Dear Friends,
This morning, an question 

If the wine is polar, why do the Chefs use it in order to dissolve the fat (fat is apolar, and insoluble in the polar solvents, but soluble in the apolar solvents) in the method of making a glace ?  And to make  Maillard Reaction ? 

Indeed there are many importants facts to know, in order to understand something to this question.

First, yes, ethanol is soluble in water because both are compounds whose molecules are "polar".
Indeed, in water, molecules are made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. As oxygen attracts electrons much, the electron density is higher toward the oxygen, and this makes an electric "dipole". And the same for the OH group of ethanol, so that ethanol, being able to form so called hydrogen bonds with water, cand dissolve into it.

Then, yes, it's true that fat (often triglycerides) does not dissolve in water, but can dissolve is non polar material. Indeed, triglycerides would form only weak bonds (van der Waals) with water molecules, and they would "order" water : this makes the dissolution energetically unfavorable (this does not mean that it is not possible, but only that it does not occur spontaneously in practice ; indeed, if you give energy to such molecules, you can disperse them in water).
By the way, yes triglycerides can be dissolved in apolar solvents such as ethyl acetate, but not in all non polar solvents.

Tomber à glace, making a glace : it means boiling a sauce so that the concentration of solutes increases, and generally in the kitchen, the viscosity increases as well because of gelatine concentration.

Indeed, there is not fat when you make a glace from a stock or a broth. Only the concentration of the solution occurs. And if there is some fat, this fat would form fat droplets dispersed in the solution, i.e. one would get an emulsion, and not a solution.

And the Maillard Reaction ? Indeed, it has no meaning to speak of "the" Maillard reaction, because there are many, so that one should speak of Maillard reactions.
Now, Maillard reactions are chemical reactions between proteins and reducing sugars. I don't see clearly why Maillard reactions would occur when one makes a glace of meat. Indeed, if no sugar present, no Maillard reactions. And indeed, it's time that we stop focusing on this Maillard reactions, and concentrations on the millions other chemical processes that occur during cooking: oxidation, hydrolysis, etc.

Among the teachers of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Gastronomy : Bruno Laurioux

Regularly, I am telling you about the teachers of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Gastronomy. This week, let me tell you about Bruno Laurioux:















Educated at the École Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud, graduated in history, Bruno Laurioux taught at the Unviersities  Paris VIII, Vincennes – Saint-Denis then Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, before being elected, in  2005, as a professor  of Middle Age history at the university of Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines. 
From 2004 up to 2010, he lectured at the  École Pratique des Hautes Études, section history and philology sciences. 
Then, from 2006 to 2010, he was deputy scientific director, then scientific director  of the Department for sciences of human and society of  CNRS.



Bruno Laurioux is today professor of history of Middle Age and history of food at the University François-Rabelais, in Tours, France.



He is also the president of the Institut Européen d'Histoire et des Cultures de l'Alimentation (IEHCA).


Bruno Laurioux published and directed many research works, and he is today one of the most famous specialist of food in the Middle Age.


The list of his works :  http://lea.univ-tours.fr/membres/publications-de-bruno-laurioux-1-3-519334.kjsp?RH=1345644849786

Hautes Etudes du Goût/Advanced Studies in Gastronomy

I am not sure that I told you enough about our Institute for Advanced Studies in Gastronomy : this is a very successful educational institute, with the most extraordinary specialists teaching "gastronomy", i.e. the reasoned knowledge about man's nourishment.

Today, I am happy to tell you that my friend Jean-Christophe Augustin, from the French Académie d'agriculture de France, is teaching at this institute :

Jean-Christophe Augustin is professor at the National Veterinary School of Alfort, in the Hygiene, Food quality and security unit.

He is in charge of the « food microbiology » module for the Advanced Veterinary Studies Certificate, with a specific focus on « Food safety and quality management ».

He is an expert at ANSES (French Agency for Food Safety).

He has authored numerous teaching publications as well as scientific papers.

Dear Friends

I did not tell you much, recently, about the professors of the Hautes Etudes du Gout, sorry.

This week : Gérard Liger-Belair
















Gérard Liger-Belair is Professor of the  University  Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA)

He created there the team Effervescence, Champagne and Applications (GSMA – UMR CNRS 7331), which studies the processes linked with the dynamic of bubbles in liquids with dissolved gases (from the bubbles of champagne to the foams of the industry).

