jeudi 29 décembre 2011

Note by Note Cuisine

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 ?

lundi 26 décembre 2011

I am happy...

... that so many people today think that Molecular Gastronomy is a poor title for a culinary trend... as it is not the name of cuisine, but rather of science !

By the way, many people speak of Molecular Gastronomy, but do they have a scientific activity ?

It suddenly comes to my mind

For many years, the facts were:

1. I remember that, in March 1988, when we created the scientific discipline of Molecular Gastronomy, I proposed this title, and Nicholas replied that we should add "and physical".

2. Since that time, I atributed Nicholas proposal to the fact that he was a physicist, and he feared that too much emphasis would be on chemistry

3. Few years ago, Harold Mc Gee showed evidence that Elizabeth Thomas, a friend of Nicholas and I, proposed also "Molecular Gastronomy" as a title for I don't know what exactly, and apparently Elizabeth and Ugo Valdre (that I don't know) had the idea to make meetings about that

4. It is a fact that Nicholas and I called Antonino Zichichi to propose him a series of Workshops and Erice

5. It is a fact that Nicholas and I were the directors of the workshops, and that we invited Harold Mc Gee to be an invited director to the first meeting (he did not participate to the organization of the others)


In view of all these facts, a sociologist recently wondered why Elizabeth Thomas was not involved in the organization of the International Workshops on Molecular and Physical Gastronomy. It would be logical if Molecular and Physical Gastronomy would be based on her ideas... but remember fact 1: when I proposed the title Molecular Gastronomy, it was because :
1. Gastronomy is a reasoned knowledge, not haute cuisine
2. Molecular was proposed (by me) to do the same as in Molecular Biology, as I explain well in a paper that I published in the Account of Chemical Research.
Moreover, contrary to Nicholas, I did not know Elizabeth Thomas, and this is why she was not a director of our meetings, but only invited, being a friend of Nicholas.


How to reconcile all facts, assuming that people like Harold McGee, Nicholas Kurti and I are honest ?
I had suddenly an assumption: what about Nicholas wanting to do something else than what Elizatbeth Thomas wanted ? Perhaps he knew the proposal of Molecular Gastronomy, and looked for another title, hence "Molecular and Physical Gastronomy".

Later on, I shortened "Molecular and Physical Gastronomy" (the title of my PhD) into "Molecular Gastronomy", because, ignoring all the story about Elizabeth Thomas, I felt is was enough (as I did since the beginning).

Now, historians and sociologists can improve their descriptions... and I ever more strongly regret Nicholas Kurti's death. He was wonderful... and human.

dimanche 27 novembre 2011

So called colloids

I propose to use the right terms.

According to IUPAC (the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry), a "colloid" is a

" material systems that contain molecules or molecule associations in which one dimension is of the order of 1 nm to 1 µm, or to systems who include discontinuities with distances of this order of magnitude".

Useful definition, when so many people say anything

Molecular Gastronomy is the scientific discipline looking for the mechansms of phenomena occcuring during dish preparation and consumption

mercredi 23 novembre 2011

Definition are useful

Molecular Gastronomy is the scientific discipline looking for the mechanisms of phenomena occcuring during dish preparation and consumption

Advanced Studies in Gastronomy

Hi


The picturial presentation of the Session 2011 of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Gastronomy (HEG) is now online on :



http://www.heg-gastronomy.com/News/2011-class.aspx


The participants testified for the excellent programme, and loves its diversity.

«Le format du programme, son contenu, organisation et échanges sont remarquables ».

«A truly wonderful program that exceeded all my expectations – which were high to begin with ».

« Beaucoup de connaissances acquises, découvertes insoupçonnées. Grande qualité du contenu et de l'organisation ».

« The program was excellent in the quality of lectures and various visits, and dinners »


Celebrate enlightened Gourmandise (= gastronomy)


Cheers

Vive la gourmandise éclairée!

--

PS1. Les Cours de gastronomie moléculaire 2012 se tiendront les 30 et 31 janvier 2012, à AgroParisTech, sur le thème de la "Cuisine Note à Note".
Inscriptions sur : http://www.agroparistech.fr/Inscription-aux-cours-de.html

A noter que les Cours 2011, sur le thème : "Explorer la cuisine. De l'expérience au calcul" sont en ligne sur http://podcast.agroparistech.fr/users/gastronomiemoleculaire


PS2. ParisTech cherche un mécène pour une Chaire xxx((nom du mécène))xxx de gastronomie moléculaire. Si d'aventure vous connaissez un mécène, je serais heureux de lui transmettre des documents expliquant ce projet enthousiasmant.






Hervé This

Chimiste, Groupe de gastronomie moléculaire
Professeur consultant AgroParisTech : http://www.agroparistech.fr/
Directeur scientifique de la Fondation Science & Culture Alimentaire (Académie des sciences) : http://www.inra.fr/fondation_science_culture_alimentaire
Président du Comité Pédagogique de l'Institut des Hautes Etudes du Gout : http://www.heg-gastronomie.com/Accueil.aspx
Chargé d'enseignements à Sciences Po Paris

_______________________________________________________________
Groupe de Gastronomie moléculaire AgroParisTech
Laboratoire de chimie analytique
Département Science et procédes des aliments et bioproduits (SPAB)
UMR 1145 Ingénierie Procédés Aliment GENIAL Institut des sciences et industries du vivant et de l'environnement (AgroParisTech)
16 rue Claude Bernard
75005 Paris
tel : +33 1 44 08 72 90
Courriel : herve.this@agroparistech.fr
Skype : hervethis
Tweeter : @Herve_This
http://www.umr-genial.eu/



Un site avec une montagne d'informations sur la gastronomie moléculaire : http://sites.google.com/site/travauxdehervethis/

Un blog personnel (j'y évoque des questions intellectuelles, à propos de la science, de la technologie, de la technique, de l'art...) : http://hervethis.blogspot.com/

Un blog consacré à la gastronomie moléculaire, avec moins de points de vue personnels : http://gastronomie-moleculaire.blogspot.com/

Le site du Laboratoire de chimie d'AgroParisTech, avec des informations complémentaires : http://www.agroparistech.fr/-UFR-Chimie-analytique-.html

mercredi 12 octobre 2011

From our American friends

Hello all,


Due to the very long waitlist accumulated for the October 15 meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective, we moved the location to 12 Waverly (between Mercer and Greene Streets), room 108 (ground floor auditorium). The event will still run from 2 to 4 p.m. If your schedule changed and you'd like to join us, a few seats are available through ecc102011.eventbrite.com.



Bill Yosses will be joined by Najat Kaanache, a stagiaire from elBulli who is now traveling around the world demonstrating some of the groundbreaking techniques from the restaurant. She has also staged at The French Laundry, Per Se, Alinea, and Noma.



The original announcement is below, if you missed it.



In his presentation, The Prism of Flavors, White House Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses will focus on emulsions, foams, and gels to discuss how he seeks to better understand ingredients and techniques. As he takes us from the beginning of cooking to today's technology, he will also demonstrate recipes that illustrate the principles driving his pastry work.



Chef Yosses, author of The Perfect Finish, joined the White House in 2007. There, his role also includes beekeeping and gardening, in line with First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to promote healthy eating. During his outstanding career in New York restaurants, he ran the pastry kitchens of Josephs Citarella, Bouley, Tavern on the Green, and Montrachet. Click here for a 2010 New York Times profile.


Please RSVP at ecc102011.eventbrite.com. A link is also posted on our website. If you RSVP and can no longer make it, please let me know so that your seat can be released. Thank you.

All my best,

Anne

----
Anne E. McBride
Director, Experimental Cuisine Collective

vendredi 7 octobre 2011

A gift from Nicholas Kurti

I find again what Nicholas offered me when I was 40 yo :


I keep six honest serving-men
(they taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west ;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
(R. Kipling)

jeudi 6 octobre 2011

After more than ten years...

for 10 years, I am inventing a new thing every month, and display it on Pierre Gagnaire's site.
Now, the game changed, see http://www.pierre-gagnaire.com/#/pg/pierre_et_herve

mercredi 5 octobre 2011

From our US friends.

Hello all,


The October meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective will take place on Saturday, October 15, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Chemistry Department at NYU, room 1003 (31 Washington Place, between Washington Square Park and Greene Street). You will need a photo ID to enter the building.



In his presentation, The Prism of Flavors, White House Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses will focus on emulsions, foams, and gels to discuss how he seeks to better understand ingredients and techniques. As he takes us from the beginning of cooking to today's technology, he will also demonstrate recipes that illustrate the principles driving his pastry work.



Chef Yosses, author of The Perfect Finish, joined the White House in 2007. There, his role also includes beekeeping and gardening, in line with First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to promote healthy eating. During his outstanding career in New York restaurants, he ran the pastry kitchens of Josephs Citarella, Bouley, Tavern on the Green, and Montrachet. Click here for a 2010 New York Times profile.


Please RSVP at ecc102011.eventbrite.com. A link is also posted on our website. If you RSVP and can no longer make it, please let me know so that your seat can be released. Thank you.

All my best,

Anne

----
Anne E. McBride
Director, Experimental Cuisine Collective
ABOUT THE EXPERIMENTAL CUISINE COLLECTIVE
The Experimental Cuisine Collective is a working group that assembles scholars, scientists, chefs, writers, journalists, performance artists, and food enthusiasts. We launched in April 2007, as a result of the collaboration of Kent Kirshenbaum of the chemistry department and Amy Bentley of the nutrition, food studies, and public health department at New York University with Chef Will Goldfarb of WillPowder. Our overall aim is to develop a broad-based and rigorous academic approach that employs techniques and approaches from both the humanities and sciences to examine the properties, boundaries, and conventions of food.

