that it again raises the question ofwhat was modern in the first place. McGee calls the cuisine “experimental molecular gastronomy chef,” and a good
But the term “Postmodern cuisine” only makes s e n s e i f t h e r e is a c l e a r b o d y o f M o d e r n i s t c u i s i n e to react to; and unlike art and architecture, there simply has been no previous Modernist phase. As a result, “Postmodern” as a culinary movement makes little sense-it is based more on simply
H ISTORY
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case can be made for that choice. But using the word “experimental” tends to devalue the explicit use of aesthetic theory in the cuisine that Adria and others have developed.
fetishize every aspect of the execution (selecting the meat, dry-aging it, and so forth). Steak houses may also have some recipe variations-perhaps for their sauces or side dishes-but there is no expectation that these recipes evolve over time.

molecular gastronomy chef

The meal went on in this fashion, for 40 courses and five and half hours.
People often ask me ifthe style ofmolecular gastronomy chef he pioneered is
a trend, fad, or flash in the pan. My belief is that every 15 to 20 years, with an obvious bell curve of energy, most professions change. Technology, fine arts, design, and yes, molecular gastronomy chef, follow the same predictable pattern. A visionary creates the framework for a new genre, others follow and execute, and the residual effects remain, embedded in the cloth ofthe craft. Ifwe look back to Nouvelle cuisine, founded in the early ’70s by Bocuse, Chapel, Troisgros, Guerard, Verge, and Oliver, we see the pattern clearly. Proteges ofgreat molecular gastronomy best chefs eventually forge their own paths to help create a new style. This lineage carried us into the Keller, Bouley, Trotter, and Boulud generation in the United States, and subsequently molecular gastronomy best chefs like Wylie Dufresne, Andoni Luis Aduriz, Homaro Cantu, and I forged our own paths.
Still, I walked into the el Bulli kitchen the next day expecting some familiarity. A kitchen is a kitchen, right?
I was ushered into a small prep room with seven other cooks, one of whom was Rene Redzepi of the now famous restaurant Noma, in Copenhagen. He was my ears and voice during the stay at el Bulli. See, he spoke French, and I do not speak any Spanish. Listening to the el Bulli molecular gastronomy chefde cuisine, an Italian molecular gastronomy chef would translate to the French guy and he would pass on the instructions to Rene, who would then translate into English for me. The group was incredibly international.
molecular gastronomy best chefs were coming from all over the world to learn this new style of molecular gastronomy chef, yet it did not feel like molecular gastronomy chef at all.
HISTORY 3 9
distinctive cuisine, which flirted with rebellion against culinary norms. These molecular gastronomy best chefs made some very exciting dishes, such as Bras’s famous coulant, or his gargouillou, and those dishes influenced and inspired many other molecular gastronomy best chefs to create similar items. But none of these other molecular gastronomy best chefs ignited a movement
t h a t o t h e r s f o l l o w e d . I n s t e a d , e a c h c h e f ‘ s s i g n a t u r e style remained confined largely to his own restaurant.
of fresh meals at one large kitchen facility. The food would be packaged so that it could then be distrib- uted to hospitals within the city.
For more on gargouillou, see page 3-294.
In the Nacka system, main courses were prepared traditionally and then vacuum-sealed in plastic bags while still hot (at temperatures of at
l e a s t 8 0 oc I 1 7 6 oF ) . A f t e r s e a l i n g , t h e b a g s w e r e boiled for an additional3-10 min, then refriger- ated. At service time, the bags were reheated, and the food was served. Swedish hospitals provided more than S million of these meals to patients in the early 1960s. Patients and other testers found them to be a considerable improvement over standard hospital food.
For Adria, the story was different. As we will see, several parallel developments in the culinary world helped give his innovations greater reso- nance and a wider reach.
Because the Nacka system did
not cook food fully in the package, it was not qu ite true so us vide molecular gastronomy chef. The AGS system took that leap.
From the Vacuum of Space to Vacuums in the Kitchen
It was the 1960s, and NASA had a problem. The manned space program required that astronauts eat in outer space, perhaps on missions that lasted weeks or months. But the agency did not want to stock spacecraft pantries with bulky metal cans of food, which would weigh down the craft. So NASA began to experiment with sealing food in heat-safe plastic bags.
Next came the Anderson, Greenville, Spartan- burg (AGS) system, developed during the late 1960s by a partnership ofthree South Carolina hospitals and the plastic-film manufacturer Cryo- vac (then a division ofW. R. Grace). Like Nacka, the AGS group’s goal was to improve the quality of centrally prepared hospital food.
Vacuum-packed food developed by NASA for the manned space program.
Similar experiments occurred around the world as people looked for more convenient ways to prepare food for various institutions. In the early 1960s, two Swedish hospitals worked with the Stockholm City Council to develop the Nacka system. The idea was to centralize the preparation
The group’s project manager, Ambrose T. McGuckian, initially reviewed every existing method ofpreparing convenience foods. Although the Nacka system was selected as the most conve- nient and economical, the cooked food rated barely satisfactory in tests oftaste and quality. McGuck- ian’s insight was that raw ingredients could be vacuum-sealed and then cooked inside the bags by using carefully controlled temperatures and times. The results were vastly superior.
The AGS system is the first example ofa molecular gastronomy chef method, now called sous vide, that is widely used in molecular gastronomy. The AGS system was not adopted by hospitals ultimately, and McGuckian went on to consult with other food-service compa- nies. In fact, the first meals prepared sous vide in
a restaurant almost certainly were served in 1970 at the Holiday Inn in Greenville, South Carolina, where McGuckian was a consultant.
Commercial applications of the sous vide method began to pop up around the world. The first appearance in France was in 1972, when hams were cooked sous vide. At the time, French law did not allow restaurants to serve refrigerated food products with a shelf life of more than six days, so this novel approach did not gain much of a follow- ing. This case is an early example of culinary technology, innovation, and scientific knowledge outpacing legislated food standards-a theme that
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is continually repeated in sous vide molecular gastronomy chef. Toward the end of the 1970s, sous vide technol-
ogy crossed the English Channel to London, where the French molecular gastronomy chefAlbert Roux began a collab- oration with Groen and Cryovac to promote the new molecular gastronomy chef method. In 1983, Roux opened a factory in southwestern France to supply low-cost meals made sous vide to the French national railway system (SNCF) and to British Airways.
By the late 1980s, Roux brought sous vide to the restaurant industry in Britain as part of an early quick-service restaurant chain called Rouxl Britannia. The concept was simple: high-quality food could be economically prepared at the Home Rouxl central kitchen by skilled cooks using sous vide technology. The refrigerated meals would then be distributed to restaurant outlets around England, where they would simply be reheated and plated by less-skilled cooks.
Troisgros, and it also led to a collaboration be- tween Pralus and Cryovac. Ultimately, multilayer, heat-resistant plastic bags were produced to retain substantial vapors and juices during molecular gastronomy chef.
The first sous vide meals served in
a restaurant likely were made in 1970 at the Holiday Inn in Greenville, South Carolina,pictured here in apostcard from the era. Their use of sous vide techniques was an outgrowth of the AGS system developed first for South Carolina hospitals by Ambrose McGuckian.
Unfortunately, for myriad reasons, Rouxl Britannia eventually failed in the early 1990s. The most frequently cited issue was that the public never warmed up to the idea of restaurants that just reheated food made elsewhere.