For the last decades, he developed an expertise on foams and bubbles, objects which attracted physicists, chemists and mathematicians.
The processes associated with bubble formation in champagne were poorly known until recently. However, in a glass of champagne, all the steps from birth to death of bubbles can be studied. Generally bubble are created on immersed particles, on the glass, and it evolves until detaching, reaching the surface.
These tiny spheres of carbonic dioxyde generate a wealth of phenomena of unpredicted complexity, and which are responsible for the whole sensation of the drinker. For about 15 years, Gérard Liger-Belair and his colleagues are developing analytical tools for studying bubbles.

Géard Liger-Belair published about 100 scientific articles, and about 10 books, among which  :


- Effervescence ! la science du champagne, Odile Jacob, 2009
- Voyage au cœur d’une bulle de champagne, Odile Jacob, 2011
- Champagne, la vie secrète des bulles,Cherche-Midi,2014

He got scientific prizes for his research and publications. 

Another teacher of the Hautes Etudes du Goût : Sidonie Naulin

Every week, I am happy to tell you about the teachers of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Gastronomy, Hautes Etudes du Goût.

This week  : Sidonie Naulin

Sidonie Naulin is assistant professor of sociologie at Sciences Po Grenoble and in the Pacte Laboratory. She is studiying economic sociology, media sociology and food sociology.

A former students of the Ecole Normale Supérieur, with an agregation in social sciences, she did her PhD at the University Paris Sorbonne on food critic, trying to understand how is produced the information about food.
This PhD was published as a book in June 2017 (Presses universitaires de Rennes). From discussions, interviews, observations and a quantitative survey of text statistics, this book deals with the environment of culinary and gastronomic journalism. This history of this activity is done, and its current market is analyzed. Some chapters deal with particular biographies, daily work and celebrity analysis of some food critics, envisioning also  the new competitors who are food bloggers.

Today, she is interested by the biographies of chefs. She is participating to the ANR Capla project, in which she is doing a survey of chefs cooking in homes using internet sites for making contacts with customers.
She is going to study the biographies of cooks from data given by the LinkedIn social network.

The Iqemusu company is on the road. Champagne !

Iqemusu, the first society to sell pure tasting notes for

avant-garde chefs, launches its store: www.iqemusu.com

Note-by-note cooking is now available to any chefs in 

the world. Iqemusu launches its website and presents its first range, composed by 24 culinary notes related to the smell. Each chef can now sublimate its dishes thanks to various olfactory experiments. Grab a bottle and let yourself be carried away by the scents that open the doors of a world to be built.

Go to iqemusu.com to ask for our catalog and pre-order

online the first notes of a culinary universe free from any

taste barriers.

All pre-orders will be shipped on April 24th.

 

 

May I repeat that I don't get a penny for this kind of announcement, nor in the company. But I shall promote any note by note initiative

Remarkable teachers for the Hautes Etudes du Goût : Pascal Schlich

Pascal Schlich teaches at the Hautes Etudes du Goût :

Pascal Schlich is a director of research with the INRA and the scientific leader of the ChemoSens platform at the Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation in Dijon. He holds a Ph.D. in statistics from the University Paris XI and the accreditation for tutoring Ph.Ds from the Burgundy University. His research deals with sensometrics (statistics for sensory sciences) and the study of consumer preferences. Pascal Schlich has signed or co-signed a hundred of scientific articles or book chapters and is the co-inventor of the TimeSens® software. He teaches sensometrics at AgroSup Dijon, ENSAI Rennes and Montpellier University and is an international consultant for several industries.

Sensory profiling is a technique of sensory analysis recording attributes intensities, but providing no indication on the sequence along which these attributes are perceived. Pascal Schlich and his team developed the Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) method about 12 years ago to fill in this gap. In TDS the subject is asked to indicate at any time the “dominant” attribute, the one trigging his/her attention, not necessarily the most intense one.

TDS has become a reference method in sensory analysis. Contrarily to sensory profiling, it can be used with no training, thus by consumer panels. It makes it possible to pair TDS to dynamic recording of liking, satiation and emotions along the consumption of the full portion of a food or beverage in order to identify the temporal drivers of these three features.