Visit the ECC online at www.experimentalcuisine.com.

dimanche 2 octobre 2011

"Good Food"

Much confusion remains today about Molecular Gastronomy and cuisine.
Of course, those who come in this blog know well that molecular gastronomy is a scientific activity, and that molecular cuisine is an application of it (definition : using new tools, new ingredients, new methods).
However, I recently stumbled on "culinary science" : indeed this is not possible as far as "science" is used in the meaning of "philosophia naturalis" (the title of Newton's book), i.e. science of nature, and not only "knowledge".
It does not mean that cooks have no "science" (knowledge), but this has nothing to do with the activity of "scientists", such as chemists, biologists, physicists...

And what about "the science of good food"? This definition of molecular gastronomy was given by people who did not enough consider what science is (and indeed some are food writers, not scientists). Such a "science" cannot exist, in the meaning of philosophia naturalis, because "good" is not of scientific nature (refutable, let's say for short).

Please use "molecular gastronomy" to describe the scientific investigation of culinary phenomena, keeping in mind that science (philosophia naturalis) is looking for the mechanisms of phenomena, using the "scientific method" (see another post).

jeudi 15 septembre 2011

Erasmus Mundus Students in Paris

Students arrived last week in Paris, for the beginning of the new curriculum of the Master Erasmus Mundus "Food Innovation and Product Design" (www.fipdes.eu).

In this context, we had the pleasure to organize a session announcing Molecular Gastronomy Teaching Modulus.

The event, with the participation of French chefs Jean-Pierre Lepeltier and David Desplanques, was recorded :

Podcast Gastronomie Moléculaire : http://podcast.agroparistech.fr/users/gastronomiemoleculaire/weblog/452dc/Gastronomie_Moleculaire_et_FIPDes.html

Podcast général : http://podcast.agroparistech.fr/groups/agroparistech/weblog/728a7/Gastronomie_Moleculaire_et_FIPDes.html

Dailymotion : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl2cqc_presentation-de-la-gastronomie-moleculaire-au-master-fipdes_school

mardi 13 septembre 2011

From our French friends in the western part of France

Bonjour,

Nous venons vous rappeler que notre prochain atelier "scienceS et cuisine" se déroulera

le Lundi 10 octobre prochain de 16h00 à 18h30,

au Manoir de La Boulaie, 33 rue Chapelle Saint Martin - 44115 Haute Goulaine (invitation et plan d'accès ci-joints),

où nous serons accueillis par Laurent Saudeau.

Cet atelier portera sur " Les Poissons Gras ".

Programme :

Dans un premier temps, Jean-Luc VALLET (IFREMER) nous présentera quelques généralités sur les poissons gras : définition, techniques et zones de pêche, ressources, aquaculture, bénéfices santé et technologique de l’utilisation et de la consommation de ce type de poisson, valorisation des déchets…



Dans un deuxième temps, nous observerons la réalisation de différents essais « comparatifs » de cuisson (grill, vapeur, court bouillon, plancha, friture) sur poissons gras et maigres (saumon, sardine, maquereau), marinés et non marinés, l’évolution du taux de gras au cours du temps et ses conséquences, les effets de la congélation notamment sur la texture,...

Ces essais seront réalisés par Laurent SAUDEAU (Manoir de la Boulaie), Jean-Luc SENEE (Le Monte Cristo) et François SEHIER ( Conserverie La Belle-Iloise).



N'hésitez pas à venir partager les résultats de vos propres expérimentations en la matière lors du séminaire. Nous sommes là pour échanger nos résultats et interprétations.

Pour ceux qui souhaitent prolonger l'échange, un apéritif vous sera proposé à la fin de l'atelier.

Une participation aux frais de 12 euros, vous sera demandée à l'entrée. Des justificatifs de frais vous seront distribués sur place.

La capacité d'accueil étant limitée, pensez à RESERVER RAPIDEMENT votre place en envoyant un mail à contact@gmouest.fr

En espérant vous voir nombreux!

Cordialement,

L'équipe organisatrice gmouest
Camille Bourgeois - Consultante QSA, Vincent Lafaye, Ludivine Billy, Gwenaelle Garnier - Food Dévelopment

lundi 12 septembre 2011

From friends in the USA

Hello all,


We hope that you had a relaxing summer and are ready for another year of engaging speakers and dynamic conversations with the Experimental Cuisine Collective! Our September meeting will take place on Wednesday, September 21, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Chemistry Department at NYU, room 1003 (31 Washington Place, between Washington Square Park and Greene Street). You will need a photo ID to enter the building.



Prof. Dickson Despommier, of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University, will talk about his work on vertical farming. Visit verticalfarm.com if you would like more information ahead of the meeting.



Please RSVP at ecc092011.eventbrite.com. A link is also posted on our website. If you RSVP and can no longer make it, please let me know so that your seat can be released. Thank you.

All my best,

Anne

----
Anne E. McBride
Director, Experimental Cuisine Collective
ABOUT THE EXPERIMENTAL CUISINE COLLECTIVE
The Experimental Cuisine Collective is a working group that assembles scholars, scientists, chefs, writers, journalists, performance artists, and food enthusiasts. We launched in April 2007, as a result of the collaboration of Kent Kirshenbaum of the chemistry department and Amy Bentley of the nutrition, food studies, and public health department at New York University with Chef Will Goldfarb of WillPowder. Our overall aim is to develop a broad-based and rigorous academic approach that employs techniques and approaches from both the humanities and sciences to examine the properties, boundaries, and conventions of food.

Visit the ECC online at www.experimentalcuisine.com.

dimanche 11 septembre 2011

Merveilleux

Ce n'est pas tout de dire du mal d'un livre de physique, comme je l'ai fait récemment ; il faut aussi (surtout) dire du bien d'un livre. J'invite tous mes amis intéressés par la mécanique quantique à se plonger dans un excellent ouvrage, intitulé
Quantum Mechanics, a modern introduction
Par Ashok Das et Adrian Melissinos
Ed Gordon and Breach

Vive la connaissance !

mercredi 7 septembre 2011

Next meeting of the Group of study of culinary precisions

I write it in French, because the seminar will be in French :

Chers Amis

je suis heureux de vous dire que nos réunions du Groupe d'étude des précisions culinaires (ex séminaires de gastronomie moléculaire) reprennent le lundi 19 septembre, de 16 à 18 heures. Sauf exception, le séminaire se tiendra donc encore tous les troisièmes lundis de chaque mois... mais il y aura des exceptions, par exemple en décembre.


Le thème retenu pour notre prochaine rencontre est :

On dit que l'arôme d'une soupe passée au moulin est plus développé que lorsqu'on la passe au mixer. Est-ce vrai? Pourquoi ?


Cela étant, nous nous étions donnés des "devoirs de vacances", à savoir de comparer des levains avec raisins, petits lait, pomme, etc. raisins blonds, gousses d'ail...
J'espère que vous avez des tas de résultats (sinon, il n'est pas trop tard pour commencer les expérimentations!)

En tout cas, je me réjouis de vous retrouver à l'Ecole supérieure de cuisine française, le 19 sept, donc, de 16 à 18 h, au 4e étage, dans l'amphithéâtre.

Vive la gourmandise éclairée

lundi 29 août 2011

Erasmus Mundus Mater Programme "Food innovation and products design"

Dear Friends,
I am happy to give you here the detail of the launching seminar of our new master programme FIPDES :


Erasmus Mundus Master Course
Food Innovation and Product Design
Food Innovation and Product Design SEMINAR
Wednesday, 31 August, 2011.
Amphiteatre 7, AgroParisTech – Maine Center
19, avenue du Maine
75732 PARIS–FRANCE
Program

9h-11h00
Innovation and food design perspectives (Chairman: J. Delarue, AgroParisTech,
France)
9h00 Consumer science & food innovation (J. Delarue, APT, France)
9h30 Food innovation: the point of view of Food industry (Y. Champenois, Danone,
France)
10h30 Coffee break
11h00
PhD students’ session (Chairman: J. Delarue, AgroParisTech, France)
11h00 Conception of tailored biscuits with satiety benefit: physico-chemical, nutritional and
sensory optimization (C. Petitjean, APT-UMR Genial, France)
11h15 Effect of processing on rheological, structural and sensory properties of apple puree
(L. Espinosa, APT-UMR Genial)
11h30 Study and improvement of the stability of vegetable oils using natural antioxidants:
contribution of chemometric methods (F. Ammari, APT-UMR Genial)
11h45 In-mouth flavor release during eating a solid food product: mechanistic modeling and
experimental validation ( M. Doyennette, APT-UMR GMPA).
12h00-14h30 around a buffet: Poster session and networking with PhD students
14h30-18h
Innovation in the healthy food sector (Chairman: V. Fogliano, Università Federico
II, Italy)
14h30 Health issues and functional foods Innovation in the healthy food sector (Vincenzo
Fogliano, Federico II University, Italy)
15h15 Food, Functional Foods, Nutrition and Health Contemporary Issues (D. Bastos,
School of Public Health - São Paulo University, Brazil).
16h15
Concluding remarks

samedi 27 août 2011

From our Argentina friends

¨Algo están tramando...entre el gluten y las levaduras...¨

Taller largo de amasado de pan. ¿Cómo modifica el amasado y la fermentación el resultado final?. La fermentación previa, la temperatura, etc. Estas son algunas de las preguntas que contestaremos a lo largo del taller que acompañaremos con experimentos en los cuales participarán todos los asistentes.Traer delantal.