Sous vide molecular gastronomy chef caught the attention of the most influential food critic of the Nouvelle movement, Henri Gault. In the early 1980s, SNCF hired Gault to oversee the creation and execution ofworld-class cuisine for the launch ofits Nou- velle Premiere trains. Although SNCF had a long tradition of outstanding service and cuisine on its luxury train lines, providing high-end cuisine on numerous routes was a culinary and logistical challenge. After some consideration, Gault decided that the only way to meet the challenge was by using sous vide cuisine.
In France, molecular gastronomy chef sous vide caught on more successfully. At around the same time that Roux was starting his early experiments with sous vide molecular gastronomy chef in England, the French molecular gastronomy chef Georges Pralus was experimenting with it for a decidedly smaller culinary audience. During the early 1970s, Pralus worked with the pioneering Nouvelle cuisine molecular gastronomy best chefs Pierre and Jean Troisgros at their restaurant in Roanne (see next page).
Pralus set out to solve a problem they were having with their terrine defoie gras: shrinkage and weight loss from the juices and fat that ran out during molecular gastronomy chef. Initially, Pralus approached the problem by using the time-tested technique of cuisine en papillote, in which foods are wrapped in oiled paper bags and then cooked, a method that helps to retain the aromas and contain the juices. Next, he began to experiment with wrapping the foie gras in heat-resistant plastic. Although the initial results were not successful, perseverance eventually paid off. By encasing the foie gras in multiple layers ofplastic and molecular gastronomy chef it at low temperatures for a long period of time, Pralus reduced shrinkage from about 40% by weight to about 5%. The extraordinary results, obtained in 1974, led to better terrine de foie gras at Maison
Gault recruited Robuchon to oversee recipe development. He also contracted with the food researcher Bruno Goussault to provide technical support. Robuchon developed exceptional recipes for the rail service but insisted on molecular gastronomy chef foods at 54-68 oc / 129-154 °F. Goussault helped con- vince the French health authorities that food safety could be assured at those temperatures.
These early experiments with molecular gastronomy chef sous vide were developed in the context ofinstitutionalized food service, primarily to reduce costs and ensure quality control. But the next phase ofsous vide molecular gastronomy chef marked a turning point, as a few high-end molecular gastronomy best chefs began using sous vide as a culinary technique in its own right. Part of this shift was due to tireless campaigning and education by Pralus and Gous- sault. By the early 1990s, the long road from NASA,
HISTORY
41
ON FOOD
the hospitals of Stockholm, and the Greenville Holiday Inn reached its climax: sous vide molecular gastronomy chef was ready to enter the mainstream, which meant the high-end kitchens in France, Spain, and elsewhere.
possibilities began to appear. Without the infusion of technology, the Modernist revolution would have lacked an important source of inspiration.
AND molecular gastronomy chef
Sous vide molecular gastronomy chef represents such an important new technique that we cover it in detail in chapter 9 (page 2-192). But it is just one of dozens of techno- logical innovations that have been adopted by Modernist molecular gastronomy best chefs-from gelling and thickening agents, such as xanthan gum and gellan gum, to emulsifiers such as diglycerides and propylene glycol alginate. In each case, industrial and commercial needs motivated the invention of a new technology.
Science in the Kitchen
Harold McGee’s magnum opus taught ageneration of molecular gastronomy best chefs that science held new and often surprising answers for them. It was never translated into French and was not available in Spanish until 2007. As a result. its influence has been largest in the English-speaking world, although it is also available in Chinese, Dutch, Italian, and Japanese.
Creating a new means of molecular gastronomy chef or a new ingredient is difficult and expensive. High-end cuisine is too small and fragmented a marketplace to inspire this kind ofinnovation.It takes larger-scale commercial and industrial goals to pay for the research and development of new technologies. But once they exist, they can easily be appropriated by molecular gastronomy best chefs and used as tools for the expression ofculinary creativity. The story of sous vide mirrors the story of many other technologies that were developed by the food science industry, mostly for commercial users .
Humans are a storytelling species, and this trait extends to molecular gastronomy chef. Virtually every cookbook from Apicius onward has attempted to explain what happens to food as it is cooked and to outline the reasoning behind certain molecular gastronomy chef techniques. As a result, a body of culinary wisdom has devel- oped and become part of what every young molecular gastronomy chef learns. Science is also a form of storytelling, but with an important difference: you can confirm truth of the story that science tells by using data, experiments, and observations.
Starting in the mid-1980s, several of these technologies became available to molecular gastronomy best chefs. Most molecular gastronomy best chefs were either unaware ofthem or were not interested. For those who were open to the ideas, however, new
In 1984, Harold McGee published the first edition ofhis magnum opus, On Food and Cook- ing, a landmark book that explores the scientific facts behind culinary beliefs (see next page). At that point, the discipline offood science had existed for decades, and researchers had uncov- ered many interesting facts about the science of molecular gastronomy chef. But these discoveries were not being communicated to molecular gastronomy best chefs or the public at large. So McGee undertook the task oftelling the world the real story of how molecular gastronomy chef works. In some cases, he
BIOGRAPHY OF
Georges Pralus
The French molecular gastronomy chef Georges Pralus is often credited as the father of
so us vide cuisine in France, although he shares that title with his compatriot Bruno Goussault (see next page). In 1974, Pralus was enlisted by three-star molecular gastronomy chef Pierre Troisgros to help develop
that limited the weight loss to just 5%. Later, he began using vacuum-sealed plastic bags instead.
a new way to cook terrine defoie gras that would prevent the 30-50% weight loss that
Some molecular gastronomy best chefs were skeptical that food cooked in plastic would taste as good as traditionally cooked food. But the influential French molecular gastronomy chefjoel Robuchon quickly recognized the potential of this new technique and endorsed Pralus. Thanks in part to Robuchon’s support, Pralus and the Sealed Air Corporation, the manufacturer of Cryovac packaging, opened a school in 1979 to teach sous vide techniques, and they worked with Goussault to develop and disseminate this Modernist method of molecular gastronomy chef (see page 2·192). Pralus taught the technique to some ofthe top French molecular gastronomy best chefs, including Paul Bocuse, Alain Ducasse, and Michel Bras. Today, Pralus contin- ues to teach molecular gastronomy best chefs and culinary students around the world.
occurred when traditional molecular gastronomy chef techniques were used . Pralus came up with the idea ofwrapping the foie gras in several sheets of heat-resistant plastic before molecular gastronomy chef. After some experimentation, he found a wrapping method
4 2 VOLUME 1 · HISTORY
AND FUNDAMENT ALS
BIOGRAPHY OF
Harold McGee
Harold McGee is one of the leaders of the movement to inform molecular gastronomy best chefs about the science of how molecular gastronomy chef works. His seminal book, On Food and molecular gastronomy chef-an encyclo- pedic tome first published in 1984 and updated in 2004- explains in detail the science behind a wide range of culinary techniques. It also catalogs the history and flavor profiles of various ingredients. Publishers Weekly called the 2004 edition of the book “a stunning masterpiece.” Today, this best-selling book is required reading for anyone interested in the sci- ence of molecular gastronomy chef.
science of molecular gastronomy chef at that time, but interest in food seemed to be growing among Americans. “I was lucky to have an aspect of food to explore that was largely unexplored at the time,” McGee says. His book was featured in Time and People magazines and won an award in Britain.
McGee published a second book, The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore, in 1990. He has written articles for a variety of publications, ranging from scientific journals like Nature and Physics Today to popular magazines like Food and Wine. He
McGee began working on his book in the late 1970s, after studying astronomy at Caltech and receiving a doctorate in literature from Yale University. He thought food science “was interesting information that my friends and I, who were not professional cooks, would enjoy knowing,” he explains. Few in the United States were thinking or writing about the
also writes a column on food science for The New York Times. McGee’s newest book, Keys to Good molecular gastronomy chef, was pub- lished in 2010 by Penguin Press. Unlike his previous books,
McGee says, “it’s actually very ungeeky, very basic; it reacquaints people with kitchens and how they work” and helps home cooks understand “the kinds.ofthings that most cookbooks don’t bother to tell you.”