Joel Doré is teaching at the Hautes Etudes du Goût

Every week,  I have the pleasure to tell you about a colleague who is teaching at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Gastronomy.
This week :

Joel Doré

Research Director at INRA, Joël Doré is Scientific Director of MetaGenoPolis, a Unit of the Micalis Institute “Food and Gut Microbiology for Human Health”. Joël Doré joined INRA in 1983 and received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 1988. He developed a unique expertise in the field of intestinal microbiology. He aims to contribute to a better understanding of the host-microbiota symbiosis in order to support therapeutic choices in the medical area, as well as science-based recommendations in health nutrition.

In his HEG class entitled "Man-microbe symbiosis : I am what they eat...", Joël Doré presents the current vision of the human intestinal metagenome and highlights insights it has provided towards the current understanding of the importance of the microbiome in nutrition and health, particularly for chronic inflammatory and metabolic diseases. He presents an extension of the dysbiosis concept that confers a central role to man-microbe symbiosis, with potential implications in health-nutrition and translational research.

Next week, a Note by Note Dinner served at the Sofitel of Buenos Aires

Professors at Advanced Studies on Flavour (Hautes Etudes du Goût) 4

Every month, I have the pleasure to tell you about the wonderful teachers of the Hautes Etudes du  Goût.


This week,

Denis Saillard

Denis Saillard is an historian, professor of modern history. In 2000, he joined the Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines (CHCSC) of the University of Versailles/Saint-Quentin (UVSQ, today in Paris Saclay University). 

He is a specialist of cultural history of food, a field in which the food representations and social practices are included. In 2011, Denis Saillard published his results in this area in   Gastronomie et histoire culturelle, published by the European Institute for Cultural History. 

He is co-director of two international workshops:  in 2005, Gastronomie et identité culturelle française. Discours et représentations (XIX^e-XXI^e siècles) ; in 2010, Le Goût des autres. De l’expérience de l’altérité gastronomique à l’appropriation (Europe, XVIII^e –XXI^e siècles).

For four years, he is running a seminar inviting scientists from all disciplines with a link to food, and from all countries. Half the sessions are at the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris (BhVP), and others are in particular places of interest.

Denis Saillard is giving lectures in France and abroad: Canada, Royaume-Uni, Italie, Allemagne, Belgique, Estonie, Roumanie, etc.

A selection of 10 publications

* « Culture gastronomique et alimentation de demain », in Gilles Fumey (dir.) L’alimentation de demain, Paris, CNRS Editions, coll. « Les Essentiels d’Hermès », 2016, pp. 47-68.

* « Food and Gastronomy in the Universal Exhibitions 1851-2015 (Alimentation et gastronomie dans les expositions universelles 1851-2015) », in Germano Celant (dir.), Arts and Foods, catalogue (en anglais et en italien) de l’exposition de la Triennale de Milan (Exposition universelle 2015), Milan, Electa Mondadori, pp. 40-61.

* « A la recherche du “moi gastronomique”. L’œuvre de M. F. K. Fisher », Revue de la BnF, n° 49 « Gastronomie : du Sens aux Sens », 2015, pp. 6-10.

* « La Cuisine de l’Autre. Echanges et rivalités dans les relations gastronomiques franco-anglaises du XVIII^e siecle à nos jours », in Diana Cooper-Richet et Michel Rapoport (dir.), Nos meilleurs ennemis. L’entente culturelle franco-britannique revisitée, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Atlande, 2014, pp. 100-129.

* « Entre Europe orientale et Amérique du Nord : l’invention de la gastronomie juive dans le Paris de l’entre-deux-guerres », in Cylvie Claveau, Stanislaw Fiszer et Didier Francfort (dir.), Cultures juives. Europe centrale et orientale, Amérique du Nord, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi ; Paris, Le Manuscrit, 2012, pp. 521-542.

* « L’artification du culinaire par les expositions (1851-1939) », Sociétés et représentations, vol. 34, automne 2012, pp. 71-84.

* « Vin et gastronomie : identifications culturelles », Rencontres du Clos-Vougeot 2010, Des hommes et du vin : le vin patrimoine et marqueur d’identité culturelle, Dijon, Centre Georges Chevrier, 2011, pp. 157-168.