Cuándo?
Sábado 10 de septiembre 2011 de 15 a 18:30/19 hs

Dónde?
ESPACIO AZAI Virrey Loreto 3795, esquina con Charlone, a dos cuadras de Alvarez Thomas y Forest (http://www.espacioazai.com.ar/donde.htm) Buenos Aires, Argentina

Cuál es el costo?
$100 y se abona en el lugar. Socios 20% descuento (traer delantal)
Cupos limitados, inscripción sólo por mail a: asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com ( enviar teléfono de contacto al momento de solicitar la inscripción)
La reserva de vacante se hará efectiva una vez que hayas recibido el mail de confirmación de la misma.


Los esperamos !
Mariana y Silvia

Mariana Koppmann y Silvia Grünbaum
Asociación Argentina de Gastronomía Molecular
asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com
http://gastronomia-molecular.blogspot.com/

samedi 20 août 2011

Sorry, but I had the feeling that I should change

Sorry, but I realized that the topic of the 2012 Course on Molecular Gastronomy should change for "Note by Note Cuisine".
Indeed, in spite of all the preparative work already done on "definitions", it seems very important to help my friends to cook note by note

Vive la gourmandise éclairée!

mardi 26 juillet 2011

Note by Note Cuisine, the next culinary trend?

Being an advocate, after, Louis Pasteur, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier and many others, of the difference between science and technologie, fighting, then, against the frequent confusion between the science of chemistry, on one hand, and the « chemical arts » which are pharmacy, cosmetics, perfumery, etc. I am also convinced that we lack chemistry. I am not saying that there are no relationship between science and technologie (it would be silly), and I don't see science as something more important than technology, but only something different, with links that we should clarify. Of course, some technical innovation can (should?) be derived from new knowledge produced by chemistry (science), but cannot we also consider that some (chemical) science can (should?) be made from questions coming from technique and technology ? I don't consider that this science would be an « applied science », or a science for engineers (an oxymoron), but this is another story.
Here I propose to consider a remarkable example, as it is in between science, technology, technique, art, education... It is the issue of « note by note cuisine ». A particular application of sciences, but with consequences which justify that science makes new explorations!

After Molecular Cuisine, Note by Note Cuisine

Let us begin rapidly with some needed definitions, as I know too well that there is a confusion between cuisine and gastronomy. I shall be very fast however, as I am giving much more details in many other texts.
Molecular gastronomy, first, is a particular branch of physical chemistry, where we look for the mechanisms of phenomena occuring during culinary transfrmations. Indeed, at the limit, this discipline is not really interested in cuisine, and only looks for new phenomena, new mechanisms, starting from cuisine.
Molecular cuisine, on the other hand, is cuisine. More precisely, it is a culinary trend whose definition is: cooking with new tools, new methods, new ingredients. By « new », we mean what was not in Paul Bocuse's cuisine, in the 1980's. And in 1984, I proposed to transfer all chemistry laboratory tools, hardware, from labs to kitchens: vacuum evaporation devices, ultrasonic probes, liquid nitrogen, decanting bulbs, fritted glass filters, etc.
The culinary trend named molecular cuisine is now present worldwide, and there is no day without some Google alert on it. Each day, chefs are proposing new « molecular cuisine » menus, dishes... We can be happy of this technical improvement of culinary techniques... and remember that it was indeed the purpose of the proposal that we made at the very beginning of the 1980's, with a handful of friends (primarily Nicholas Kurti and I).
We can also observe that molecular cuisine is an application of science to technique. And we should add immediately that we have to hope that molecular cuisine will die soon (not molecular gastronomy!) because it will means that the technical renovation of cooking is done.
Note by note cuisine, now? I proposed it indeed in an article that I published in 1994 in Scientific American, coauthoring with my old friend Nicholas Kurti. In the presentation of molecular gastronomy that was the topic of the article, I found it provocative to add the following paragraph, as a conclusion that Nicholas accepted:
« The manufacturers of wines and spirits are typically forbidden by law to improve the taste of their products by adding sugar or other chemicals. Nevertheless, if the consumer wants to use the results of chemical research to enhance the qualities of inferior wines or spirits, should he or she not be encouraged to do so? A few drops of vanilla extract may wonderfully enrich the flavor of a bottle of cheap whiskey. This kind of experiment can be extended to a large number of beverages and dishes. Perhaps in the cookbooks of the future, recipes will include such directions as « add to your bouillon two drops of a 0.001 percent solution of benzylmercaptan in pure alcohol. ».
Kurti accepted this paragraph from me, but I can assure that both of us considered then my proposal as an extraordinary audacious. « Chemicals » in the kitchen! In food!
Today I would obviously not write the same text, first because I showed elsewhere that the word « chemicals » is wrong: a compound is a compound, and it can be either extracted from plant or animal tissues, or synthetized, but it become chemical only if it is studied or used by a chemist, i.e. a scientist, for scientific purpose. For example, water is not a « chemical », except when it is studied in a chemistry lab, not when it is drunk !
On the other hand, « playing » with compounds can be more than just play: yes, some drops of a vanillin solution (synthetic, or from natural originn it does not matter, because the various molecules are entirely the same, with the same organoleptic properties) will give some mouthfeel to young brandies, for reasons that are unknown to my knowledge. This proposal, we have to say it, are based on the fact that, during alcohol aging, wood lignin which reacts with ethanol (the alcool from wine and brandies) after a long chain of reactions, such compounds as synringaldehyde, or sinapic or vanillic aldehydes are produced. It is then « obvious » for a brandy lover to make such additions, when he or she has not enough money to pay for very old products. Finally, I think that even if benzylmercaptan is a good choice physiologically (in solution, at low concentrations, it has notes of onion, garlic, horseradish, mint, coffee), it can make many colleagues afraid, because they think (it is wrong) that mercaptans are... sulfurous compounds.
Anyway in 1999, I considered thaht the proposal to add compounds to food was only the beginning of the story: why not « constitute » dishes entirely compound by compound? This is « note by note cuisine ».
The principle of this new cuisine is the same as for synthetizers in music, with which one can produce any sound. In cuisine, the choice and particular use of well chosen compounds can make any possible food. Of course, all aspects have to be selected, as general organization of parts, particular shape, color, brilliancy, odor or taste of the various parts.
One could think that note by note dishes would be more difficult to make than just cooking plant or animal tissues, but the same remark was done for music three or four decades ago for music (it was said that it would be very difficult, let not say impossible, to build the notes wave by wave) and did not prevent the fast development of synthetizer music, because modern composers and musicians succeeded in making their own, new, shortcuts. Yes, building dishes note by note when one works from pure compounds, but why not using the same ways as for music? Who not use mixtures of compounds, such as for music with waves? After all perfumes are already this, such as the various extracts of the flavouring industry.

Questions

People are generally afraid of not by note cuisine. And nutrition : are we going to get all our nutriments, oligo-elements, vitamins? And toxicity: aren't these compounds dangerous? And consistency: don't you fear that it will be only liquid ? And farming and agriculture : are they going to die ? All arguments are good to justify that we keep our « traditional food », made of cassoulets, stews, choucroute... For all these food, nutritional « properties » are given with a lot of bad faith... because we « love » them. Even some of us justify eating chocolate because it contains potassium... but only some milligrammes compared to half of chocolate made of fat, and half of chocolate made of sucrose! We ask for an absence of toxicity... whereas at the same time we love meat cooked with a bbq, where the content in benzopyrens is 2000 more than it is accepted in smoked products of the food industry (remember that benzopyrens are very toxic).
Our « food neophobia » lead us to assume taht the food that we learned to eat is « good », and to fear new food. And our human brain, instead of making us rejects novel food as non human primates would do, leads us to negate new dishes and to legitimate old ones, even when the « virtues » of the old stuff are not demonstrated, the worst justification being that these food are safe because they are old (bad argument: smoked products were appreciated, but epidemiologists see clearly their danger today, through the high incidence of cancers of the digestive tractus, in populations of the North of Europe, whoco consume a lot of smoked products.
However our bad faith based on food neophobia is not a reason for not considering the interest of note by note cuisine. Why should we drop traditional cuisine, and adopt note by note cuisine? Indeed the alternative is not compulsory; as for molecular cuisine, we could keep traditional cuisine and add note by note cuisine. Or produce hybrids...