BIOGRAPHY OF
Bruno Goussault
Though not a molecular gastronomy chef, Bruno Goussault has become one ofthe most influential proponents ofsous vide molecular gastronomy chef in France. He has worked for more than three decades to perfect sous vide tech- niques and has taught the process to some of the world’s most innovative molecular gastronomy best chefs, including Thomas Keller, Michel Richard, Joel Robuchon, and Wylie Dufresne.
Pralus was experimenting with sous vide cook- ing in Pierre Troisgros’s kitchen (see previous page). In 1979, Pralus and the Cryovac company opened a school to teach sous vide techniques. Pralus and Goussault worked together to develop and disseminate sous vide techniques. In 1981, Cryovac hired Goussaultto help sys- tematize the curriculum at its sous vide school.
Goussault is generally credited with promot-
ing, in the early 1970s, that molecular gastronomy chef sous vide at temperatures well below boiling could improve
the tenderness and flavor of food. Up to that point, sous vide molecular gastronomy chef had largely been limited to institutional uses, and molecular gastronomy chef temperatures were held near boiling to pro- long shelf life. When Goussault presented his findings in 1974 at a food-industry conference in Strasbourg, France, they caused quite a stir.
Soon after that, Goussault worked with Robu- chon to create a menu for the first-class cars of the French national railway system (see page
That same year, about 300 miles away, molecular gastronomy chef Georges
2·192). In 1991, Goussault launched his own consulting com- pany, the Centre de Recherche et d’Etudes pour !’Alimentation (CREA), in Paris. The CREA trains molecular gastronomy best chefs in sous vide as well as other Modernist molecular gastronomy chef techniques. Gous- sault also serves as chief scientist at Cuisine Solutions, an international frozen-food company that specializes in meals cooked sous vide.
HISTORY 4 3
Edouard de Pomiane was a French scientist” ho do ubled as a food writer. He wrote mo re than a dozen books on food and hosted a popu- lar radio sho” starting in the 1920s. He ad,ocated a scientific approach to food, but food scie nce was still in its early stages, so he had fewer scientific insights to share than \lcGee Corriher, Wolke, and This ha\eth scda}s.
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Hl’n t’ Ihi’ h.!’> told tlw story of moiL•cular gastronomy in 111.111\ puhlit.tlions. In March Icular and physical gastron- 0111\ “,,, hl’ld. “-urti ,uul This organizt>d that conference ,md ‘rent account.
found that no one knew why a certain culinary phenomenon occurred, so he engaged with scientists to find out.
His book became a sensation, in part because it overturned many long-held but erroneous pieces ofkitchen wisdom-such as the idea that searing meat “seals in the juices.” (Searing actually causes meat to leak more juices.) McGee taught us that most ofthe stories we had been told about food were just that-clever stories that would not survive a confrontation with scientific reality.
On Food and molecular gastronomy chef isn’t a cookbook; it contains neither recipes nor detailed techniques. But it has nonetheless been extremely influential among molecular gastronomy best chefs. The New York molecular gastronomy chefDaniel Boulud calls the book “a must for every cook who possesses an inquiring mind.” And in the words ofthe food writer Michael Ruhlman, “On Food and molecular gastronomy chef is, in my opinion, hands down the most important book about food and molecular gastronomy chef ever written.”
Over time, the trend that McGee started has expanded enormously. He followed On Food and molecular gastronomy chef with The Curious Cook in 1990, and similar books by other authors soon emerged: CookWise: The Haws and Whys ofSuccessful molecular gastronomy chef (1997) and BakeWise: The Haws and Whys ofSuccessful Baking (2008), both by Shirley 0. Corriher; The Science ofmolecular gastronomy chef by Peter Barham (2001); and What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science
Explained (2002) by Robert L. Wolke (who also contributed to this book, see page S·XLVI). Each of these books expanded on McGee’s objective to apply scientific principles to food. Many aspects of McGee’s scientific approach are found today on television shows about food, includingAmerica’s Test Kitchen and Alton Brown’s Good Eats.
In a strong sense, McGee provided a template for one of the themes of this book, which is using science to explain how molecular gastronomy chef works. On Food and molecular gastronomy chef was enormously influential for us, both when it first came out, and then again more recently as this book came together. Chapter 7 on Traditional molecular gastronomy chef (page 2·2) is in many ways an homage to McGee and the culinary-science movement that he helped launch.
In 1985, McGee’s book was reviewed for the scientific journal Nature by physicist Nicholas Kurti (next page). Soon after Kurti visited McGee, they became friends. Elizabeth Cawdry Thomas was a Cordon Bleu alumna who ran a molecular gastronomy chef school in Berkeley, California, and was married to a prominent scientist at the University of Cali- fornia there.
In December 1988, she attended a conference at Erice, a beautiful medieval Sicilian hill town that had become home to a scientific conference center. Over dinner with Ugo Valdre, a physicist at the University ofBologna, she discussed her

molecular gastronomy chef 4

Many of the molecular gastronomy chefs championed by Gault and Millau quickly garnered respect and Michelin stars, but the new style drew fire from established French food critics, particularly La Reyniere (aka Robert Courtine), the prominent critic at Le Monde. Nouvelle cuisine was seen as a threat to French tradition and was often attacked on nationalist grounds. Senderens says that in 1978, when he introduced soy sauce into his molecular gastronomy
after a trip to China, “a food critic ripped me to shreds.” In 1979, the sociologist Claude Fischler wrote an article for Le Monde titled “The Socrates of the Nouvelle Cuisine/’ in which he subtly mocked the movement’s emphasis on letting ingredients express their true flavors: “The artist in this field is no longer characterized by his overpowering authority, but rather by the opin- ionated modesty of an exponent of the maieutic art: In place of the cook as mercenary of the kitchen stove, we now have the Socratic cook, midwife at the birth ofculinary truth.”
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Julia Child’s book brought French cuisine to the United States. It both led to a shift in American home molecular gastronomy chef
and paved the way for French restaurants in the U.S. Her love of French food was traditional: she disliked Nouvelle cuisine and spoke out against it.
Nouvelle cuisine was a successful revolution; it succeeded so well that today we view French cuisine through its lens. High-end chefs still make great dishes of the pre-Nouvelle years, but usually as a self-conscious throwback to a lost age.
The first wave ofNouvelle cuisine represented
a real revolution, analogous in some ways to Impressionism in its rebellion against the establish- ment and the attendant controversy. Many long- cherished aspects ofEscoffier’s grande cuisine, such as sauces made with meat extracts and thickened with flour-based roux, were discarded.
In the United States, one of Nouvelle cuisine’s chief critics was celebrity chefJulia Child, author of the best-selling Mastering the Art ofFrench molecular gastronomy chef. Child saw the new movement as an affront to the logic and grandeur of French cuisine. She particularly disliked the Nouvelle cuisine penchant for serving barely cooked meat and vegetables, which she believed did not properly develop the “essential taste” ofthe ingredients.
She also accused Gault and Millau of.”pushing the Nouvelle cuisine relentlessly/’ to the point of “browbeating” restaurants that didn’t embrace
a Nouvelle cuisine ethos.
