Second
International Contest
of
Note
by Note Cooking
Methional
Methional is an organic compound having the
general formula CH3SCH2CH2CHO. When pure in ordinary conditions,
it is a colourless liquid, with a strong odor of cooked potatoes,
of potage cultivateur, with bacon notes... In the kitchen, it can
indeed appear during potato cooking, for exemple, but also during
tea production. It is made from the amino acid called methionine.
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Organization Team :
Introduction :
Note by Note Cooking
Note by Note Cooking is
a new culinary technique using pure compounds in order to make
dishes.
However, one can
understand that, in order to make food practically, in a reasonable
time, some shorter ways can be used : whereas « pure Note
by Note Cooking »is using only pure compounds (no meat, fish,
egg, vegetables, fruits...), it is admitted to use fractions from
animal and plant tissues, obtained by fractionation or cracking of
such tissues (this is « Practical Note by Note Cooking »).
Or course, one can also
only add pure compounds to traditionally prepared dishes, but of
course this is less new.
As Note by Note Cooking
proved sometimes difficult too make, we propose, for this second
contest, to familiarize cooks with this new technique proposing only
the use of one compound : methional.
What
it is proposed to do:
For this Second
International Contest of Note by Note Cooking, it is proposed to make
between one and three dishes which have all to contain methional.
This compound will be sent to participants, under the form of dilute
solution in neutral oil.
The submitted dishes
will be judged according to how clore from pure Note by Note Cooking
they are. But of course the originality of methional implementation
will also be considered.
A good appreciation
will be given to dishes containing no plant tissues (vegetables,
fruits) or animals (meat, fish, eggs), but only new fractions from
such tissues (for example, egg white powder, milk proteins
fractions...). Participants will be free to get these fractions by
themselves or to make them.
Each dish (maximum 3)
has to be:
described by a
recipe (maximu 2 pages, Roman 12), indicating :
- all ingredients used
with quantities
- the production
process
shown on pdf
pictures (5 maximum, production steps can be shown).
Evaluation
criteria :
Reproducibility.
Methional
implementation.
Originality of
methional implementation.
The use of other pures
compounds rather than fractions.
Of course, the proposed
dishes should not be toxic !
Flavour complexity will
be appreciated : a dish with consistency, odor, taste, colour...
will be preferred to simple productions.
Who can participate?
This contest is open to all (categories will be made between
chefs, amateurs, food engineers...)
How to participate?
Simply apply by email
at
herve.this@agroparistech.fr,
giving a postal adress (for the reception of methional sample) and a
phone number.
Pour l'inscription, il
suffit d'envoyer un email de candidature, avec une adresse postale et
un téléphone.
Then describe your
production in a file .doc, along with a .ppt document of 10 slides
maximum. Please give pictures with hi res 300 dpi.
Dates :
Applications are open
until the 15th of March 2014
Sending your results :
until 30 April 2014.
Prize ceremony:
Friday 23 May 2014, in
the afternoon, AgroParisTech (16 rue Claude Bernard, 75005 Paris).
Prizes will be given by
partners : Mane SA, Revue Pour la Science, Editions Belin, Louis
François Inc
The best productions
will be displayed on many internet sites (Scienceetgastronomie.com,
Forum Note à Note d'AgroParisTech...). They will be shown is
exhibitions.
Partenaires :
Editions
Belin
Revue
Pour la Science
Société
Louis François
Annex :
From
Molecular Gastronomy to its applications :
«
Molecular Cuisine » (it is over)
and
« Note by Note Cuisine» (don't miss this next world
culinary
trend!)
Hervé
This
1.
The scientific work
In 1988 Nicholas
Kurti and I created the scientific discipline that we called «
Molecular
gastronomy»
(remember that the word « gastronomy » means « knowledge », and
not cuisine, even
haute cuisine ;
in the same way, Molecular Gastronomy does not stand for cooking!).
The aim of
Molecular Gastronomy was, is and will be forever : looking for the
mechanisms of
phenomena
occcuring during dish preparation and consumption.