The technical issue

The first question to ask, here, is to know the nature of compounds that we shall use. The culinary world is already very pure compounds, such as wateres, sodium chloride, sucrose, gelatine... The public often ignores that these compounds were prepared by the industry, through various extraction processes, purifications, various technological modifications (for example, anti-aggregation compounds are added to sucrose)... Many other compounds could be prepared in the same way, such as saccharides, amino acids, glycerides... in particular because the food industry already prepares them, for formulation. For example, the industry of food additives produces pigments, vitamins, preservative agents, gelling or thickening... Certainly additives are not regulated as food ingredients, but could not they be in the future ?
On the other hand, the question of purity of compounds invites to make the same as for music, that is to say to enlarge the list of usable compounds with simple mixtures, what the industry already makes from products based on the cracking of milk or grain. Gelatine, for example, is not pure, in the meaning as being made of molecules of only one kind, because there is a stronge molecular weight dispersion of the polypeptidic chains, due to the particular extraction performed to make it. Also starch is not pure, as it is made of two main compounds, which are amylose and amylopectin (we should say « amyloses », and « amylopectines », because here again there is no homogenity). In passing, let us not forget that as starch comes in this way in the list of compounds that one can use for note by note cuisine, most techniques of pastry can bes used for making note by note cuisine.
Let us come back to the question of « cracking » plant or animal tissues, which is indeed preparing fractions. From grain, the industry extracts polysaccharides, proteins, amino acids, surfactants... From milk, the industry recovers amino acids, peptides, proteins, glycerides... Could not we do the same from plant or animal tissues ? Could not we, using the same kind of processes, such as reverse osmosis, vacuum distillation, etc. prepare quite « pure » fractions, in order to do note by note cuisine ?
Many technology groups study this questions, and colleagues at the Montpellier INRA Centre, for example, devised a technique based on reverse osmosis in order to recover the total phenolics fraction from grape juice. We can add at this point that this fraction is very different depending on the raw material, grape juice from Syrah, or from Grenache, or Pinot, for example : the diversity of the initial products is not erased by the fractionation process, so that cooks should be happy to play with the « terroir ».
The issue of « ingredients » having been discussed, we now have to consider assembling them into dishes. Now we should not forget that today's food are material systems of colloidal nature, with often a large proportion of water in them. Many organic compounds are poorly soluble in water, and emulsification is obviously a very important process in note by note cuisine. It is not the only one ; all dispersion techniques will be useful.
During this assembly, the various biological properties of food will have to be considered : of course, the nutritional content is important, but it would be a mistake to forget that food has to stimulate the various sensory receptors : vision, odor, taste, trigeminal system, temperature... Many questions are open now. For example, as we know how to determine the light absorption spectrum of a mixture of compounds in a mixture, if we know the individual absorption spectrum of each compound, we cannot predict the « color » of the mixture. Also, when one mixes odorant compounds in proportions near the perception threshold, unpredictable odors are obtained. Worst, the mixture of only two odorant compounds is not a solved issue : do they make a « chord » or a fusion ?
For tastes, the question is even more serious, because we ignore their receptors and their substrates, and it was discovered recently (less than ten years ago) that the tongue also include receptors for fatty acids with long unsaturated chain. This means that other important discoveries can be made ! In the meantime, one can use citric, malic, tartaric, acetic, ascorbic, or lactic acids... Or saccharides such as glucose, fructose, lactose, etc. and not only the old sucrose.
For trigeminal effects, some « fresh » or « pungent » compounds are known, such as eugenol (in cloves), menthol (one of its enantiomers only), capsaicin (for chilli), piperin (for pepper), ethanol, sodium bicarbonate... and many others.
From the consistency point of view, again technological work can be done, because making colloidal materials remains not studied enough. Making simple emulsions is sometimes considered difficult, but more geneally one should not consider that texturization of formulated products is a solved issue, even if we now have surimis and analogous systems. Who will succeed making the consistency of a green apple ? Or a pear ? Of a strawberry ? Non only the question of laboratory prototypes is not solved, but also the question of mass production is not considered (and this is why fruit companies providing products for the yogurt industry are so upset).
As a whole, much remains to be done, a lot of questions have to be studied by science and by technology. Let us finish this paragraph with an important observation : it would be uninteresting to « reproduce » already existing food ingredients. As synthetizers can make sounds of piano or violin, note by note cuisine could obviously reproduce wines, carrots, meats... but why ? Except for astronauts travelling during a long time, it is probably useless to make what already exists, and it is much more exciting to investigage flavours and dishes which were never envisioned using traditional food ingredients.
A simple calculation shows the immensity of the world to be discovered. If we assume that the number of traditional food ingredients is about 1000 and if we assupre that a traditional recipe uses 10 food ingredients, the nomber of possibilities is 1000 to the power 10, or 10 to the power 30. However if we assume that the numbe of compounds present in the food ingredients is about 1000, and if we assume that he number of compounds which will be used in note by note cuisine is of the order of 100, then the number of possibilities is about 10 to the power 3000... And, in this calculation we did not consider that the concentration of each compound can be adapted, which indeed means that a whole flavor new continent can be discovered. Why reproduce our small world, then ?


Nutritionnal questions

Here we should begin by telling that the traditional food is not a garantee of healthy food : remember that there is today a pandemia of obesity ! Of course, some will criticize the modern diet, but it would be rather more appropriate to observe that the new food environment is not suitable for human beings. Indeed the human species had to face alternating times of plenty and starvation, and nutrigenomic is now discovering mechanisms through which the human body could face these conditions. For example, too much to eat does not lead to increased elimination, as we could wish today, but rather better storage in fat tissues.
The issue of traditional food being solved, let us consider now why note by note cuisine could be interesting nutritionnally. This question has relation with making « light products ». Does the use of sweeteners lead to overconsumption ? The already made studies could guide the study of the long term effects of note by note cuisine.
Certainly, the question of using vitamins or oligoelements, and also minor nutriments should be considered, and this is why the science of nutrition has so many question to investigate. It would be a mistake to consider that the issue is solved, as an European study of supplementation with vitamin E (the name given to a groupe of hydrophobic compounds with specific antioxidant properties) was stopped, because of an higher incidence of deaths in the group of smokers receiving the supplementation. Here again, scientific studies are necessary.

Toxicology

This leads now to consider the toxicological question. Yes, we do not know enough the effects of compounds in the body, and frequently wonderful effects are discovered, such as cytochrome P 450 polymorphism, or more recently gene transfers in bacteria which are hosted by algae toward bacteria of the human gut when algae are consumed.
A strange case is estragole, which makes up to 50 percent of the total composition of the essential oils of terragon and of basil. The hydroxyl derivative of this compound seems to be toxic, but we don't understand why, and there is no particular incidence of liver cancer in populations consuming a lot of herbes.
Indeed, from a toxicity point of view, note by note cuisine will not be done differently from traditional cuisine, for which animal and plant tissues were never tested. This is indeed a paradox of modern diet that novel food are much more studied than old food for which we know perfectly that no authorization would be given if they were introduced today.
Note by note cuisine can avoid benzopyrens... if it did not used it. It will avoid the toxic myristicin from nutmegs, estragole, glycoalkaloids from potatoes and tomatoes, some glycosinolates from cabbages, some phenolics from plant tissues, etc. If we don't use them, we shall avoid toxicity... The public, as for it, can do what it want ( in particular barbecues full of benzypyrens!).
The issue of regulation of food products will then be analogous to the question of selling liquid nitrogen to « molecular cooks », of selling ultrasonic probes, of selling rotary evaporators.. The evolution of practices will ask for new regulations, as it was the case when gas or electricity were introduced in homes. And we should know that there will almost certainly be accidents, not because note by note cuisine is more dangerous than knifes, or gas, but because the culinary world, as any specific community, has its proportion of inconscious people, as this young German guy who put liquid nitrogen in a closed bottle !
Primarily, what I propose to retain from this discussion is that the scientific and technicological questions are asked very differently. We have to learn the effect of compounds on the body. It's time !


Art, first !

The concept of art is complex, but I propose, in order to be short, to admit that culinary art, as well as painting, music, sculpture, litterature and other arts aims at creating emotions. Artists never stopped introducing new ideas in their works, and gourmand are longing for new flavors, new sensations. Note by note cuisine can make them happy, because it can produce a wealth of new possibilities.
However producing note by note pieces was difficult, because the cooks who tried, as they did not know the syllabus that they could use, could hardly make sentences with meaning. It was difficult, but not impossible, and I have worked so that my friend Pierre Gagnaire (restaurants in Paris, London, Tokyo, Dubai, Hong-Kong, Moscow, Courchevel, Berlin, Las Vegas, Seoul) would be the first cook in the history of cooking to produce a fully note by note dish : after many months of work during which I was helping him, he showed a note by note dish during a special dinner, in Hong Kong, the 24th of April 2009. Then, during the summer 2010, the alsatian cooks Hubert Maetz and Aline Kuentz made note by note dishes that they demonstrated during the JSPS meeting (French-German-Japanese alumni), in Strasbourg. Later, in October, the professors of the Cordon bleu school, in Paris, made a whole note by note meal, for a group of 20 participants of the curriculum of the Hautes Etudes du Goût (Advanced Studies in Gastronomy). In January 2011, the day before the official launching of the International Year of Chemistry, Jean-Pierre Biffi and his team of the catering company Potel & Chabot made a note by note meal for more than 100 people, and more recently, in May 2011, the same meal was served for all chefs having won a Michelin star, at l'Espace Cardin, Paris.
In each occasion, cooks looked for compounds taht they did not know, and they learned to use these products in order to make remarkable pieces, with new flavours. Of course, one can hardly explain the flavor of these dishes : how would you explain what the blue color is to someone who cannot see ? Also the question of the name was difficult... but perfumery solved the issue : Channel 5, etc.
For all those who are afraid of loosing their stew, cassoulet or choucroute, let us say that as art is concerned, there is no replacement, but only addition, more freedom, more choice. Debussy did not make Mozart or Bach disappear; Picasso or Buffet did not prevent us to admire Rembrandt or Brueghel. And molecular cuisine did not kill nouvelle cuisine or traditional cuisine. Note by note cuisine will be an artistic addition.

Economy

What will be the price of note by note cuisine ? Will it be more expansive than current cooking ? Here the energetic issue has to be considered because the next increase of the cost of energy will perhaps be the key of the success of note by note cuisine. Today, in order to « reduce » wine or bouillon, in view of making a sauce, cooks evaporate primarily water (loosing many odorant compounds, lost by steam evaporation). If we assume a reduction such as professional do (for example by two third), a simple calculation shows that the energy consumed is 0,417 kWh, which means 0,05 euros per sauce.
More generally, the question of energy was not considered by traditional cuisine, where meat are heated to more than 200 °C, in order to produce compounds which could be immediately reached by note by note cuisine, for which mass produced compounds could be made at a much lower cost (roasting ten chicken in the same oven does not coast more than roasting one, which means that the cost per chicken drops).
On the other hand, it will not be necessary to synthetise the compounds used by cooks, and frequently they will be extracted, from plant material, such as chlorophylls today. Chemists know well that hundreds of chemist-year were necessary to synthetize vitamin B12, so that agriculture and extraction remain the most efficient and in the absence of an efficient method. Note by note can then use either synthetized produced, or extracted products, no matter where they come from... but there are...