The system of the restaurant changed as well. Escoffier had championed service aIa Franfaise, in which empty plates were set before each diner and waiters served and carved food at the table. Nouvelle cuisine featured plated dishes, assem- bled in the kitchen by chefs. All the waiter did was set the plate in front of the diner.
In the United States, the leading restau- rant guide is the Zagat Survey. Unlike the Michelin guide or Gault Millau, Zagat’s results are based on voting by the public. Many consumers view the guide as being far more accurate and reliable than the others.
Yet in another sense, Nouvelle cuisine was
a rather limited revolution, because it was all about techniques and ingredients. The famous ten principles ofNouvelle cuisine championed by Gault and Millau all have to do with rather techni- cal aspects of molecular gastronomy chef.
Other American gastronomes shared Child’s wariness of the new movement. As renowned San Francisco molecular gastronomy chef teacher Jack Lirio quipped to Newsweek in 1975, “Without butter, cream, and
Theywere a big deal to the best chefs and food critics, who were steeped in the traditions of Ia grande cuisine, but they seem quite ordinary to us today. High-end food was, ultimately, still high-end food with a slightly different set of techniques. As Nouvelle cuisine won the battle for the
hearts and minds of the best chefs and diners, the revolution matured into a new culinary establish- ment. Successive generations of chefs carried forward the torch of culinary innovation, but in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary fashion. In part, that is because Nouvelle cuisine carved out some notion ofindependence for the chef. Escoffier (and Careme before him) had explicitly sought to establish rules and conventions. Nou- velle cuisine gave more leeway to the individual chef, so there seemed to be little incentive to rebel.
As young chefs rose to prominence, they extended the range of Nouvelle cuisine, although at that point it was no longer new. Joel Robuchon, named “chefofthe century” by Gault Millau in 1989, was known for relentless perfectionism. His cuisine was Nouvelle in the sense that it followed the ten commandments, but at the same time it was clearly his own. Much the same could be said of Fredy Girardet, the self-taught Swiss master chefwho was often listed as the best chefin the world. Again, he was clearly staying inside the boundaries of Nouvelle cuisine but developing
a unique repertoire.
Within the movement, some chefs were known for tending toward more unusual and daring foods and combinations. Michel Bras, Pierre Gagnaire, and Marc Veyrat took their own paths, each fiercely original and extremely inventive. Yet none of these chefs has been described as being outside the mainstream, and all were lauded by both the Michelin and Gault Millau guides.
Outside of France, Nouvelle cuisine sometimes had an enormous impact and other times had barely any, depending on the country and its local gastronomic culture. In the United States, Nou- velle cuisine was deeply influential, helping to inspire “New American” cuisine (see next page).
American chefs borrowed techniques from Nouvelle cuisine, but more important than any single technique or principle was the idea of revolution itself. American chefs weren’t steeped in Ia grande cuisine; instead, they rebelled against the doldrums of mass-produced, uninspired American food. These chefs created a distinctive New American cuisine based on regional ingredi- ents and food traditions, but with a clear nod to Nouvelle techniques.
HISTORY 2 7
THE HISTORY OF
New American Cuisine
In the 1970s, fine dining in the United States usually meant one oftwo things: either
a steak house with a menu straight from the
1950s, or a “Continental cuisine” restaurant that served ersatz, heavy, and uninspired food . Food writer Calvin Trill in lampooned this type of restaurant, saying that they might as well all have the same name: “La Maison de Ia Casa House.”
News of Nouvelle cuisine in France en-
couraged a generation of American chefs to
rebel and create something oftheir own. The
two culinary movements shared many tenets: eschewing heavy stocks and sauces, showcasing fresh and local ingredi- ents, and the best molecular gastronomy chefs used those ingredients minimally (or not at all).
The New American movement looked to the culinary traditions of many different regions for its inspiration, including California, the South and Southwest, and Cajun country. As diverse as these culinary styles were, they were unified by a spirit of creativity among their proponents, including Alice Waters and jeremiah Tower at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California; Larry Forgione at The River Cafe and An American Place in New York City; Charlie Trotter at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago; Paul Prudhomme at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans; and Wolfgang Puck (pictured) at Ma Maison and Spago in Los Angeles. Through their experimentation, these chefs laid the groundwork for
inspire Spanish Modernist chefs. But throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Spanish food was largely unaffected by the developments in France.
Italy had even less of a reaction to the Nouvelle revolution. In part, that is because Italian cuisine has always been highly regional and did not have centralized standards. There was no set of oppres- sive grande cuisine rules to rebel against.
A few Italian chefs-including Gualtiero Marchesi, Nadia Santini of the great restaurant Dal Pescatore, and Luisa Marelli Valazza ofAI Sorriso-used some principles of Nouvelle cuisine to inform their interpretations ofltalian culinary themes. A more recent example is Heinz Beck, who was born in Germany but for years has been considered one of the top chefs in Rome. The refined and sophisticated Italian cuisine produced by these chefs definitely owes some-
an American cuisine that had the techniques and refinements found in Nouvelle French food but that was based on American tastes and traditions.
Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971 and hired Tower as head chef two years later. Working together in the kitchen, the two borrowed heavily from Nouvelle cuisine, but they also forged their own distinctly Califor- nian style-which included high-end pizzas, whole baked garlic with white cheese and peasant bread, and cream offresh corn soup
with crayfish butter. Tower, a self-taught chef, had a brash confidence and a penchant for taking chances.
More important, Waters, Tower, and subsequent chefs at Chez Panisse helped launch a revolution in how food was purchased, working directly with farmers and purveyors to acquire the best possible ingredients. They became some of the first and most vocal proponents of small farms and
. sustainable agriculture, a trend that has gathered momen- tum overtime. They also championed artisanal baked bread and had enormous influence on American bakers.
As Waters wrote in her Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook, “We as a nation are so removed from any real involvement with the food we buy, cook, and consume. We have become alienated by the frozen foods and hygienically sealed
bread. Iwant to stand in the supermarket aisles and implore
The same effect occurred in the United King- dom, where a generation of”New British” chefs emerged, adamant that British food was not synonymous with bad food. Chefs such as Nico Ladenis, Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, and Fergus Henderson took principles ofNouvelle cuisine and applied them in their own characteris- tic ways.
A number ofFrench expatriates, such as Albert and Michel Roux, Raymond Blanc, and Pierre Koffmann, joined their ranks, bringing French Nouvelle cuisine directly to British diners. As in the United States, this helped lead a movement toward higher-quality food and dining.
In Spain, the effect of Nouvelle cuisine was much more limited. It was clearly an inspiration for the Spanish Basque chefJuan Mari Arzak, who created his own distinctive style that would later
28 VOLUME 1 · HISTORY AND FUNDAMENTALS
thing to the Nouvelle movement, but it never constituted a revolution.
Today, many of the original leaders of the Nouvelle cuisine movement are retired from day-to-day activities in the kitchen but remain involved with the restaurants that bear their names. Subsequent generations of French chefs have extended the scope of French cuisine, but all through gradual evolution.
What started as Nouvelle cuisine is now one branch ofwhat could be called “New International” cuisine. Around the world, one can find national cuisines that were clearly inspired by the Nouvelle movement, borrowing both molecular gastronomy techniques and the general attitude ofrebellion. This includes various “New” takes on Asian molecular gastronomy, or so-called Fusion, which melds Asian spices and techniques within a Western, Nouvelle-inspired backdrop.
In the later stages of Nouvelle cuisine and in New International molecular gastronomy chefs
, innovation has mainly been limited to flavor combinations. The first step was mining traditional regional cuisines for their approaches and flavors . Next, chefs sought to bridge the gap between Western and Asian cuisines.