2.
An application in the kitchen
In the beginning
of the 80's, we introduced also «Molecular Cuisine », whose
definition is :
« Producing food
(this is cuisine) using « new » tools, ingredients, methods ».
In this
definition, the word « new » stands for what was not in kitchens of
the western countries in
1980.
For example :
siphon (to make foams), sodium alginate (to get pearls with a liquid
core, spaghettis
of vegetables,
etc.) and other gelling agents (agar-agar, carraghenans, etc.),
liquid nitrogen (to
make sherbets and
many other innovative preparations), rotary evaporator, and more
generally, the
whole set of
lab's equipment when they can be useful ; another of new « method »,
finally, the
prepration of the
Chocolate Chantilly, of beaumés, gibbs, nollet, vauquelins, etc. (
Cours de
gastronomie
moléculaire n°1 : Science, technologie, technique (culinaires) :
quelles relations ?, Ed
Quae/Belin)
Of course all
these items are not completely new (many gelling agents are used in
Asia for millenia,
and many tools
are used daily in chemistry labs), but the goal was to modernize the
technical
component of
cuisine.
Yes, the
expression « Molecular Cuisine » is poorly chosen, but it had to be
introduced at some
time... and it is
not within the Encyclopedia Britannica Dictionnaly. And Molecular
Cuisine will
disappear...
because of... see below !
3.
The next culinary trend : Note by Note Cuisine !
The next proposal
is much more exciting, and its name is NOTE BY NOTE CUISINE.
It was first
proposed in 1994 (in the magazine Scientific American) at a time when
I was playing at
using compounds
in food, such as paraethylphenol in wines and whiskeys, 1-octen-3-ol
in dishes,
limonene,
tartaric acid, ascorbic acid, etc.
The initial
proposal was to improve food... but the next idea was obvious, it is
to make dishes
entirely from
compounds.
Let's say it
differently. Note by Note Cuisine is not using meat, fish, vegetable
or fruits, but rater
compounds, either
pure compounds or mixtures, such as electronic music is not using
trumpets or
violins, but
rather pure waves which are mixed in sounds and in music.
Here, for Note by
Note Cuisine, the cook has to : :
– design the
shapes of the various parts of the dish
– design the
colors
– design the
tastes
– design the
odors
– design the
temperatures
– designe the
trigeminal stimulation
– design the
consistencies
– design the
nutritional aspects
– etc.
The feasability of
this new cuisine was already shown by many meals :
– first Note by
Note meal (called Note by Note N°1) shown to the international press
in Hong
Kong by Pierre
Gagnaire in April 2009
– two dishes
shown at the French-Japanese Scientific Meeting (JSTS) in Strasbourg,
in May
2010
– whole Note by
Note Meal served by the chefs of the Cordon bleu School in Paris in
October 2010
– Note à Note
meal served the 26th of January 2011, as a launching event of the
International
Year of Chemistry,
at UNESCO, Paris, by the team of Potel&Chabot
– Note by Note
cocktail serve in April 2011 to 500 French chefs freshly starred at
Michelin,
in Espace Cardin,
Paris
– Note by Note
Meal served in October 2011 by the team of the chefs of the Cordon
bleu
Schools Paris
– Note by Note
dishes made by chefs of the Toques Blanches International
Association, in
Paris, 3 Decembre
2011
Many questions
arise from this new cuisine:
– land
development
– economy
– sensorial
– technique
– art
– politics
– nutrition
– toxicology
– etc.
But:
1. humankind is
facing an energy crisis : it is not sure that traditional cuisine is
sustainable (it
is not!)
2. the New will
always beat the Old
3. cracking
products from agriculture and farming is already done for milk and
wheat ; why
not carrots,
apples, etc. ?
4. The objections
made to Note by Note cuisine were done half a century ago against
electronic music,
and guess what you hear at the radio today ?
In other words,
are not we at the equivalent of 1947, when musicians such as Varèse
and some
others were
investigating electronic music ?