Political and social questions

The first tests of note by note cuisine inescapably created fear, based on the fantasmatic idea that we would eat « chemicals ». Here, as for GMO's, for example, political ideas are confusely mixed to other question, in the discussion. Note by note cuisine can be successful only when it is well explained, and if the authority argument is used, as Augustin Parmentier understood it well whand he served potatoes to the king of France, at a time when the country refused this food ingredient. But should we not be afraid that, as for GMO's, note by note cuisine will have disadvantages for human organizations ? How would farmers survive when -it is unlikely- all food would become note by note? These questions are more than chemists can answer, but they call for the following answer: as some people are rich by doing wine instead of selling grape, farmes could become richer than they are today when they would produce fractions of plants, instead of selling the raw material.
Finally, after considering some questions related to note by note cuisine, the scientific question remains. We could see here in many occasions that many scientific questions arise. This is not new, in the history of chemistry, which developed frequently from « chemical arts ». A new opportunity can now be reached.

mercredi 13 juillet 2011

Molecular Gastronomy in Finland

Dear Friend
with Anu's agreement, I am giving you below some news that I got :

Molecular gastronomy activities in Finland are proceeding. I have now 4 PhD students in my small research group 3 of which have some activities around MG. One of them (on chemistry education) has started a project on possibilities of MG in science education at schools. She has started serie of workshops with chemistry and home economics teachers from 10 schools. We also recently published a new type of chemistry book for chef students, where the chemistry is introduced through gastronomy. Our monthly MG seminars have been up & running during the semesters and we will continue those again next fall.
--
*******************************************
Anu Hopia
Professor, Food Development/EPANET
University of Turku, Functional Foods Forum
Foodwest Ltd. Vaasantie 1C, 60100 Seinäjoki, Finland
tel. +358 (0)50 378 9919
fax +358 6421 0020
anu.hopia@utu.fi/anu.hopia@gmail.com
http://fff.utu.fi/
www.molekyyligastronomia.fi
*********************************************

jeudi 7 juillet 2011

Next meetings in Paris

Dear Friends
for the year 2011-2012, the meetings of the "Groupe d'étude des
précisions culinaires" will be, as most meetings of the 10 past years, at école GREGOIRE FERRANDI from 4.00 to 6.00 PM, in the amphitheater Jean Rouquié (4e floor).
These meeting happed mostly the 3rd Monday of each month, ie :

19 septembre 2011
17 octobre
21 novembre
Attention : jeudi 8 décembre
16 janvier 2012
20 février
19 mars
16 avril
21 mai
18 juin
Cheers

vendredi 1 juillet 2011

From our friends in Argentina

Taller teórico-práctico:


¨Del engrudo a la masa... los misterios del gluten ¨
Descubriendo los secretos del gluten. ¿Cómo está compuesta la harina ? ¿Cuántos tipos hay? ¿Qué es la glutenina? ¿Qué es la gliadina? ¿Qué tipo de uniones se generan al amasar y para qué sirve conocerlas? ¿Qué ocurre a medida que se van mezclando los ingredientes? ¿Cuáles son las funciones del agua, del almidón, del descanso de la masa, del amasado, etc?. ¿Cuáles son las características de las masas con gluten desarrollado? ¿Cuáles son las temperaturas óptimas de cocción? Estas son algunas de las preguntas que contestaremos a lo largo del taller que acompañaremos con experimentos en los cuales participarán todos los asistentes.Traer delantal y palo de amasar (si tienen).
Cuándo?

* Martes 5 de julio 2011 (19 a 22 hs)

Dónde?

* ESPACIO AZAI Virrey Loreto 3795, esquina con Charlone, a dos cuadras de Alvarez Thomas y Forest (http://www.espacioazai.com.ar/donde.htm) Buenos Aires, Argentina

Cuál es el costo?

* $100 y se abona en el lugar. Socios 20% descuento (traer delantal)

Cupos limitados, inscripción sólo por mail a:asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com ( enviar teléfono de contacto al momento de solicitar la inscripción)
La reserva de vacante se hará efectiva una vez que hayas recibido el mail de confirmación de la misma.

Los esperamos !
Mariana y Silvia

Mariana Koppmann y Silvia Grünbaum
Asociación Argentina de Gastronomía Molecular
asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com
http://gastronomia-molecular.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/gastronomia.molecular
www.gastronomiamolecular.com

lundi 27 juin 2011

Impoliteness

Recently, the Harvard School of Applied Sciences proposed a position of a "science and cooking" professor.

Wonderful... but with two issues.

1. science and cooking: this is very imprecise ! what is to be taught and to who ? Will it be science, or cooking ? In a school training technologists (I assume), technology should be the goal, but here ?

2. there is primarily the awful name of the school : "applied sciences"! I already discussed the issue too much, and I shall not explain again why this is a mistake, and why there are no applied sciences, but only sciences, or the applications of sciences. If it is applied, it is no longer science !

I wrote to the dean of Harvard to explain the two questions... and no answer after some months. I know that he/she got the lettre. Impoliteness ?

From friends in Cuba

.
Hot Topics de las CeBoLLaS



Taller. XXIV Encuentro  de Gastronomía Molecular.

UNA NUEVA FILOSOFÍA EN LA CAPACITACIÓN DE LOS RECURSOS HUMANOS EN LA GESTIÓN DE ALIMENTOS Y BEBIDAS EN EL SECTOR DEL TURISMO.
Objetivos.
Propiciar el intercambio de experiencia en la disciplina Ciencia y Tecnología Culinaria (conocida internacionalmente como Gastronomía Molecular / Molecular Gastronomy)
Lograr un cambio cultural para alcanzar la educación gastronómica deseada.

TEMÁTICAS. Un Hot Topics de las CeBoLLaS.

Mitos y leyendas de las CeBoLLaS….Que sofrito…..!
El enigmático lagrimeo al corte.
Bondades y noticias de las CeBoLLaS
Pastel sorpresa de CeBoLLaS

¿Dónde? Hotel Meliá Habana. Salón: Tenerife Hora. 9:00am. Día: 12 de Julio

Especialistas invitados.
Chef. Leonardo Greenidge Clark. EHTHabana. FORMATUR
Dra. C. Ileana Vicente Armenteros. Instituto de la Industria Alimenticia. MINAL
Dra. C. Ma. Isabel Lantero Abreu. Instituto de Farmacia y Alimentos. UH
MSc. María Esther Abreu Rojas. EHTHabana. FORMATUR
Chef Pastelero Vicent Mayllard. Hotel Meliá Habana.

Recuerda…….. Ir al encuentro
Más información.
MSc. María Esther Abreu Rojas. mariaest@ehth.co.cu
Escuela de Hotelería y Turismo de La Habana. FORMATUR

mardi 7 juin 2011

From Anne McBribe, New York, USA

Hello all,


The June meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective will take place on Wednesday, June 15, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Chemistry Department at NYU, room 1003 (31 Washington Place, between Washington Square Park and Greene Street). You will need a photo ID to enter the building.



In his presentation, The Color of Meat (Put a Smoke Ring On It), ECC co-founder and NYU chemistry professor Kent Kirshenbaum will examine the origin of color in meat. What gives a steak its distinctive red color? How reliable is color for determining freshness? Why does meat change color when it is cooked? We will evaluate methods for manipulating meat color. To seal the deal, we will investigate barbecue and the mysterious smoke ring.

Please RSVP at ecc062011.eventbrite.com. A link is also posted on our website. If you RSVP and can no longer make it, please let me know so that your seat can be released. Thank you.

All my best,

Anne

mardi 24 mai 2011

Belgium

The first Belgian Seminar on Molecular Gastronomy happened yesterday, at Gembloux AgroBioTech (University of Liège).
We tested a culinary precision relative to storing pork meat in milk.
It was written taht this would lead to the swelling of the meat, by milk absorption, but after two hours, the swelling was less than the incertainty on mass measurement (a balance 0.01 g was used; the uncertainty comes from dipping the meat in liquid, and adherent liquid to the meat).

This seminar should be the beginning of a new monthly story.

Contact :
Christophe Blecker, Gembloux AgroBioTech

vendredi 20 mai 2011

From Argentina

Después de la hermosa experiencia vivida en la La Plata el pasado viernes ( fotos: http://gastronomia-molecular.blogspot.com ):


La Escuela Platense de Arte Culinario invita al taller teórico-prático de:

¨ESFERIFICACIONES (directas, inversas y alcohólicas).Principios teóricos y utilidad de cada una de las técnicas y de los reactivos que se utilizan.
Taller práctico que incluirá todas las técnicas de esferificaciones.

Geles: Estructura básica de los geles. Tipos de sustancias que forman geles. Geles calientes y geles fríos. Iniciación a la técnica de esferificación. Principios teóricos de las distintas técnicas de esferificación. Diferentes métodos y recetas para cada método: esferificaciones directas e inversas. Esferificaciones alcohólicas.

Disertantes: Mariana Koppmann y Silvia Grünbaum (científicas y prof gastronómico IAG, fundadoras de la Asociación Argentina de Gastronomía Molecular)

Cuándo?

* Sábado 28 de mayo de 15 a 18 hs

Dónde?

* EPAC Escuela Platense de Arte Culinario Calle 2 No 925 La Plata- Bs As- Argentina

Cuál es el costo?

* estudiantes EPAC: $100 y público general $120


No hacen falta conocimientos previos.Cupos limitados.
Inscripción sólo por mail a: info@epac.com.ar
Teléfonos: 0221-4246122 y 0221-427-8038

Los esperamos !
Mariana y Silvia


Mariana Koppmann y Silvia Grünbaum
Asociación Argentina de Gastronomía Molecular
asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com
http://gastronomia-molecular.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/gastronomia.molecular
www.gastronomiamolecular.com

lundi 16 mai 2011

AgroParisTech Course 2012 of Molecular Gastronomy, and meeting

Dear Friends

I am happy :
1. to announce that the 2012 AgroParisTech Courses of Molecular Gastronomy (two days, free, a new topic, no diploma) will be held in Paris the 30 and 31 January 2012 (amphithéâtre Tisserand).
The topic will be given soon


2. to invite you to the next meeting of the Groupe d'étude des précisions culinaires, the 3rd Monday of June (20th), at ESCF, 28 bis rue de l'abbé Grégoire, 75006 Paris, from 4.00 PM to 6.00 PM.
The topic will be :

Is it useful to add flour in the "blanc" where artichokes are cooked ?