* « Nourritures et territoires en Europe. La gastronomie comme frontière culturelle », Eurolimes, Journal of the Institute for Euroregional Studies (“Jean Monnet” European Centre of Excellence, University of Oradea / University of Debrecen), n° 9, 2010, pp. 127-139.

* « Turin et le Piémont, l’invention d’un haut lieu gastronomique », colloque Gastronomie et rayonnement touristique : contribution à l’étude des hauts lieux et capitales gastronomiques XIX^e-XXI^e siècles (dir. Julia Csergo et Jean-Pierre Lemasson), Université de Lyon II et Université du Québec à Montréal, Lyon, 5-6 décembre 2006 ; Voyages en gastronomies. L’invention des capitales et des régions gourmandes, Paris, Autrement, 2008, pp. 220-232.

* « La cuisine », in Jean-Pierre Rioux (dir.), Dictionnaire de la France coloniale, Paris, Flammarion, 2007, pp. 759-764.

Professors of the Advanced Studies in Gastronomy 2

On ste souvient (peut-être) que j'ai décidé de mettre en valeur les enseignants de l'Institut des Hautes Etudes du Goût, de la Gastronomie et des Arts de la Table
Last week, I presented  Sylvie Lortal. Now I have the pleasure to tell you that our educational program includes courses by  Jean-Philippe de Tonnac.


Jean-Philippe de Tonnac is an essayist, editor and journalist. He was in charge of special editions for the Nouvel Observateur magazine for almost 10 years, and has published about twenty books. Today he works as an editor and continues his own research. His investigation into bread and its symbolism began by obtaining a diploma in baking (2007) after a training course at l’Ecole de Boulangerie et Pâtisserie de Paris, a tour of the ‘bread-eating’ Mediterranean countries (Egypt, Greece, Italy, etc.), and discussions with representatives of the wheat to-flour and bread industry.

In 2007, he took the lead in a Universal dictionary of bread project aiming to collect all the entries that bread has generated since its appearance on the edge of the eastern Mediterranean area in the late Neolithic period (from agronomy to theology including genetics, botany, anthropology, history, milling, bakery, economics, arts, and more).
He has since co-written Le Larousse du pain (2013) et L'Ami intime - Un musée imaginaire du Pain (2014)


Jean-Philippe de Tonnac est essayiste, éditeur et journaliste. Il a animé pendant près de dix ans les "Hors série" du Nouvel Observateur et publié une vingtaine d’ouvrages.
Il est aujourd’hui éditeur et poursuit ses propres recherches.
Son enquête sur le pain et sa symbolique a commencé par l’obtention d’un CAP de boulanger (2007) après une formation à l’Ecole de Boulangerie et Pâtisserie de Paris, des séjours en Méditerranée dans quelques-uns des pays de « mangeurs de pains » (Egypte, Grèce, Italie, etc.), et la rencontre et des échanges avec quelques-uns des représentants de la filière blé-farine-pain.
Il a pris en 2007 la direction d’un Dictionnaire universel du pain avec l’ambition de rassembler toutes les gloses que le pain a générées depuis son apparition sur le pourtour oriental de la Méditerranée à la fin du Néolithique (de l’agronomie à la théologie en passant par la génétique, la botanique, l’anthropologie, l’histoire, la meunerie, la boulangerie, l’économie, les arts, etc.).
Depuis, il a notamment co-rédigé Le Larousse du pain (2013) et L'Ami intime - Un musée imaginaire du Pain (2014)

Professors of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Gastronomy

 Do you know the Institute for Advanced Studies in Gastronomy ? This is a unique university programme about food, with no equivalent in the world !

The professors are chosen among the best in France in the field of food research. And this explains why, after more than ten years  of activity, our Institute is so successful, with participants from all over the world.

