The Second International Contest for Note by Note Cooking

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.

Organization Team :

Odile Renaudin (www.sciencesetgastronomie.com) , Yolanda Rigault (yolanda.rigault@wanadoo.fr), Hervé This (herve.this@paris.inra.fr)

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:

1. described by a recipe (maximu 2 pages, Roman 12), indicating :

- all ingredients used with quantities

1. - the production process
1. 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 ?