See you there, vive la Gourmandise éclairée!!

mardi 10 mai 2011

From Argentina

Si no puede ver el siguiente mensaje hacer clic en http://gastronomia-molecular.blogspot.com
Charla gratuita en LA PLATA ( Bs As): ¨Introducción a la Gastronomía Molecular y Mitos y leyendas culinarias¨ (Viernes 13 de mayo 16 a 19 hs)

- Introducción a la Gastronomía Molecular Qué es y para qué se utiliza la Gastronomía Molecular, el ¨estado del arte¨ de la misma y sus seguidores, la importancia de la introducción del factor ¨sorpresa¨en los platos por aplicación de las ¨técnicas novedosas¨que tienen en cuenta la ¨experiencia gastronómica¨ completa del comensal, una descripción de las técnicas más utilizadas en la denominada ¨cocina molecular¨ y ¨mixología molecular¨: - esferificaciones –aires –espumas -cocina al vacío -nitrógeno líquido, -protenges, -liofilizados, etc. Material fílmico exclusivo que incluye recetas originales de El Bulli, presentaciones en la U.Harvard, etc.
-Mitos y leyendas culinarias Exploraremos la sustentabilidad científica de ciertos mitos culinarios cotidianos y veremos cómo hay ciencia involucrada en toda la cocina y cómo el conocimiento de algunos principios básicos de la misma puede ser útil para reforzar la creatividad de los cocineros y cómo puede contribuir a solucionar y estandarizar sus procedimientos.


Disertantes: Mariana Koppmann y Silvia Grünbaum (científicas y prof gastronómico IAG, fundadoras de la Asociación Argentina de Gastronomía Molecular)


Cuándo?

* Viernes 13 de mayo de 16 a 19 hs

Dónde?

*
EPACC-ESCUELA DE GASTRONOMIA- Calle 2 No.925 entre 50 y 51 La Plata
Tels. 0221 424-6122 y 427-8038

Cuál es el costo?

* GRATUITO

Cupos limitados, inscripción al 0221 424-6122 y 427-8038 ó por mail a info@epac.com.ar

Los esperamos !
Mariana y Silvia


Mariana Koppmann y Silvia Grünbaum
Asociación Argentina de Gastronomía Molecular
asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com
http://gastronomia-molecular.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/gastronomia.molecular
www.gastronomiamolecular.com

New

Dear Friends
I am happy that you will now have a "follow by email" option on this blog.
Celebrate Chemistry

dimanche 8 mai 2011

If you go to Argentina

Seminario teórico con degustación: ¨Vivir la experiencia de la trufa en 3D"(martes 17 de mayo 19 hs)

Todo lo que hay que conocer sobre esta variedad particular de hongo (origen, cultivo, forma de cosecha, calidades, utilización en los platos, maridaje, etc)

Cuándo?

* Martes 17 de mayo de 19 a 21 hs

Dónde?

* ESPACIO AZAI Virrey Loreto 3795, esquina con Charlone, a dos cuadras de Alvarez Thomas y Forest (www.espacioazai.com.ar/donde.htm )-Bs As - Argentina

Cuál es el costo?

* PROMOCIONAL: $100 y se abona en el lugar. Socios 20% descuento

Cupos limitados, inscripción sólo por mail a:asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com
La reserva de vacante se hará efectiva una vez que hayas recibido el mail de confirmación de la misma.


Los esperamos !
Mariana y Silvia



Mariana Koppmann y Silvia Grünbaum
Asociación Argentina de Gastronomía Molecular
asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com
http://gastronomia-molecular.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/gastronomia.molecular
www.gastronomiamolecular.com

mercredi 20 avril 2011

From the US

Hello all,


On Monday, May 16, the Experimental Cuisine Collective will celebrate its fourth anniversary with a daylong symposium at Lipton Hall at NYU. You are cordially invited to join us in exploring our theme, Experimental Cuisine: Foundation to Innovation, with a series of talks, a roundtable, and a reception. The symposium starts at 10 a.m. Complete schedule and address are on the registration page (link below).



Speakers are Prof. Charles Zuker of Columbia University, with a talk titled From the Tongue to the Brain: The Biology of Mammalian Taste; David Arnold, director of technology at the French Culinary Institute and author of the blog Cooking Issues, who will talk about clarification and nixtamalization via margaritas and tortillas; chefs Maxime Bilet and Chris Young, co-authors of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking; and Michael Laiskonis, executive pastry chef at Le Bernardin, with a talk titled Moving/Cooking Forward: Looking Back and Looking Within. Jeffrey Steingarten, food critic at Vogue and one of the first people to write about experimental cooking, will be the day's MC. Lisa Abend, author of The Sorcerer's Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria's elBulli, will moderate a roundtable among the speakers.



To register, please visit ecc2011symposium.eventbrite.com. The link will also be posted on our website. No need to print your registration---we will have a list of attendees at the check-in table. If you find yourself unable to attend after registering, please contact us right away so that your seat can go to someone else. Thank you.


All my best,

Anne

dimanche 17 avril 2011

Second Seminar in Lebanon

Here is what was sent today by Reine Barbar, University of Kaslil :

Dear All,

The second Molecular Gastronomy Lebanese Seminar took place on the 11th of April at USEK.

You will find below the report and the theme for our next seminar.

I like to invite you all as planned for the Seminar N°3 that will take place Monday 9th of May from 4:00PM to 6:00 PM at the ground floor food laboratory of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences-USEK, Kaslik.

Please feel free to diffuse the invitation to whom is interested but we would appreciate an email confirmation before the 4th of May.

Hope to see you all in order to count you among our lebanese group of molecular gastronomy!

Regards,





Report on seminar N° 2 of Molecular Gastronomy in Lebanon
11 April 2011, from 16h00 till 18h00
At:
Food Science Laboratory- Faculty of Agricultural Sciences-USEK
Content:
I. Information on intervention of Prof Hervé This at HORECA:
Dr Reine Barbar communicated on the content of the intervention of Prof. Hervé This at
salon HORECA on the 29th of March 2011.
It was interesting to see the impact of the first seminar on molecular gastronomy in
Lebanon held on the 28th of April, on the elaboration of new ideas for the intervention of
Prof This at HORECA.
The program was changed according to the work done on Tahina, one day before at Sofil-
catering.
The “note by note cooking” was presented. "Note by Note Cooking" is a new way of cooking,
that will be next after Molecular Cooking. It was proposed by H. This in a Scientific
American issue in 1994. Up to now, it was achieved only by the French chef Pierre
Gagnaire, the 24 th of April 2008 in Hong-Kong, for one dish, by the Alsatian chefs Hubert
Maetz and Nadine Kuentz, in Strasbourg, for two dishes shown during the French-German-
Japanese Meeting of JSPS Alumini, by professors of the Cordon bleu School of Paris during
a private evening for students of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Gastronomy (HEG).
One detail: please remember that "chemicals", or "chemical compounds" do not exist. There
are compounds that can be synthesized or extracted: such are water, sucrose, ethanol, etc.
In many circumstances, it is probably a better choice to extract compounds from plant or
animal tissues, as one does not forget that the synthesis of vitamin B12 needed hundreds of
skilled chemists working for years.
Sometimes, compounds can be prepared using processes such as lyophilization, reverse
osmosis, drying, etc.
In one example presented at HORECA, “Tahina” was considered as a lipid base given that
it is mainly composed of lipid. So, with “the base lipid”, Prof This mixed “water base” (for
example tomato juice, herbs..) and could realize new tasty spheres with liquid nitrogen. The
texture of the product obtained is interesting as the surface is solid due to cold temperature
but the inner phase is still relatively liquid or gelified.
1/5

Also Prof This worked in the formulation of red wine, by adding the individual constituents
one by one: grape polyphenols, sugar, tartric acid....
The possibilities are infinite with the “note by note cooking” and could be interesting to
apply on our traditional Lebanese cuisine.
This moment at HORECA was particularly exciting and new for all the persons who were
there! So thank you again Prof This for the energetic, scientific yet human demonstration
you presented at HORECA.
II. Experiences on the onctuosity of Béchamel Sauce.
II.1. Protocols
Firstly, questions were asked regarding the preparation protocol of sauce Béchamel.
It was decided to follow the following recipe:
- 1L of half-skimmed milk
- 100 g of flour
- 100 g of butter
Protocol A:
Standard preparation protocol was used with the constitution of “roux” which is the result
of mixture of melted butter and flour. After this step, milk was slowly added in order to let
the mixture thicken.
Protocol B:
Milk is first heated alone to 80°C and then butter is added to heated milk and after the
flour.
Protocol C:
Cold “roux” (constituted of non heated butter and flour) is added to cold milk.
Protocol D:
Heated “roux” is added to milk heated aside at 80°C till the solution thickens.
Same materials and weights were used in all protocols.
Béchamel sauces from protocols A, B, C and D were studied for:
- Macroscopic observations
- Microscopic observations
2/5