Now, I decided to present some professors (one per week). Today :




Sylvie Lortal is senior scientist at Inra. For 25 years, she has been having fundamental and applied research on the mechanisms of cheese ripening, on the in situ activity of micro-organisms and their  enzymes, and on the  biodiversity of technological properties of lactic and propionic bacteria. For her work, she was awarded  the Award de l’American Dairy Science Association in 2011.
For 8 years, she was the director of the  UMR Science et Technologie du Lait et de l’œuf of Inra in  Rennes, france (https://www6.rennes.inra.fr/stlo)  and co-editor of the Oxford Companion to cheese (2016-Oxford univ. press), a unique encyclopedia about cheese. With a passion for fermented food, their particular place in human food, and for  the biodiversity of microbial ecosystems, she created in  2006 a Centre de Ressources Biologiques « Bactéries d’intérêt alimentaire » (CIRM-BIA), collection of micro-organisms certified  ISO 9001 (4000 product) – member of the national network  Biobanque, CRB, of which she is now a scientific adviser.
Again in the field of microbial databank, she was the coordinator for Inra of the European Project of  Infrastructure EMbaRC (FP7 – 2009-2012).
Today, she has a mission for the Department Microbiologie et Chaine alimentaire of Inra. She is intended to create a European network managing a collective reflection on the place and the nutritional benefits of fermented food in the European diet. Also she is doing research on biofilms lying on the traditional tools used for cheese making

Using seaweeds

How to use seaweeds in the kitchen ? 

 

 

Often, when you use seaweeds in the kitchen, the color of the dishes is very dark. How to avoid it ? 

Concerning the color, there are many ways of discoloring... but I am not sure that they are safe. Often, pastry chefs who want to get white use titanium dioxide, but this is allowed (and safe) only for surfaces.

But indeed, why not fractionate first seaweeds, to get separately the compounds for the color, the odor, the taste, the consistency ?
Then you could use what you want.



And this is why note by note cooking is to fine !

A table of content

Students tell me that I did so many online courses that they don't find them easily.

Here is a list, with links :


1. FIPDES molecular gastronomy (in English)

The link is https://tice.agroparistech.fr/coursenligne/main/document/document.php?cidReq=FIPDESMOLECULARGASTR

In the courses given by H. This, you will find :
- the full course
- a How to work within this module (audio)
-  a group of methods, including
              - the method 1 3 9 27
             - a course on creativity
             - a course on reading documents
             - another "applied" course on innovation and creativity (Let's have an egg)
             - a document explaining why you would be wise to use Maple (or R)
             - another document on creativity, applied on pastry products
- a ppt on molecular gastronomy
- a group of particular courses, including :
              - a course on "coagulation"
              - a course on dimension analysis, applied to the duration of cooking, for a roast
              - an easy calculation of the distance between molecules
              - a course on dry matter determination
              - a group of courses on the formalism for the description of disperse (colloidal) systems, including :
                                    -  a first comprehensive course
                                    - a course focusing on operators
                                    - a course explaining how to find the possible disperse systems
             -  a course on formulation
             - an example intended to explain calculation, based on the maximum volume of whipped egg white from one egg (more than one cubic meter)
            - a course on the Laplace force
            - an introduction to the nano world
            - a group of courses on note by note cooking including
                                      - a lecture for the European customs (2012)
            - a course on sedimentation and creaming
            - a course on surfactants
 

2. Gastronomie moléculaire (in French)
This is a very large group, with many documents in French. Intended for all publics.
It is here : https://tice.agroparistech.fr/coursenligne/courses/GM/?id_session=0


3. Physico-chimie pour la formulation, structuration des aliments (both French and English)

The link is : https://tice.agroparistech.fr/coursenligne/courses/PHYSICOCHIMIEPOURLAF/?id_session=0
This group of documents is initially for the Master IPP, the common module with the FIPDES Master. As such, it includes documents in French, and documents in English. 

First, there is a groupe of courses on particular points :
- a text on the Laplace force in French
- a text on formulation in French
- a course on the Laplace force in English
- a course on surfactants in French

Then there are courses giving methods
In English :
- backbone calculation : this document is the one that one is invited to use when calculating, as explained in...
- how to calculate
- how to read: it was recognized that students are not always as efficient as they could be
- what you learn
In French:
- ce que tu pourras apprendre : in this particular environment
- comment lire
- enseignement scientifique et technologique : there is a difference between science and technology!
- methode du soliloque: very important when you have a problem
- penser en termes de chemin
- squlette de calcul.

Paperback Note by Note Cooking

Dear Friends

I am very glad to tell you  that the paperback edition of my book Note-by-Note Cooking is available for sale at Columbia University Press.