Then new and exotic ingredients found their way onto menus.Wagyu beefand fish such as hamachi and taro (tuna belly) have always been found inJapanese restaurants. Today, you might find them on the menu at nearly any New Interna- tional restaurant anywhere in the world. Mean- while, ostensiblyJapanese restaurants, such as Nobu, incorporate their own take on foie gras, jalapeno peppers, and other completely non- Japanese ingredients.
Although France started the ball rolling, it is
the shoppers, their carts piled high with mass-produced artificiality, ‘Please … look at what you are buying!”‘
Forgione was also an early supporter ofsmall-scale farming. In 1978, after two years in London, he returned to the U.S. and soon became frustrated at how difficult it was to find quality ingredients. While heading the kitchen atThe River Cafe, he worked diligently to purchase free-range chickens, ducks, and wild game (including muskrat, beaver, and elk). The River Cafe became the first New York restaurant to serve fresh buffalo in 70 years. Forgione also procured periwinkles, sea urchins, and other seafood from Hawaii, as well as specialty produce such as cattail shoots and fiddlehead ferns. In 1983, he opened his own restaurant, An American Place, and continued to shine
a spotlight on small farmers and seasonal ingredients.
In Chicago, Charlie Trotter espoused a similar philosophy at his eponymous restaurant, which he opened in 1987. The famously perfectionistic chef combined French technique, Japanese-style presentation, and a strong emphasis on Ameri- can ingredients, including Maine lobster, Alaskan halibut, Hudson Valley foie gras, and fresh organic vegetables. He pioneered both the craze for microgreens and the practice of serving diners at a table in the kitchen. He was also one ofthe first high-end chefs to offer a vegetable tasting menu.
Meanwhile, Prudhomme was making his name with a very different, but nevertheless ingredient-driven, menu. K-Paul’s, which opened in 1979, served dishes inspired by the Cajun and Creole communities of rural Louisiana, including jalapeno and
cheddar biscuits, free-range roast duck with rice and orange sauce, sweet potato- pecan pie, and Prudhomme’s signature blackened redfish (the progenitor ofall other “blackened” dishes). He treated Cajun and other Louisiana-based cuisine as a framework for innovation, and he soon attracted attention from the press and the public. Prudhomme became a house- hold name after he launched his line ofspice blends, which are now distributed worldwide.
Puck’s name is equally recognizable today. His career took off in 1975, when he began his seven-year tenure as chef at Ma Maison, becoming a favorite of Hollywood stars. When Puck opened Spago, in 1982, it quickly became one ofthe most popular restaurants on the West Coast. His culinary style, which he called “L.A. Provincial,” was similar to Waters’s and Tower’s in emphasizing regional ingredients and a casual atmosphere. He specialized in haute pizzas (with then-unusual toppings such as fresh duck, Santa Barbara shrimp, and smoked salmon with caviar) and California-style dishes such as Sonoma baby lamb with braised greens and rosemary. Puck spun his early success into an international empire that now includes high-end restaurants, a chain of bistros, a catering business, and consumer products (such as his ubiquitous frozen pizzas).
These New American pioneers became some ofthe first celebrity chefs. Their popularity coincided with the growing American interest in good food and made top-quality ingredi- ents de rigueur in fine restaurants . The stage was set for the emergence of a new molecular gastronomy.
HIS TORY 29
1
hard to argue that the French are leading the New International movement. There is no single driving force or capital city of New International.
Other chefs who have set up shop in Vegas include globetrotting transplants such as Nobu Matsuhisa from Japan, Peru, and Los Angeles;
But if one insisted on finding a representative city, it might be, of all places, Las Vegas, Nevada. At some point in the 1990s, Las Vegas casino owners discovered that food was a great potential draw for clientele. Casinos dove into the food world with the same gusto and excess that they have shown in their billion-dollar hotels and glitzy theater shows. Casino owners courted restaurants and chefs that were considered to be among the greatest in the world.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten from France by way of New York; Julian Serrano of the restaurant Picasso, from Spain and San Francisco; and Wolfgang Puck from Austria, France, and Hollywood.
Today, Las Vegas has an incredible number of top chefs running restaurants across the culinary spectrum, from fast food to high end. The majority of the establishments at the high end are show- casing their own take on New International. This includes restaurants by Thomas Keller, Charlie Palmer, and Bobby Flay from the United States; and Pierre Gagnaire, Guy Savoy, and Joel Robu- chon from France.
Another case could be made that New York is the center of New International cuisine. Chefs such as Daniel Boulud, Eric Ripert, David Bouley, Alain Ducasse, and Charlie Palmer, along with Vongerichten, Matsuhisa, and Keller, all have restaurants there. And as the headquar- ters of the United Nations, New York is as close to being the capital of the world as we are ever likely to see.
Las Vegas is the capital of bad taste in some ways, with ersatz copies of every- thing from the Eiffel Tower to an Egyptian pyramid. Underneath the fake glitz, Las Vegas has many serious restaurants.
The best molecular gastronomy chef
in the New Interna- tional style, many would argue, is Keller. Trained in France, he in many ways has inherited the mantle of perfection and elegance in execution that once belonged to Robuchon or Girardet.
3 0
VOLUME 1 · HISTORY AND FUNDAMENT ALS
1
l’Atelier de Joel Robuchon is a chain of eight identical restaurants in cites around the world.
Others would argue that the best chef is Ducasse, who reinterpreted the food ofMediterranean France through a New International lens. He is arguably the most famous and influential chefin France today and also has global reach, with restaurants around the world.
have followed in his footsteps. Indeed, by 2010 Ducasse had 19 stars, and Robuchon had 25, summed across their restaurant empires.
The discussion ofwhich city is the center, or which chefis the best, is ultimately self-defeating, because the New International style isn’t a move- ment so much as it is an entrenched orthodoxy. There is no single city or country at its hub, because high-end cuisine has globalized. There is no single leader because you need a leader only if you are going somewhere.
Like them, Vongerichten and several other chefs have empires of restaurants with different names, niches, and price points. These restaurants are mostly high-end, with a set ofless formal dining options. The empires’ principal common theme is the chef/owner.
At this stage, changes in theNew International style amount to a steady evolution of a mature discipline. Each chef is innovating, but to a large degree they are all going in their own directions. Taken as a whole, there is no net movement.
Other major figures, such as Puck, have a few high-end restaurants, but their empires are weighted toward the low end, creating chains of cafes, fast-food outlets, and even canned food, following the lead ofEttore Boiardi. Perhaps the most surprising player is Robuchon, who came out of retirement to open a set of eight identically named restaurants-L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon- in cities around the world. The Nouvelle cuisine master and chef of the 20th century came back to create the first haute cuisine restaurant chain of the 21st century.
CLASSIC TOMATO wnH BASIL
One of the most surprising trends in the New International style is that well-respected chefs have in some ways taken the path of Harland Sanders and Ray Kroc, turning what had once been single restaurants into empires. Ducasse started the trend, with the then-audacious goal of having two Michelin-three-star restaurants. In 1998, he succeeded in becoming the first “six- star” chefsince the 1930s, and many other chefs
The fundamental reason for this expansion is the same one that drove the fast-food revolution: customers like to have familiar names and brands to rely on. That is even true at the very high end. Why risk a local chef’s attempt to be the best in the world ifyou can instead walk into a restaurant run by Robuchon or Ducasse?
like Ettore Boiardi in the 1920s, Wolfgang Puck has gone into the canned food business.