- Viscosity measurements
II.2. Observations and results:
Béchamel sauces were described by all present in order to qualify their textures with eye
observations.
Optical microscopes were used with magnification “x 10” in order to notice the
microstructure of béchamel sauces and the presence or not of agglomerations.
The micrographs were taken after 5 minutes of cooling.
Viscosity measurements were done in controlled rate mode. The spindel used was R2 with a
cylindrical rotor and an rpm of 2.
Protocol Viscosity Macroscopic Microscopic Micrographs
(cP) observations observations
A 7250 Smooth Reduced
texture number of air
bubbles.
Presence of
white
agglomerations.
B 15869 Presence of More air
granulations bubbles are
present.
White
agglomerations
are more
present.
3/5

C 36 Liquid Liquid
texture structure. No
agglomerations
(depending on
sampling).
D 374137 Thick High number of
texture but small white
some agglomerations.
granulations
are present
It appears from the above table that the different protocols have great influence on
macroscopic and microscopic observations. These observations are consolidated by the
viscosity measurements that show that medium viscosity is obtained for sauce béchamel
“A”. The thickest béchamels appear to be samples “B” and “D”. Sample C is liquid as it is
evident from the viscosity value.
A discussion followed regarding the composition of flour. Flour is mainly constituted by
starch. Proteins in flour have the characteristics to form a viscoelastic network when
hydrated called gluten. Gluten is responsible of elasticity, extensibility, cohesion and gas
retention in paste. Gluten is insoluble in water and forms about 90% of flour proteins.
An experiment was done in order to understand the constituents of flour. Flour was mixed
to water and then knead with it. After the paste formation, water leaching resulted in the
separation of 2 fractions, gluten being at right in the following picture.
4/5

As for the texture of sauce bechamels, it seems that the order of mixture and heat have
both an impact.
Adding flour to melted butter and then milk resulted in the best onctuosity. So milk
(qualified as an aqueous phase) should have a supposed role on proteins hydratation and
starching. Heating together “roux” and milk could have an impact on gelatinization
especially that while cooling, the sauce thickens. This is due to starching cooling that leads
to a progressive solidification of starch.
III.3. Choice of Topic for next seminar:
All present expressed their suggestions for topics for next seminar.
The suggestions were as following:
Tomato role in taboule making
-
Mayonnaise
-
A vote was done in order to specify the majority and the majority decided to explore the
elaboration of mayonnaise and also Lebanese innovations with it.
Also, we should finish the exploration on arak preparation with “arak balabe” instead of
commercial arak to see if there is any difference noticed in comparison with results of
seminar N°1.
The next seminar was decided for the 9th of May from 4.00 PM to 6.00 PM at the Faculty of
Agricultural Sciences of USEK.
5/5

mercredi 6 avril 2011

A picture for the first Seminar in Lebanon.

From Lebanon

Dear Friends,

Reine Barbar made a report for the first Molecular Gastronomy Seminar in Lebanon.
Here it is :


Report on seminar N° 1 of Molecular Gastronomy in Lebanon
28 March 2011, from 16h00 till 18h00
At:
Sofil-Catering, Pavillon Royal,BIEL-Beyrouth
Content:
I. Introduction on Seminars of Molecular Gastronomy:
Prof Hervé This exposed to the present the idea behind the seminars of molecular
gastronomy and their description.
What we are trying to do:
At these monthly meetings, cooks, scientists, teachers, engineers, food writers are
considering open questions on culinary transformations (home or restaurants).
When:
Once a month, and more precisely the second Monday of each month, from 4.00 PM to 6.00
PM (no seminar in July and in August).
Where:
Food laboratory at the Faculty of agricultural Sciences- USEK, Kaslik.
Participation:
Free, upon invitation (sent by email) and previous inscription (if possible)
How we work :
Each seminar has four parts :
1. The introduction presents news of Molecular Gastronomy activities in the world.
2. The participants begin with a presentation of the results they got since the last seminar
4. Then the group discusses the question of the month, preparing experiments to be done in
order to solve open questions.
3. The participants decide the topic of the next seminar.
1/4
Experiments can be done, if necessary, and results of experiments can be shown to the
participants.
Why it is important :
This seminar helps to :
clean culinary practices
-
promote scientific modelisation of culinary practices
-
explore culinary “precisions” (all the advices that are added to the “definitions” of
-
dishes given through recipes
modernize culinary teaching
-
add a research activity to culinary teaching
-
present to the culinary world new ingredients, methods, hardware...
-
and more
-
Under the direction of :
Reine Barbar- Lara Hanna Wakim
Food Science Department
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
Holy Spirit University
PO BOX 446., Jounieh, Lebanon
reinebarbar@usek.edu.lb
T: +961 9 600874
II. Exposition of molecular gastronomy and the “cuisine note by note”:
Prof Hervé This introduced the terminology of molecular gastronomy and its difference with
molecular cooking:
It should be said vigorously that molecular gastronomy is a scientific discipline and a
branch of physical chemistry that looks for mechanisms of phenomena occurring during
culinary transformations. The discipline was named by Nicholas Kurti (1908-1998), the
other founder of molecular gastronomy and Prof Hervé This.
Molecular cookery: yes, molecular cookery, also called molecular cuisine, or science-based
cooking, is cooking, and not science. Of course, also, it would be silly to consider that
molecular cooking (or cookery) is a question of using molecules for cooking, as all food is
made of molecules... but some journalists and chefs did not take time to consider that
“molecular cooking” is a composed expression, proposed only to make the distinction with
molecular gastronomy. And as molecular cooking is cooking, it means producing dishes.
"Note by Note Cooking" is a new way of cooking that will be next after Molecular Cooking.
It was proposed by H. This in a Scientific American issue in 1994.
2/4
These dishes were not done using directly meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, but instead
compounds or simple mixtures of compounds, from which the chefs made all aspects of the
various dishes: shape, consistency, color, odor taste, trigeminal sensations...
III. Experimenting some Lebanese culinary “precisions”
III.1. Mixing order of arak with water:
Lebanese traditions always specify to put arak and then add water and never in reverse.
Otherwise, the beverage will not be very homogenous and white.
We did the experience with a precise measure of quantities of arak and water (1/3 arak and
2/3 water) and organized 2 glasses: Glass (A) by putting arak and then water, Glass (B) by
putting water and then arak.
No visible differences were seen. Some interventions by the present members specified that
it could be due to the purity and quality of arak used. Some future test should be done with
the use of traditional “arak baladé” made in artisanal way in some Lebanese villages.
III.2. Whitening effect on “moutabal”:
Prof Hervé This asked the present of their recipes to make “moutabal”.
Some people use laban, then tahina then lemon juice and salt that they will mix with
grilled eggplant.
Others specified that they use tahina, lemon juice, water, salt then laban.
Other possibility will be to mix eggplant, tahina, cold water and lemon juice.
Two experiments were done as following:
A: Mixing directly grilled eggplant with tahina and then lemon juice
-
B: Mixing aside tahina with lemon, adding this mixture to eggplant.
-
Eye observation resulted in noticing more whitening effect in the case B where the lemon
juice had a direct whitening effect on tahina and then on Moutabal.
As with taste, a triangular blind test was done with the 2 samples. 3 samples were
presented to one person and he was supposed to say which one was different from the 2
others. The test revealed no perceivable difference among samples A and B.
Microscopic observations were done on tahina in order to visualize its emulsion state.
III.3. Choice of Topic for next seminar:
All present expressed their suggestions for topics for next seminar.
The suggestions were as following:
Three layers cocktails
-
3/4
Sauce “siyadiyé”
-
Jams
-
Gelatin
-
White sauces with the example of sauce béchamel
-
A vote was done in order to specify the majority and the majority decided to explore the
elaboration of sauce béchamel.
The next seminar was decided for the 11th of April from 4.00 PM to 6.00 PM.

From our colleagues in Argentina : next seminar

Para dar comienzo a nuestras actividades, y respondiendo al pedido de muchos interesados, comenzaremos el año repitiendo un taller teórico-práctico que ya hemos dado otros años, para que lo disfruten aquellos que aún no han tenido la oportunidad de compartirlo.
En esta oportunidad sumaremos al mismo la proyección de algunos videos exclusivos ( U.Harvard, El Bulli,etc) sobre el uso de la técnica en recetas originales:

¨ESFERIFICACIONES (directas, inversas y alcohólicas)
Principios teóricos y utilidad de cada una de las técnicas y de los reactivos que se utilizan.
Taller práctico que incluirá todas las técnicas de esferificaciones.

Cuándo?

* Jueves 7 de abril de 19 a 21:30 hs

Dónde?

* ESPACIO AZAI Virrey Loreto 3795, esquina con Charlone, a dos cuadras de Alvarez Thomas y Forest ( www.espacioazai.com.ar/donde.htm )-Bs As - Argentina

Cuál es el costo?

* PROMOCIONAL: $100 y se abona en el lugar. Socios 20% descuento

Cupos limitados, inscripción sólo por mail a: asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com

La reserva de vacante se hará efectiva una vez que hayas recibido el mail de confirmación de la misma.
Los esperamos !
Mariana y Silvia


Mariana Koppmann y Silvia Grünbaum
Asociación Argentina de Gastronomía Molecular
asociacion@gastronomiamolecular.com
http://gastronomia-molecular.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/gastronomia.molecular
www.gastronomiamolecular.com

mardi 5 avril 2011

From our Lebanese friends

Dear All,



On behalf of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, we like to thank you all for your presence during the First Lebanese Seminar on Molecular Gastronomy held at Sofil-catering the 28th of March 2011, with the presence of Prof Hervé This.



I think we all appreciated this moment of interesting collaboration between food scientists and culinary chefs among friendly atmosphere, while discussing particular culinary precisions from our Lebanese culinary patrimoine.



I like to thank on your behalf Prof Hervé This for his support and his kind presence last week that made us all think differently about our respective jobs, thinking that we could all evolve by collaborating together. I hope with your help we will be able to prove to Prof This that the team initiated by his presence will continue with future seminars exploring together the Lebanese culinary traditions, with the aim to learn together and why not innovate from time to time!