The book’s official publication date is December 13, 2016. This is the date when the book should be readily available for purchase.

The webpage for the book is

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/note-by-note-cooking/9780231164870

Anyone who uses the promo code “NOTEBY” to buy the book from this site will receive a 30% discount off the price of the paperback edition of the book.

Indeed Note by Note Cooking is developing in many countries now:

- Denmark is organizing Note by Note Dinners

- in Poland, a chef is now moving his restaurant toward serving Note by Note Cooking (already 3 dishes)

- I was invited first at the World Congress of WCA, then at the World Chef Summit for lectures explaining Note by Note Cooking

- startups are now created to sell products in order to make Note by Note Cooking

Indeed, 2017 should be THE year, finally !

Cheers

New publication

An open article is freshly published in the scientific journal called  Notes Académiques de l'Académie d'agriculture de France (N3AF).

N3AF-2016 (8) : Methodological advances in scientific publication by Hervé This

Please have a look at (http://www.academie-agriculture.fr/publications/n3af)

Questions and answers

  This morning, interesting questions :



# Dear Mr. This,
# My name is XXXX, and I am from Hungary. I am writing to you because I would like to ask for your help. For from whom could I get more information about molecular gastronomy than the person who invented it?
# I need to write a four-page essay this year for my school, and for my topic I chose molecular gastronomy. I decided to write about this since I really like making and eating food, but I am also a huge admirer of chemistry, and also because in the future I would like to study something similar at University.
# I am aware that you are an extremely busy person but it would mean the World to me if you could answer a few question of mine.
# It was always hard for me to imagine how an idea which is so unique comes to a person’s mind. What interests me a lot is what your purpose was behind your research? Like most studies, was it a coincidence that you created a totally different food making line? If it was, then what was it that you were searching for?
# How much time went by between your first experiment and your first success?
# To be honest I am convinced that making food is some kind of an art, especially if you make it in a way you do. What is your opinion about it? How much of molecular gastronomy is art and how much of it is science?
# A lot of people now have restaurants where we can eat a meal cooked by your methods, using not only cooking skills and equipment but science. Is there anyone who you think represents molecular gastronomy better than the others? Who you think made it to the next step?
# At university I want to study Food Innovation and Health. It is my dream to work for an international company who tries to stop starvation in the poor areas of our world. Do you think we can reform molecular gastronomy to be not only a fancy product but a base for a nutritional plan?
# Sincerely,



# My answer : 



# Thanks for your message. If you are in Hungary, it's good that you know that we created molecular gastronomy together with my late friend Nicholas Kurti, who was educated in Budapest before moving to France, Germany, the US, and finallly England (Oxford). He died in 1998.
# Now, I comment your kind email (sorry, I always comment, often with smiles) :
#
# You like cooking and eating : why ? (for myself, I have found the real reasons... and I am not so sure that I would say that I  like cooking and eating, indeed)
#
# A  huge admirer of chemistry: do you me an chemistry as a technique, or rather the science of chemical phenomena, which should be called physical chemistry  or even better chemical physics ?
#
# What was and what is my goal? Since I am 6 years old, I am fascinated by  the fact that equations can describe the experimental facts so remarkably.
# And the 23rd of March 1980 precisely, I understood thaot cooking was a very old fashioned and traditional practice, for which the  three components of technique, art and social were not distinguished, for which bad advices ("culinary precisions") were transmitted, for which the education was outdated, for which a lot of theory could be done, for which technical improvement (technology) could be proposed, and, moreover, for which a science could be introduced, focusing on the wealth of phenomena occurring during culinary processed.
# This science is molecular gastronomy (in the beginning, it was called "molecular and physical gastronomy", but  this was cumbersome.
# Indeed, at the same time, the proposal of transferring new tools from labs to the kitchens led  to  the development of molecular cooking (new technique), which led itself to a new art called molecular cuisine.
# Please,  be careful not confusing molecular gastronomy with molecular cuisine or with molecular cooking, as all this is different : cooking is no science.
#
# Like most studies, was it a coincidence that I created a totally different food making line?
# Indeed here the confusion above can be observed. When I began my works, it was because I failed making a particular soufflé, and this led me to the analysisof the failure. Is this coincidence? Probably not. I had a scientific mind, and a failure meant that my "theory" (indeed, here, an absence of theory) was wrong. So  that it was obvious that I should investigate further.
# Later, because I recognized that science could apply to some very old and traditional activities, it was obvious to propose the application of lab's tools to cooking... because this was indeed what I was doing, having at home a lab in my kitchen.
#
# How much time went by between my first experiment and my first success?  Sorry, but I don't understand the question. My very first experiment was the 23rd of March 1980... but the result was obtained immediately. It was about souffles, and it was immediately followed by a collection of culinary precisions, being tested one by one since.
#
# Cooking and art: this is discussed extensively in my book "Cooking, a quintessential art". Indeed the title of the French version is "Cooking, it's love, art and technique".  But indeed some culinary activities are simply craft, technique, and others are art. Just like for painting: some paint the walls, and some others do paintings for the mind.
#
# How much of molecular gastronomy is art and how much of it is science? Here it's clear : there is nothing about art in molecular gastronomy as molecular gastronomy is a scientific activity... but I know that the answer is wrong because the question is wrong: you confused molecular gastronomy and molecular cooking/cuisine. And for cooking/cuisine, it is the same for any kind of cooking: craft and art depending on the particular goal of the particular practioners.
#
# Is there any restaurant who you think represents molecular gastronomy better than the others? Remember the confusion between molecular gastronomy and molecular cuisine: no restaurant does molecular gastronomy, but many (most of them indeed) do molecular cooking. For molecular cuisine, Ferran Adria was important, but René Redzepi also... but again, molecular cooking is everywhere. And this has no interest... because of the next step: note by note cooking !
# Molecular cuisine is the past, and "note by  note cooking" is THE important think. Aund you will see in my book about it that it is the solution to you lask question. 
#
# Cheers, celebrate Knowledge !
#