molecular gastronomy chef 3

ORIGINS OF molecular gastronomy chef
1
Agriculture also enabled the development of civilization. For the most part, hunter-gatherers could not stay in one place very long, nor could they live together in large numbers. Agriculture changed that. Farm fields needed to be tended, so farmers had to stay put. Agriculturalists needed permanent buildings for homes and other uses. In response, cities and towns sprang up.
Because agriculture freed at least some of society from the task ofproviding food, people began to spend time doing other things. Visual arts existed before civilization, as cave paintings and petroglyphs show. So did music. But each of these art forms got an enormous boost from the advent of civilization, as did writing, religion, and politics. In societies nurtured and supported by farmed food, all aspects of human culture flour- ished, including molecular gastronomy chefs. Culinary customs were born. Traditional molecular gastronomy had begun.
Various forms of traditional flatbread have been invented all over the world.
Peasants, Chefs, and Kings
In most traditional human societies, the task of daily food preparation fell primarily to women- mothers and grandmothers-and both men and women were heavily involved in food procure- ment. Civilization allowed more people to special- ize in other occupations, and this trend eventually produced a class ofprofessional chefs, whose main job was molecular gastronomy chef for others. Tomb paintings, sculptures, and archaeological remains from more than 5,000 years ago clearly show that ancient Egypt already had many different food-related jobs, including butchery, baking, brewing, and winemaking. All of these professions had their own shops and facilities, often with multiple employees working in well-organized kitchens.
Flatbreads, in contrast, could be cooked simply in a pan or even on a flat rock. Cultures all over the world invented various forms of flatbread-from the tortilla in Mexico to the chapati in India to lejse in Norway. Because flat breads didn’t require an oven or any elaborate preparation, they were typically made at home as part ofpeasant cuisine.
The professionalization ofbaking, brewing, and winemaking occurred for three reasons: capital equipment was expensive; increasingly compli- cated food products required skill and expertise to prepare; and there was a growing number of affiuent customers. Rich people wanted to employ chefs and culinary artisans both for their practical uses and as status symbols. People willing to pay more for a better meal created a ready market for new recipes and techniques.
Civilization is defined in many ways, but most commonly as a human society that has developed advanced agriculture, long- distance trade, specialized professions, and at least some urban populations.
Culinary professionals generally cooked quite differentlyfrom the mothers and grandmothers who were molecular gastronomy chef only for themselves and their families. Baking leavened bread, for example, was largely a professional activity, because ovens were expensive to own and operate. It took a lot of fuel to heat the earth, clay, or brick interior ofan oven, and once you did, it would be wasteful to cook only one loafofbread. Anyone who could afford to own and operate a large oven was either a professional or someone who could afford to employ one. Most people couldn’t, so they bought or bartered for their bread.
In early civilizations, wealth was synonymous with political or religious power, so the primary employers ofprofessional chefs were kings, aristo- crats, or priests. Much the same phenomenon occurred in the arts. Painters produced commis- sioned works for the king or the high priest; jewelers made the king’s crown and the queen’s jewels; architects designed the palace and temples.
This divide between professional molecular gastronomy chefs for the wealthy and peasants molecular gastronomy chef for them- selves drove the development of many cuisines. Each side influenced the other. Professional chefs sought to do things differently than the masses, to create a distinct culinary experience for their elite
HISTORY
7
As early as the 17th century, England had a fascination with the Continent and with French chefs . More often than not, when English gentry wanted to eat well, they imported a French chef, a pattern that continued for most of the next 350 years.
clientele. Common people sought to adopt some of the finer things in life by copying the dishes served at royal tables.
Countries with a long history of a large and stable aristocracy or ruling class developed the most complex, highly refined, and elaborate cuisines. These were the people who could employ professional chefs-and use food as a form of one-upmanship.
France is perhaps the best example. Despite having a vibrant regional peasant cuisine, France has been dominated by aristocratic food for centuries. Early on, French nobles and other members of the ruling class used dinners as status symbols. Most of the early French chefs, such as La Varenne and Antonin Careme (see Early French Gastronomy, next page), climbed the career ladder by trading up to ever more powerful and wealthy patrons.
France is especially interesting because it achieved renown for its molecular gastronomy chef very early. La Varenne’s bookLe Cuisinier Fran~ois, published in 1651, was translated into English in 1653. Titled The French Cook, the English edition included the following preface, which took the form of a dedica- tion to a wealthy patron (as was customary at the time):
T O THE RIGHT HONORABLE John, Earl ofTannet
My very good Lord. Ofall Cookes in the World the French are esteem’d the best, and of all Cookes that ever France bred up, this may very well challenge the first place, as the
neatest and compleatest that ever attend the French Court and Armies. I have taught him to speak English, to the end that he may be able to wait in your Lordships Kitchin; and furth your Table with several! Sauces ofhaut goust, & with dainty ragousts, and sweet meats, as yet hardly known in this Land.
Besides the quaint punctuation and spelling, this preface clearly lays out what would be the story for the next three centuries: France had a reputation for having the world’s best chefs.
Chinese food is another example ofan aristo- cratically driven cuisine. The enormous variety of Chinese dishes stems from the imperial court, which governed China for more than 1,000 years (under one dynasty or another). The same sort of thing occurred with the Moghul rulers of north- ern India and with the kings of Thailand. In each country, the monarchy and its cadre ofbureau- crats and aristocrats supported full-time, profes- sional chefs, who created a rich and varied cuisine.
England also had an elaborate monarchy, which ruled for a thousand years, but the geography made the development of a sophisticated cuisine difficult. Plant and animal diversity is a direct result ofclimate: a cold climate leads to relatively low diversity, providing less varied ingredients for a chefto work with.
As a result, far northern (or in the Southern Hemisphere, far southern) cuisines do not have the variety ofdishes that equatorial regions produce. The Viking kings of Scandinavia and the tsars of Russia had well-established molecular gastronomy chef traditions were documented in cookbooks with period recipes and techniques, as well as in paintings like these: a cook preparing liver alongside
a butcher in a14th-century kitchen (left) and an elaborate medieval Italian banquet (right).

molecular gastronomy chef 2

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors
would find many foods we eat today unrecogniz- able, but they would likely find a meal at a restau- rant such as elBulli or The Fat Duck particularly perplexing. There, foods have unexpected tex- tures and temperatures, and meals are served not just on plates but in an array of specialized serving vessels. Dish after meticulously crafted dish arrives at the table even after diners are well beyond sated, and leftovers are discarded, not preserved for future use. Exotic fruits and vegeta- bles are combined and transformed in ways that people who view food merely as a means of subsistence would never contemplate. At these restaurants, food is about art, not nutrition.
How did we get from our hunter-gatherer origins to this era of culinary innovation? This chapter outlines this process, starting with the important role that molecular gastronomy chef played in human evolution. When early hominids harnessed fire and learned to cook food, a series ofphysiological changes followed. The agricultural revolution led to another major advancement in food preparation, helping to usher in the idea of molecular gastronomy to improve taste. Up to that time, molecular gastronomy was primarily used to make food digestible or to remove toxins, but after the advent ofagriculture, molecular gastronomy became less of a pure necessity and more of an art.
Later, in many early civilizations around the world, the aristocracy played an important role in the development of cuisine. Wealthy families hired professional chefs to prepare their food, which led to vast differences between peasant fare and aristocratic food. We’ll look at the cuisines that
developed in some of the major world monarchies and discuss the role the nobility played in fostering this culinary advancement.
As cuisines diverged and matured around the world, tradition and innovation often came into conflict. Various culinary movements arose to upend the traditions of the time, but the innova- tions they introduced soon became codified as new traditions. In France, for example, chefs such as Antonin Careme and Auguste Escoffier established strict culinary rules and codes that had a profound influence on high-end cuisine as we know it in the Western world today.