I like to invite you all as planned for the Seminar N°2 that will take place next Monday 11th of April from 4:00PM to 6:00 PM at the ground floor food laboratory of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences-USEK, Kaslik. Prof Hervé This won’t be with us but he is certainly part of our team and we will share our results in the form of reports (kindly check the attached report on the last seminar).



Also, you will find attached the picture took last time to keep in our memory this special moment …



Please feel free to diffuse the invitation to whom is interested but we would appreciate an email confirmation before Friday.



Regards,









Dr Reine Barbar

Secrétaire académique

Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques

Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik

B.P. 446 | Jounieh | Liban

(t) 961 9 600874 | (f) 961 9 600871

dimanche 3 avril 2011

Le prochain Séminaire Grand Ouest de Gastronomie Moléculaire

Le prochain séminaire "SCIENCE ET CUISINE" gmouest se tiendra

le Lundi 18 avril prochain de 16h00 à 18h30,

au Manoir de La Boulaie,


accueillis par Monsieur Laurent Saudeau, 33 rue Chapelle Saint Martin 44115 Haute Goulaine.
(Invitation et plan d'accès ci-joints)

Le thème du séminaire est

"Colorants naturels et ingrédients colorants,
application aux macarons et autres matrices ".

Notre réflexion se fera autour des colorants naturels et ingrédients colorants (nature, extraction, mise en oeuvre, avantages et inconvénients...) avec la participation de Madame Anaïs Seggio (Sie GNT).

Des démonstrations et essais seront menés par Messieurs Laurent Gibielle (Sie MAG'M) et Laurent Saudeau (Manoir de La Boulaie).

Les macarons seront notre matrice principale pour tester différents colorants.

Des témoignages seront apportés pas des professionnels, utilisateurs de colorants sur divers produits. N'hésitez pas à nous contacter, si vous souhaitez ou avez déjà travaillé sur le sujet, et ainsi partager les résultats de vos essais lors du séminaire. Nous sommes là pour échanger nos résultats et interprétations.

Pour ceux qui souhaitent prolonger l'échange, un apéritif vous est proposé à la fin de l'atelier.

Une participation aux frais, de 12 euros, vous sera demandée à l'entrée. Des justificatifs de frais vous seront distribués sur place.

La capacité d'accueil étant limitée dans l'amphi, pensez à RESERVER RAPIDEMENT votre place en envoyant un mail à contact@gmouest.fr

En espérant vous voir nombreux,

Cordialement,

L'équipe organisatrice gmouest.
Camille Bourgeois - Ludivine Billy, Gwenaelle Garnier, Vincent Lafaye de la sie Food development

lundi 14 mars 2011

From New York

The March meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective will take place on Wednesday, March 23, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Astor Center, 399 Lafayette Street (2nd floor, above Astor Wines). This event is only open to ECC members (so recipients of this email) and will require checking in.


Chef Ferran Adria of elBulli, author and journalist Lisa Abend, and former elBulli stagiaire Katie Button will discuss the role that stagiaires play in the creativity process at elBulli. This focus stems from Lisa's new book, The Sorcerer's Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria's elBulli, which follows the stagiaires of the 2009 season. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing.

Please RSVP at eccastormarch2011.eventbrite.com. No need to print your registration---we will have a list of attendees at the check-in table. Please arrive between 3:40 and 4 p.m. At 4 p.m., seats available and standing room will go to people on the waitlist. If you RSVP and can no longer make it, please let me know right away so that your seat can be released. Thank you.

All my best,

Anne

PS: The book's publisher has organized a recipe contest, with a deadline of March 15. It's been posted on our website, but click here if you missed it and would like to enter.

PPS: We will not hold a meeting in April, to focus on the organization of our daylong symposium on Monday, May 16. The preliminary program is posted on our site.

mardi 8 mars 2011

Next French Meeting

Dear Friends,

here is the message that I displayed today on the blog "Gastronomie moléculaire". It is an invitation for the next "seminar", the 21rst of March, in Paris.

Chers Amis

Après notre merveilleuse session qui s'est tenue sur le Stand d'AgroParisTech, au Salon de l'agriculture, notre Groupe d'étude des précisions culinaires reprend ses quartiers à l'ESCF (Merci!) du Centre Jean Ferrandi de la Chambre de commerce de Paris.

Pour ceux qui n'ont pu nous rejoindre, nous présenterons donc les résultats lors de la prochaine séance, mais également, nous explorerons deux questions :

1. Bernard Loiseau, chef de La côte d’or, à Saulieu, indique dans Trucs, astuces et tours de main, p. 103, que, pour éviter que l'huile d'une fondue bourguignonne ne saute quand on y plonge la viande, il faut “y mettre une belle queue de persil”. PD Cécillon signale que épouse fait de même quand elle cuit du foie de veau.

2. Il a été souvent écrit que le sel durcit les légumes secs.


Dans les deux cas, il faut trancher définitivement. Au plaisir, donc, de vous retrouver au 28 bis rue de l'Abbé Grégoire, 75006 Paris, le lundi 21 mars de 16 à 18 heures.


Vive la gourmandise éclairée

mercredi 2 mars 2011

From Maria Esther Abreu, in Cuba

We are very happy because in the TV Program Sitio del Arte we discuss molecular gastronomy and molecular mixology.
Is the first time that here .....there is a TV program with these topics .....
Viva el conocimiento

vendredi 18 février 2011

From the French: the monthly seminar on molecular gastronomy

Chers Amis

Je suis heureux de vous redire que notre prochaine réunion du Groupe d'étude des précisions culinaires se tiendra lundi prochain sur le stand d'AgroParisTech, au Salon de l'agriculture.
Les heures ne sont pas changées : 16.00 /18.00

Le thème :
Dans le temps disponibles, nous explorerons le pistou et les crèpes.

Vive la gourmandise éclairée!!!!

Hervé This

mardi 15 février 2011

It happened recently




It happened recently!




The 26 th of January 2011, in Paris, during an evening party organized the The Dow Chemical Company, official partner of the International Year of Chemistry (officially launched in UNESCO the next day), the team of the catering company Potel & Chabot, under the direction of Jean-Pierre Biffi, with the participation of his sous-chef Francisco Bouza, served to more than 100 guests an exceptional menu: a "Note by Note Cooking" menu. During the dinner, Pr Hervé This, physical chemist IINRA/AgroParisTech, described the menu and emphasized its importance for the history of cooking.

"Note by Note Cooking" is a new way of cooking, that will be next after Molecular Cooking. It was proposed by H. This in a Scientific American issue n in 1994.
Up to now, it was achieved only by the French chef Pierre Gagnaire, the 24 th of April 2008 in Hong-Kong, for one dish, by the Alsatian chefs Hubert Maetz and Nadine Kuentz, in Strasbourg, for two dishes shown during the French-German-Japanese Meeting of JSPS Alumini, by professors of the Cordon bleu School of Paris during a private evening for students of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Gastronomy (HEG).


The menu that was served by Jean-Pierre Biffi and his team was:



Tapioca d’huîtres,
Bavarois mousse d’amylopectine, tapioca citron vert
Gelée d’eau de mer, crème d’huîtres et cristal de vent
-
Soufflé de homard,
Sauce Wöhler et gelée d’agar à la framboise
-
« Fibré » de bœuf et carottes,
Cappellini, tonnelets de carottes,
Joue de bœuf à jus brun
-
Eruption à la poudre de cassis,
Boule cassis
-
Pain à la graine de courge
Miche Potel

Service du café
« Nespresso » et « Mariage Frères »




These dishes were not done using directly meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, but instead compounds or simple mixtures of compounds, from which the chefs made all aspects of the various dishes: shape, consistency, color, odor taste, trigeminal sensations...
One detail: please remember that "chemicals", or "chemical compounds" do not exist. There are compounds, that can be synthetized or extracted: such are water, sucrose, ethanol, etc. In many circumstances, it is probably a better choice to extract compounds from plant or animal tissues, as one does not forget that the synthesis of vitamin B12 needed hundreds of skilled chemists working for years.
Sometimes, compounds can be prepared using processes such as lyophilization, reverse osmosis, drying, etc.


Some useful definitions : Molecular Gastronomy is the branch of physical chemistry that looks for mechanisms of phenomena occurring during culinary transformations. This "Note by Note" menu had nothing to do with it!

Chemistry is a science that looks for the mecheanisms occurring during atoms rearrangements, what is called somewhat mistakenly "chemical processes". Please note that there will never be any chemistry in the kitchen ! Only perhaps some compounds obtained by synthesis will be used... if the chefs -and only them- decide to use these compounds.

Molecular Cooking (or Cookery) is a culinary trend whose initial idea was to rationalize the culinary activity. Indeed the definition (given in the Encyclopedia Britannica) ne forme de cuisine, une tendance, qui consiste à utiliser de "nouveaux" outils, ingrédients, méthodes. of Molecular Cooking is "cooking using new tools, new ingredients and new methods". We have to add that "new" means here "what was not present in Paul Bocuse kitchen in the 70's. For example, ultrasonic probes can make emulsions (think of the mayonnaise sauce) in some seconds; agar-agar produces gels of consistency different from gelatine gels; "chocolate chantilly" is a chocolate mousse without using eggs (and if egg whites are not useful, it is a waste to use them!).
This new trend will disappear, not because we have enough of it, but because when the rationalization of culinary activities will be done, it will be time to move to new art territories.
And this is why it is probably important to consider...



Note by Note Cooking, as it is a way of cooking using compounds to build dishes: as musicians of today can use synthetizers instead of piano and violin, cooks can build any aspect of dishes.









And the 26 th of January 2011, the dinner was really good!