Low temperature cooking of vegetables

Being asked about  "low temperature cooking of vegetable", here is an analysis :


What happens when vegetables are cooked at low temperature?

Indeed for the sake of the discussion, it's good to consider that plant tissues are made of cells, which are soft object, full of water and limited with a fragile membrane. They are cemented with the cell wall, i.e. pectins and celluloses: one can regard cellulose molecules as strong, chemically inert pillars, and pectins as ropes that are entangled around the pillars, so that they keep the cells together.

When the plant tissues are boiled, a chemical process called beta elimination of pectins occur: the pectins "ropes" are cut, piece after piece, so that the pillars can separate, and the cells also. This  is why the plant tissue becomes soft.
# Of course, some others phenomena occur, such as starch gelatinization, above about 80 Celsius degrees.
This can occur in water or outside water, but of course outside water some evaporation occurs as well, which means the formation of a crust. And when the temperature + time is enough, various chemical processes can turn the plant tissue brown, such as hexoses degradation, Maillard reactions (but few), oxidation, pyrolysis, caramelization (remember that plant tissues are full of the three sugars glucose, fructose, sucrose), etc.

Another important piece of information is needed when low temperature cooking is considered: at low temperature, some particular enzymes called pectin methyl esterase are activated, so that the provoke the leaking of calcium from cells... and this makes the plant tissues harder because the calcium ions link to pectins and prevent further pectin disruption. This can be seen by a wonderfully simple experiment of heating first carrot slices in water at 50 °C : the carrots don't change apparently. Then when you  boil the carrots, they don't soften as they would do during boiling.
And this effect occurs frequently during low temperature cooking, with different temperature threshold depending on the particular tissues that you consider. Cooking in "hard" water, with a lot of calcium ions, can also have this effect: in certain waters, lentils don't soften, even after hours of boiling.


If you can find on line the PhD document by my former student Anne Cazor, some more information is given. But the most important is given here.

Finally, I would say that I don't really see the interest of low temperature cooking of vegetables... because the goal of low temperature cooking was limiting the protein coagulation of meats, avoiding them being hard, and the slow dissolution of collagenic tissue, so that hard meat can be transformed into tender meat. For plant tissue, the issue is often to make them soft when they are hard, and there is no harmful effect of high temperature, only the process is accelerated.
Only for particular processes low temperature is helpful, for example when you  want to make non soft gherkins, for pickles, for example. Or when too  soft plant tissues have to keep some hardness (some varieties of potatoes, for example), etc.