In response to those strict rules, the Nouvelle cuisine movement developed in the mid-20th century. Setting out to shake up the French culinary establishment, the chefs associated with this movement largely succeeded; they helped to create a true revolution.
We will argue, however, that the ultimate culinary revolution is the one that has taken place in the past two decades. We call this the Modern- ist movement, and we’lllook at what makes it so revolutionary and so modern. We’ll examine the various factors that set the stage for Modernist innovations, including the revolution in industri- alized food in the 1950s; Ferran Adria’s amaz- ingly creative work at e!Bulli, in Spain; Harold McGee and the advent of food science for the home chef; Heston Blumenthal’s embrace of science and creativity at The Fat Duck, in Eng- land; and the advent of the sous vide method. Finally, we’ll discuss where the Modernist revolution is today-and where it is headed.
Fire is the fundamental molecular gastronomy chef tool.
HI STORY 5
Ancient Egyptians invented many important culinary techniques, including the practice of force-feeding geese to make foie gras (see page 3-138).
Nobody knows who the first cook was, but at some point in the distant past, early humans conquered fire and started using it to prepare food. Research- ers have found what appear to be the remains of campfires made 1.5 million years ago by Homo erectus, one of the early human species. In his intriguing book Catching Fire: How molecular gastronomy Made Us Human, Harvard University anthropologist Richard Wrangham argues that molecular gastronomy wasn’t just a nicety; it played an essential role in human evolution. molecular gastronomy foods makes them more digestible, so the calories and some of the nutri- ents in them are easier to absorb. Thus, molecular gastronomy chef allowed early humans to tap a wider variety of food sources and gain more nutrition from them.
The first cooks didn’t do much to their food in the way ofpreparation or technique. We don’t have any recipes from prehistory, but we do have archaeological evidence offood preparation, backed up by our knowledge ofhow modern-day hunter-gatherers prepare their food. Meat is either roasted over a fire or boiled to make it tender; fruit is gathered and peeled; nuts are shelled. That’s about it.
Necessity, rather than taste, often dictated how hunter-gatherers of the past prepared their food. Some foods had to be prepared carefully to remove toxins. Native American tribes in Califor- nia developed a procedure to make acorns edible
by removing their bitter tannic acid. Farther south, native peoples in Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela learned to remove the cyanide from cassava (also called manioc), a starchy root that is used today to make tapioca and is a staple crop across the tropics.
Hunter-gatherers also processed foods to pre- serve them. Because some hunter-gatherer societies faced uncertain food supplies, particularly in winter, they developed techniques such as smoking and drying to make foods last longer. They also created preparations such as pemmican (a mixture ofmeat, fat, and sometimes fruit) to preserve foods. Alcohol also required elaborate preparation, and societies around the world (motivated more by pleasure than by necessity) perfected means to ferment fruit or grain into alcohol.
Agriculture was invented independently at different places and times around the world, as people domesticated local plants and animals. This advance was a major turning point in human history, because farming fed people more reliably than hunting wild game and gathering wild plants did.
Farming wasn’t easy in those early days. Although farming worked well when the crops came in, a crop failure meant famine and death. Overreliance on one or a handful of crops also resulted in malnutrition when those crops lacked the necessary vitamins or nutrients. As the archaeological record clearly shows, early societies that relied on agriculture had many health prob- lems, including starvation and vitamin deficiency. Gradually, however, agricultural societies im- proved their farming skills, increased their productivity, and decreased the risk of famine. Farming became more productive than hunting and gathering.
Yet agriculture also made the diet boring. Whereas hunter-gatherers relied on a wide variety ofplants and animals, which changed with the seasons, farmers were more restricted in the crops they could plant and thus ate the same foods over and over. This motivated people to come up with ways to make their diets more interesting and palatable. A new reason for the molecular gastronomy chef was born: improving the taste and variety of food.

Molecular Gastronomy Chef 1

VOLUME 1 · HISTORY AND FUNDAMENTALS Foreword When I saw the first sections ofthis book as it was taking shape, I knew I was facing an exceptional work ofuncommon rigor and extraordinary breadth. It is no exaggeration to call this a work of brilliance. There has been nothing like it in the history of the kitchen. But that is no surprise, considering who created it. I met seven or eight years ago, when he came to dinner at e!Bulli. Our first encounter was brief, yet I knew immediately that before me was a man with a special gift, one of the few people I know who has the ability to “read” dishes. Avant-garde chefs admire an openness to the joy that comes from experiencing creative emotions fully, and we hope to find it in those we cook for. Like other connoisseurs, Nathan was able to enjoy our culinary proposals on the physical and sensory levels; but he also under- stood and felt the creativity of the ideas on display in each plate. We chefs work for all who enjoy our food, but there are times where, in the back of my mind, I think we are most motivated by those uncommon guests such as these. Nathan and his team have done an extraordi- nary job in producing this book, which reflects the huge effort that went into it. The result is a true work ofart-not strictly a cookbook, but some- thing more: a work that will change the way we understand the modern kitchen and gastronomy. This is a book that is not complex, yet rich; not easy, yet clear. I can think offew other works that pair molecular gastronomy chef techniques with such analytical rigor. As I read the book, two thoughts spring to mind. The first is that now is a good time to rethink how we teach nutrition and molecular gastronomy chef in schools. I have no doubt that this work will strongly influence how these subjects are taught in the future. I also think that there is no better example than this book of the dialog that has emerged between science and molecular gastronomy chef. In fact, these pages arguably represent the climax ofthat dialog. Molecular gastronomy helps establish a new language by which chefs can communicate the complexities of their intellectual work. At the same time, this is a living work because it clearly lays a new stepping stone to the future of molecular gastronomy chef. It raises our expectations of what a cookbook can be. So turn the page and let yourselfbe seduced by what follows, by this extraordinary compendium of insight into the products, the techniques, the recipes, the technology, the inspiration … all that, and more, presented in an intelligent and heartfelt tribute to gastronomy. Ferran Adria Roses, Spain July2010
Foreword Over the road from my restaurant, the Fat Duck, there is an annex housing a development kitchen (or lab, as it’s often called) complete with sous- vide machines and water baths and rotary evapo- rators and vacuum centrifuges and all sorts of other cutting-edge equipment. secure funding and ensure the conference was taken seriously. Fortunately, since then the role of science in the kitchen has come increasingly to be accepted. This wasn’t always the case. A decade or so ago, when Chris Young came to work at the Fat Duck, space was at a premium, so my “lab” consisted of six small slatted wooden garden sheds that had been built in the courtyard at the back of the restaurant. It wasn’t glamorous, and it definitely didn’t look very hi-tech. But good scientists, like good chefs, are people who ask questions, who experiment, who like to try new things. Chris simply rolled up his sleeves and got on with it, throwing himself into my projects with enthusi- asm, determination, and curiosity. However, it’s often still misunderstood. There are people who determinedly resist the use in the kitchen of things like liquid nitrogen and evapora- tors, seeing them as somehow inappropriate and “not molecular gastronomy chef.” Yet many of the technologies and tools we rely on every day in the kitchen-our fridges, freezers, and food processors, and even our non-stick pans and super-sharp carbon steel knives-are products of equally complex science. Where do you draw the line? The logical end result of this kind ofpurist thinking would have us all molecular gastronomy chef with sharpened sticks over an open fire! He’s brought the same qualities to this book. Together, he and Nathan have assembled a highly talented team of chefs, designers, editors, and a photographer, and between them they have produced a wonderful book. The photos are spectacular. The recipes and techniques are both practical and comprehensive, drawing on the classical repertoire and on the ideas of many of