dimanche 5 mars 2017

Why the name "note by note cooking"?

"Note-to-note cooking" is truly a "synthesis cooking", as electroacoustic music is a "synthesic music".


Historically,
- two centuries ago, music was played with instruments, producing characteristic, limited, specific sounds: the winds are the winds, the brass are brass, and so on. And at the same time, the humankind cooked with ingredients that gave characteristic, limited, specific flavours: carrots taste like carrots, lamb taste like lamb, and so on.

And then, about a century ago, physicists learned to decompose the sounds into pure sound waves, of particular frequency; It was learned that there were "fundamentals" and "harmonics", but above all it was understood that the timbre was due to particular groups of sounds. At the same time, the chemical sciences began to explore the composition of food ingredients: water, pectins, cellulose, sugars, amino acids, etc. were found in plant tissue. And it was understood that the meat was made of water, protein, & c.

- half a century ago, the advent of electronics, then computer science, allowed the development of electroacoustic music: one could finally produce any sound, synthesis, any rhythm, any music, without limiting itself to the performances of a human playing a classical instrument. What about cooking? It had not changed.

- today, a child who has a synthesizer (20 euros in a toy store) can compose any music ... and it is only now that introduces the "synthesis cooking", called  note by note cooking.


Why this name of " note by note cooking"? For historical reasons. 


 Indeed, after the creation of molecular gastronomy, there was confusion, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, with "molecular cuisine". I had to fight (and it was not over) against the confusion, which was due in particular to the fact that:
- the word "gastronomy" is often confused, wrongly, with the word "cuisine d'apparat"
- some cooks pretended to do molecular gastronomy ... because the thing was fashionable, attracted journalists, made buzz ...
In short, it was in 1999 that I began to say all over the world that there was a difference between "molecular gastronomy", which is physico-chemistry, and "molecular cuisine", i.e. cooking using modern utensils.

However, around 2002, looking for a name for synthetic cooking, I wanted a terminology that moved away from science ... because cooking has nothing to do with science. Having then in the idea that cooking is an artistic activity, I sought a name that would say this relationship with art, rather than with science. And since there was this comparison with music, which is an art, I proposed "Note by note cooking".
Note that this word is a little faulty, because one should say " wave to wave cooking", but it was also about having a name a bit engaging.
Of course, the terminology of "synthetic" will perhaps be used, in place of " note by note cooking" ... but it does not matter: I do not sell anything!

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