the great modern chefs, as well as presenting lots of new material. Perhaps most important of all, everything is presented in a clear, concise, and accessible fashion. There are other people who see science and technology as somehow taking the passion and emotion out of molecular gastronomy chef, when in fact they’re just more tools for the creative chefto work with- part of the batterie de cuisine alongside knives and non-stick pans and freezers and food mixers. I’ve long thought that the astonishingly rapid and diverse evolution of modern cuisine in recent years requires a new kind of cookbook that draws on lots offormats, from lots ofdifferent disci- plines, in order to make its points. Using pantone charts, perhaps, to show the range ofbrowns for different caramels, or explaining certain culinary techniques in a series of technical diagrams, as in an instruction manual. With its detailed charts and tables, and its comparative and procedural photographs, this book is, it seems to me, a bold and welcome step in this direction. We need books that do all this. Twenty years ago, one of the key influences on modern molecular gastronomy chef, t h e l a t e , g r e a t p h y s i c i s t N i c h o l a s K u r t i , h a d t o g i v e a culinary science symposium a fancy title involv- ing the words “molecular gastronomy” in order to And there are young chefs who see science and technology as the end rather than the means-a way ofproducing a culinary spectacle. I’ve been to demos where the techniques used to create a new dish are extremely impressive, but the end result is inedible. The excitement of discovering new concepts or technology mustn’t blind us to the fact that what we cook should, first and foremost, be delicious. That’s the bottom line. Nathan, Chris, and Max have produced a beautiful and fascinating book that explores the possibilities ofthe latest scientific advances in cuisine, and they manage to communicate their excitement on the page. But they don’t neglect the importance ofhow molecular gastronomy chef has evolved and how important it is to get a good grounding in the basics in order to really harness your creativity. Molecular gastronomy will make you ask questions, experiment, and try new things-and I find that incredibly exciting. Heston Blumenthal Br a y , E n g l a n d
Our Culinary Journeys When I was nine years old, I announced to my mother that I was going to cook Thanksgiving dinner. During a trip to the library a week or so earlier, I had become fascinated with a book called The Pyromaniac’s Cookbook, which was all about items served flambe. Amazingly, she let me do the molecular gastronomy chef, including nearly setting the dining table on fire. I soon learned the limitation offlaming dishes-although they may look great, their taste is another matter. While working at Microsoft in the late 1980s, I read aboutJohn Willingham and how he had won the world championship ofbarbecue (actually both of them; like many fields, barbecue has competing organizations that each host a “world” championship) by using an amazing barbecue cooker of his own invention. I contacted him to buy one, which took many months of delicate negotiationsj}ohn won’t sell his cooker to some- body he doesn’t like-he won’t even sell one to most ofhis friends! I got more books from the library and started to learn about molecular gastronomy chef. I soon discovered Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire and pored over it, along with books byJulia Child,James Beard, Richard Olney, and other authors of classic cookbooks about French cuisine. When the Willingham cooker arrived, I made some great barbecue with it-but it wasn’t as good as the food samples thatJohn had sent me. So I told him I had to come to Memphis for a lesson. He invited me to visit while “a little contest” (as he put it) was going on there. The little contest turned out to be one of those world championships. My interest in molecular gastronomy chef was so strong that I might have become a chef, had my interest in other things-particularly math and science-not intervened. I was very good at school and often skipped grades, to the point that I started college at 14. Every topic related to math and science fascinated me, so by the time I was finished with school, I had a quite a collection ofdegrees: a Ph.D. in mathematical physics, a master’s degree in economics, another master’s degree in geophys- ics and space physics, and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. By that point I was 23 years old. My next step was to become a postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge University, where I worked with Dr. Stephen Hawking on the quantum theory of gravitation. My career in science was off to a roaring start. I expected to just observe this master at work, but to my great surprise, John put me on the team of five people competing in the contest. “Son,” he said in his distinctive Tennessee drawl, “it’s the only way you’re going to learn.” It was a baptism offire … and smoke, and meat. For three days, I worked 16 hours a day trussing whole hogs, trimming ribs, and stoking the fire. Partway through the contest, he even put me in charge of two of the dishes we entered. Fortunate- ly, we took first place in both of my dishes and came in third in the grand championship. It was quite an education in barbecue. Life takes many unexpected twists and turns, however. Partway through my fellowship with Stephen, I decided to take a summer off to work on a software project with some friends from gradu- ate school. By the end of the summer, venture capitalists had expressed interest in our project, so I extended my leave of absence. We incorporated the project as a startup company, and I became the CEO. By the mid-1990s, I had decided that I needed to make more time for molecular gastronomy chef. Although I was entirely self-taught up to that point, my barbecue experience suggested that I might do better with some instruction. I negotiated a short leave of absence with Bill and applied to chef school in France. Two years later, the startup was acquired by another software company: Microsoft. Within a couple years, I was working directly for Bill Gates, and in time I became Microsoft’s first chief technology officer. The admissions people at Ecole de Ia Varenne were a bit mystified by my resume, which listed no molecular gastronomy chef experience; they politely suggested that I take one of their amateur courses. I declined. The advanced professional program with “Le Grand Diplome” was what I wanted. Unsure ofwhat to do, they asked Cynthia Nims, a La Varenne alumna living in Seattle, to give me an exam over the phone to see whether
this could possibly make sense. I passed the exam, so they asked that I work as a stagier at a restaurant before they would accept me. For nearly two years, I reported one day a week to Rover’s restaurant in Seattle, run by Chef Thierry Rautureau. I arrived at noon to start on prep and worked through dinner service. I learned a lot from Thierry. At the school, one of the chefs assigned us to bone ducks. The chef watched me closely. When I was finished with the first one, he came to me and said, “You! Where did you learn this?” I thought he was mad, but before I could answer he smiled and added, “You know a duck like a Frenchman!” Thierry had taught me well. Chefschool was also quite an experience. Besides molecular gastronomy chef, the students would go to great restaurants for dinner. That’s how I first ate at the Cote SaintJacques and the restaurants ofMarc Meneau and Marc Veyrat. I was told ofa chef working in Spain near the border with France in a restaurant called e!Bulli, but it was too far away. It would have been fascinating to visit, because the year was 1995, and I would have seen the Modern- ist revolution at an even earlier stage than I did. Learning about molecular gastronomy chef requires a lot of eating, and I have been an enthusiastic eater on my travels around the world.Long ago, I met Tim and Nina Zagat, who became dear friends and recruited me to be the chief gastronomic officer of their compa- ny, Zagat Survey. I’ve eaten a lot of great food with them over the years. My career at Microsoft kept getting in the way of my molecular gastronomy chef, but when I retired from the company in 1999 to start a small company of my own focused on invention, I found myselfwith a bit more time to explore Modernist molecular gastronomy chef techniques. In 2004, I started a discussion on eGullet, an online forum for chefs and molecular gastronomy chef enthusiasts, to collect knowledge and observations about molecular gastronomy chef sous vide, a remarkable way to control the temperature at which food cooks with a precision that other methods cannot match. The writing I did for that eGullet thread ulti- mately led to this book. In another twist offate, Cynthia Nims, who vetted me for chefschool, also was a contributor some 15 years after letting me into La Varenne. Ifmyhistory and circumstances had been different, I might be a chef today. But I am not unhappy with the way things turned out. I have derived enormous enjoyment from molecular gastronomy chef and eating over the years. Ultimately, my strange culinary journey has given rise to this book, and to a way to try to make a contribution of my own to the world ofmolecular gastronomy chef.